Cutey Honey

A widely known anime and manga series created by Go Nagai. Although an android, the main character Honey is shows striking similarities to the magical girl concept (e.g., she can change into any outfit, especially when revealing herself to enemies) with a few key differences.

• Honey's powers are mechancial rather than magical. However, in practical terms she could still be defined as a magical girl.

• Cutey Honey is buxomy adult, while most magical girls are young girls. Honey was originally intended for an older audience, although there is a slightly more 'cleaned-up' version years later, which has younger female fans.

Honey is considered the original template for the group of Magical Girl who are active fighters, particuarly the 'darker' magical girl series aimed at male audiences rather than female. Honey herself is refered and parodied overtly in many manga and anime series over the years.

Most famously, the character Sailor Moon (the most famous magical girl outside of Japan) used overt theme references when the series was made into an anime from the original manga. Like Honey, Sailor Moon has a tendacy to speechify before a fight in an amusing way, as well as fighting almost sometimes attractive yet bizzare, exclusively female monsters.