Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z

Production
ANIPLEX, Cartoon Network, Toei, TV Tokyo
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Year
2006

Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z

By Aki
5th May 07

The Powerpuff Girls has been made into a Japanese anime, and I, for one, was kind of excited with the idea. Being a fan of the original show, I thought the anime looked pretty promising. At first glance, Powerpuff Girls Z appears to be a shiny, glossy, new version of the Cartoon Network series. The girls sport new looks, new weapons, and subtitles! (If that’s not an upgrade, I don’t know what is.) The girls also seem to have grown up some, and fans likely expect that they will get a glimpse into the characters’s lives as they mature. Upon delving into the episodes, however, we find that this is not the case at all. This is not a snazzy-looking remake of the original series, or even an extension of it…and as it turns out, that’s not such a good thing.

This new vein of the Powerpuff Girls begins by completely disregarding the origin story that is presented in the original series. If you’ve seen the opening of the cartoon then you know what I’m talking about. Professor Utonium created three little girls by mixing sugar, spice, and everything nice…and an accidental dose of Chemical X. Thus, the girls are sisters, and were raised as the professor’s daughters.

Not so in Powerpuff Girls Z.

The story starts in Tokyo City, Japan, where we are introduced to Professor Utonium and a boy named Ken, who appears to be his son. They are both working with Chemical X, trying to create a new, even more powerful chemical. They succeed when they accidentally drop a meat bun into the concoction. Professor Utonium names this new substance Chemical Z. Suddenly, a crisis hits! A huge iceberg is causing crazy weather all over the world. Ken becomes excited and decides that they should use Chemical Z to avert the disaster. He shoots a laser beam laced with the chemical, which blows the iceberg to smithereens. However, some of the chemical appears to be reflected from the iceberg and scattered in dark and light beams, which then crash down over the city. Three normal girls are going about their business that day, when out of nowhere each one is hit by one of those beams of light. When this happens, they each transform into a Powerpuff Girl.

Essentially, the Powerpuff Girls have been turned into magical girls. They are not sisters, and they were not created by Professor Utonium with sugar, spice, and everything nice. In fact, they had never even met each other before the Chemical Z accident that turned them into superheroes. They have secret, normal identities, and magic rings and belts that transform them into their crime fighting alter egos: Hyper Blossom, Rolling Bubbles, and Powered Buttercup. They do not seem to have super powers other than flight; instead, they have special weapons with magical abilities. Blossom has a pink yo-yo, Bubbles wields a staff that acts like a bubble wand, and Buttercup totes a giant hammer around. Their Powerpuff names are only used when they are transformed; in their normal lives, they have the Japanese names Momoko, Miyako, and Kaoru, respectively.

So as you can see already, there are some huge differences between the Powerpuff Girls that we know and the new Powerpuff Girls Z series. The creators of the anime have taken a lot of liberties with the characters and their story lines. The whole show comes across as a parody of the Powerpuff Girls and of magical girl genre in general. A lot of the time it’s very silly, and at other times it’s very close to being downright stupid. For example, Blossom decides that she should be the leader of the group, simply because her outfit is red and that’s how anime works. Bubbles is enamored with the idea of being a super heroine, but only because of the cute outfit that comes with it.

As far as the bad guys are concerned, each one was created by—you guessed it—the black beams of light that came from the iceberg. (Didn’t see that one coming.) And their logic and motives can be even more ridiculous than their new, unimaginative origins. Mojo Jojo seems to think that he can take over the world by stealing candy from kindergarteners, or by eating all the oranges at a fruit market. At least in the Cartoon Network series he had some character and some intelligence. In the anime, he’s just plain dumb.

In addition to their heightened levels of idiocy, most of the bad guys have a lifespan of only one episode. Professor Utonium has a very colorful ray gun that can change some of them back to normal, since they are all essentially normal people just turned bad by the black Chemical Z rays. Sedusa, for example, is actually a sweet, shy girl who morphs into the evil shape-shifting villainess because of a misunderstanding. It is then in the character’s best interest to see her returned to her mild-mannered self by the end. And there you have it, one of the most interesting villains in the series, introduced and permanently defeated in the span of twenty-three minutes with no hope of returning to cause further mayhem.

The battle scenes are likewise unimpressive and cliché. The girls shout out ridiculous names to their attacks that will make you cringe and think of Sailor Moon. (Bubble Boing?? Light White Choco Shoot?? Someone make it stop!!!) During one such action sequence, everyone suddenly decides to stop in the middle of the fight and eat ice cream. And in another, the girls must use magnetic shoes to scale a high building…despite the fact that they can fly. Adding to the general craziness are the transformation sequences, which I’m convinced may cause seizures. The girls dance around on the screen using way too many unnecessary movements, and the picture zooms in and out at breakneck speed.

All in all, I would say Powerpuff Girls Z is a disappointment. It tries to stand on its own as a whole new series, but falls sadly short of the mark.

-- Aki 5th May 07

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