New Cutie Honey - Plot

Plot

New Cutie Honey is set one hundred years after the events of the original 1973 Cutie Honey television series, in the fictional Cosplay City. Mayor Light (ライト市長, Raito shichō?, voiced by Sho Hayami in its original Japanese and Jason Douglas in its English dub) vows to rein in a citywide crime wave and restore peace. However, a self-proclaimed "Lord of Darkness" named Dolmeck (ドルメック?, v.b. Yūsaku Yara and Bryan Bounds), feared even by other criminals there, seeks to derail his efforts in the first four episodes. A large freelance gang of armored, axe-wielding mutant motorcyclists, joined by two of Dolmeck's allies—Black Maiden (ブラックメイドン?, v.b. Taeko Yamada and Tamara Lo), a very young-looking red-haired girl who rides naked in a humanoid robot slightly shorter than him and can psychokinetically move objects and people; and Peeping Spider (ピーピングスパイダー?, v.b. Hirohiko Kakegawa and Guil Lunde), who wears decorative robotic spider legs and an electronic trinocular scope, and can use stealth technology, see through objects, sense spacetime disturbances, and trap people in strong webs—attack an outdoor meeting of the Mayor and his fellow citizens. Dolmeck then halts the attackers and asks the Mayor to rule the city with and under him. Unknown to all, Light's secretary Honey Kisaragi (如月 ハニー, Kisaragi Hanī?, v.b. Michiko Neya and Jessica Calvello) is a gynoid who previously could transform into the titular red-haired, sword-wielding heroine Cutie Honey or summon other personas and powers, often after shouting "Honey Flash!" She later confronts the biker gang and another female minion of Dolmeck, and inadvertently regains those abilities and lost memories before defeating the group.

Light agrees to fight crime in the city with Honey's help. She moves into the home of Danbei Hayami (早見 団兵衛, Hayami Danbei?, v.b. Kōsei Tomita and Tristan MacAvery), a returning character from the 1973 Cutie Honey series. He is now both a 150-year-old cyborg fitted with many sensors and tools, and a pervert who often tries to see Honey naked and even asks her to transform to do so. They live there with his young grandson Chokkei (早見 直慶, Hayami Chokkei?, v.b. Rica Matsumoto and David Nance), who has a crush on Honey and wishes to become like Mayor Light; and Chokkei's parents, who themselves attempted to rob a city bank in the first episode. Chokkei's mother Daiko (早見 大子, Hayami Daiko?, v.b. Rika Fukami and Tiffany Grant) is a self-proclaimed expert thief who can summon increased strength when her son is in danger, and a descendant of Seiji Hayami from the original TV series. His father Akakabu (早見 赤カブ, Hayami Akakabu?, v.b. Wataru Takagi and Greg Stanley) loves his wife and son but, like Danbei, is not above peeking at Honey when she showers.

Honey remembers that the minion she defeated injected liquid from a "capsule" to transform into a monster. She fights other capsule users, then seeks the capsules' source. After she defeats a female capsule distributor, Peeping Spider learns and reveals Honey's true robot form. He kidnaps Chokkei and sends him to Dolmeck's airship, and Honey and the rest of the Hayamis fly there to rescue him; they fight Peeping Spider, defeat Black Maiden, and attack a large structure in the ship along the way. Maiden then reveals herself to be Panther Zora (Honey's nemesis and the leader of the Panther Claw in the original series) reborn; Honey wounds Dolmeck, and his body releases the fallen evil souls of all the countless villains Honey has killed. Zora then absorbs them, evolving her body into that of a fully adult woman. Honey tries to re-seal Dolmeck's body, while Danbei destroys the airship. After the entire Hayami family escapes the ship with Danbei's jet pack, Honey emerges alive from within a falling rock.

The next four episodes are set an unspecified time after the battle with Dolmeck. Chokkei has grown older and fond of Honey, and the Hayamis remain with her to fight off antagonists who transform and gain their power through direct influence by Zora. Mayor Light rarely appears in this half of the series. A girl named Natsuko (夏子?, v.b. Junko Iwao and Jenny Strader) appears in the fifth episode as a criminal who wants to use a nuclear bomb to get a ransom; she joins Honey's group by the sixth episode, often stays near Chokkei, and calls him "boy" to his annoyance. Her presence reminds Honey of an old friend of the same name who died in the original versions of Cutie Honey. In the seventh, Daiko—now a leader of a "United Thug Alliance" of gangs—goes with Honey and the Hayamis to rescue fellow thugs imprisoned by an army of "Thug Hunters", and reveals she fell in love with Akakabu for his persistence in an earlier fight with her. Peeping Spider returns in the eighth, last episode; there, Honey and her friends capture him and use his technologies to defeat a teleporting gold thief.