Sometimes, she’s a knight in shining white armor.

I had a great deal of trouble classifying this movie. Is it anime, or is it anime’s more pornographic cousin, hentai? I finally decided that I had to classify it as anime based on the previews before the movie. They were all for more mundane products, which suggested to me that Cutey Honey #1 was intended for a more mainstream audience than most hentai.

The plot of Cutey Honey is one that’s beginning to look quite familiar to me now. Apparently the same things we say about American television can apply to Japanese television – - there are only so many plots, and producers tend to stick with the most economically successful rather than the most interesting. Cutey Honey in particular falls into the “evil criminals are using drugs to control society” genre that seems to be as common in anime as the “single parent puts up with the antics of neighbors and kids” genre of sitcom is in the United States.

In this particular instance, our heroine is the android Cutey Honey, a frequent costume-changer and occasional swordsman. Hayami Chokkei and his grandfather help Cutey Honey remember who she really is so she can battle the evil Dolemek, who likes to drone on and on about prophecy. It is indicitive of the tone of the series that Chokkei’s grandfather recognizes Cutey Honey by her face… and her panties.

Sometimes, she’s an S&M Queen. (I’m not making these lines up, folks.)

Chokkei, Granddad, and Chokkei’s father spend most of what we watched of the series trying to see Cutey Honey naked; Cutey Honey spends a great deal of the series becoming naked — it’s an intermediate step towards changing costumes, of course, and she has to change costumes in order to change abilities, and she has to change abilities to defeat her opponents.

That, in a nutshell, is the whole durn thing.

Go Nagai, the creator for Cutey Honey, has also never seen a real woman, apparently. Here’s some help, guy.

But she’s really… Lovely Warrior, Cutey Honey!

In any case, the story is very weak and the action pretty predictable. The primary purpose of the whole thing seems to be getting the main character naked. Yet it’s not pornography, and presentation is innocent-seeming enough that it seems the story was intended for small children. This kind of fine-line drawing adds an extra-special patina of sleeze to the production, kind of like the swimsuit picture collections on the family-oriented America Online service. Or, as Sarah says, “I wish they’d just make this hentai and get it over with.”

We can’t believe it! For once, she’s got clothes on!