by lwf58 » Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:07 am
I just tried out the first episode of Powerpuff Girls Z, a Japanese remake of Powerpuff Girls.
That was last night. I'm only now getting around to writing about it because it took me this long to stop trying to gouge my eyes out.
The character names are the same, but that's about the only resemblance to the original this monstrosity has. Professor Neutronium has a son. They contact the girls (who haven't yet been identified one way or the other as his daughters) by a freaking puppy screaming out for them, which somehow causes fancy compacts they wear on the front of their belts to flash. The girls don't have their powers until they go through a henshin transformation sequence, using a combination of the aforementioned compacts and rings they put on. Their primary attacks are by means of weapons -- a yoyo (Blossom), mallet (Buttercup), and bubble-wand (Bubbles).
Even the bad guys got the treatment. Mojo-Jojo is the villian in the first episode, and they took away his dialog. Now he talks normally, simply adding "mojo" or "mojo-jojo" to the end of his sentences. The character designs are pretty poorly conceived too.
All in all, I was extremely disappointed with the show. It's one of the very few animated shows to transition to Japan where I'd say the American version is vastly superior. Rating: D-