Go Nagai's 1973 shonen battle manga "Cutie Honey" is something of an odd relic. It comes from a time when the ecchi sub-genre was in its infancy, and mangaka were coming up with weird and bizarre spins on the "let's find a way to incorporate full-frontal nudity in our stories" approach. Enter Cutie Honey, a story about an android girl who attends an all-girls catholic school (full of very open-lesbians), while battling the evil forces of Panther Zora (the head of an evil organization hell-bent on world domination) with her ability to change into a wide variety of skill-based costumes.

With a weird premise like that, you'd expect Nagai to go off-the-rails in his execution of the concept. He most certainly does, but he somehow found a way to make the reading experience as tonally uneven, badly paced, and as pointless as possible.

Story: 4/10
The story is cliche and what you would expect from a battle manga, but considering this was one of the first of its kind I can give it a pass. However, what's inexcusable is the constant introduction of new abilities Honey can utilize, which kills most of the tension during the fight scenes when you realize she can pull another power out of nowhere and completely turn the battle in her favor. Another aspect the story fails in is its inconsistent tone, which shifts between dark and comical with the same level of grace as a busted-up car trying to start up again. Not to spoil anything, but the shift in tone between the two final chapters was so bad that I physically cringed, and the finale was so anticlimactic that I seriously wondered if there were several plot-crucial pages that were missing.

Art: 6/10
It's what you'd expect in an ecchi manga. Even if you're not into the full-frontal nudity, the art style has a cuteness to it that can only really come from Go Nagai, with his simplistic and appealing character designs. The manga is decently drawn for the most part, but sometimes the anatomy is horribly off, with faces and body not being drawn consistently (and not in a good way). Overall, the art is fine, but not really remarkable.

Characters: 3/10
Hoo boy.
You don't really go into an ecchi manga expecting complex characterization or development, but I wasn't expecting the characters to be THIS one-note. The titular Cutie Honey is driven by the typical "I want to avenge my dad" character archetype, which ends up making her about as interesting as a plank of wood with two balloons attached to the front of it. The side characters aren't much better, especially in the case of her best friend (whom we see her spending very little time with), who simply exists to serve as a damsel in distress or a motivation device, with very little characterization outside of those two purposes. The only positive I can find is that I might've gotten a light chuckle out of some of the side characters and their interactions with Honey, but I say light chuckle with at least ten invisible air quotes.

Enjoyment: 4/10
This is a manga aimed at horny twelve-year-olds and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. Cutie Honey is peppered with """attempts""" at comedy and scenes meant to trigger some kind of sexual response, most of which I found to be mildly amusing at best and unbearably tedious at worst. I did find myself enjoying the numerous battle scenes, even when considering the lack of tension in them, and the various outfits Honey wears are visually interesting and add some variety to the setpieces. But still, there's no denying that balance of enjoyment weighs in favor of "bad".

Overall: 4/10
I didn't have a lot of expectations going in to Cutie Honey, but I wasn't expecting it to be this lackluster. From the wildly inconsistent shift between comedy and drama to the crude sex appeal, the manga was quite the chore to get through. There's fun to be had, sure, with the cute art-style and amusing fight scenes, but these two strengths aren't strong enough for me to whole-heartedly recommend the entire package. Go Nagai had a fun idea that could've been executed in a fun way, but he fumbled and ended up creating something uneven and irritating. Not an awful read, but not something I'd ever go back to or recommend to anyone.

That said, there are a couple good things to come out of this property. The 90's OVA series "Shin Cutie Honey" is a really enjoyable watch, and from what I've heard the 2000's OVA is even better. If you're going to experience Cutie Honey, those two shows are probably your safest bet.