A look back at the series with commentary and criticism from three different points of view…

From Umandsf:

Wow, what a ride it’s been. One year, 52 weeks, new friends and many more memories. Who knew that a somewhat controversial show would be this much fun? Now that the series is done and all episodes have been reviewed, it’s time we look back at the second half of the series and see where the show has come and gone during its run.

Summary:

January 7, 2007 marks the beginning of the second half. After a one-week hiatus in which some people thought it was the end of it all, we come back and are introduced to new adventures for the girls. I found it fitting that they show the individual transformations in episode 27. It’s like they know this is the beginning of something new. Episode 28 sees our favorite lady villains coming together just like the men before and uniting in one thing: to get rid of the Powerpuff Girls Z! Episode 30 shed the light on how Him came to be. The real treat in this one was seeing the Oh-Edo Chakichaki Girls (if you want to know, this is what they’re called in English according to the Collector’s Edition DVDs). Ever since that, fans have been clamoring to see them again or have the present-day counterparts meet them. A block of Momoko-centric episodes shed some light on her, as we saw her find someone who liked her back and see that she must stay with her friends even if she doesn’t get her desire to be noticed as the leader. Many fans consider it to be her shining moment among the plethora of love-related situations the writers put her in. After a little sleepover, we get to see one of the things that many people were hoping would occur: using ideas from the original. “Octi Evil” was the episode of choice and the transition was absolutely perfect. They molded the situation correctly, the animation was outstanding, and just like the original, they need not engage in physical combat to defeat a demonic spiritual being. This was the one episode that showed what the series is capable of. And it that wasn’t enough, the references carried on to next week, as we saw the Utonium family suit up for combat a la “Powerprof.” Fans were also treated to beefed-up versions of themselves that elicited quite a few laughs and shocks, but I was hoping for more action in that one.

After that, we hit a stretch of pretty run-of-the-mill episodes…until 40, which wasn’t spectacular in any way, but it was a perfect form of entertainment. Of course, the Star Wars reference was gold. Strange that the episode after Himeko’s parents finally put her in the spotlight, she is pushed aside to welcome in Olga Pataki Miko.Shirogane, and this episode finally sealed the belief that she is a lying, stinky, dirty, rotten, no-good skank. At least she and the girls looked good doing it. The imminent body switching episode was also here, but they, like many other shows, do the one flaw that always ruins it for me: vocal cords are part of the body, so Momoko’s body = Momoko’s voice. Besides, it’ll challenge us to keep track of who’s who, which wouldn’t be so hard with all the thought bubbles popping up. The reactions, though, were spot on and it was nice to see each of the family’s more in depth, especially the Akatsutsumis. After that…oh, boy, the fangirls went wild, as the Rowdyruff Boys appeared in the spotlight. Yes, there was still no direct combat, but it was pretty hilarious to see the boys and their antics. After an episode parodying “Him Diddle Riddle,” another long-awaited episode emerged, as Kaoru became the center of attention for the third time only. I still remember the day on To the Z! when her makeover was revealed. I finally understood the meaning of what it feels like when people explode over something in an anime. In the end, it was a weaker-than-expected episode, but it’s was nice to see they didn’t forget her. Next, we saw the revelation of Sedusa’s true identity to Sakurako, but like expected, the bond of love still held.

As the series winds down, then they really ramp it up. Episode 46 introduced us to the first real battle with Him, and it was a good one. The girls appeared to be in defeat, the situation was grim, and the comeback was impressive. Couple that with a few references, a good story, and the perfect animation style, and this was the best episode by far. The fans demanded more, but it was time to tie up a few loose ends. Mojo’s relationship with Ms. Keane comes to an abrupt end, and fans squeal at the cuteness of the Powerpuff Kids. And just as things were closing down, Takaaki is brought back. I swear this was on purpose, as people were not going to leave the show until this was brought to a good end. The action was good (Buttercup as leader FTL), the emotion was good, the animation was meh, but at least it brought closure to the whole thing. The problem with it was that it was so close to the end, it was impossible to see what would happen between them. Bummer. One more strange episode and it was time for the ending trilogy. The villains all gathered together on the promise that Him would enhance their powers. When the girls catch wind of this, Professor Utonium introduces them to Dynamo Z (FTW!). If you thought episode 10 was badly animated, this was worse, but the appearance of Dynamo Z made it better. Next, we saw the girls…that’s not important. There’s no way I can write about this now. Episode 51 was the most epic episode of all of them. Tons of action, a great story, references and appearances…this was the total package. If only more episodes were like that. Then, we finally reached the end. With what happened in 51, most fans had high expectations, but they were not fulfilled. The first half of the episode was awesome, as we saw the seriousness of the situation and one of the saddest moments of the whole series. Unfortunately, the battle against Him was weak, as it was mostly dodging, and the solution was too ridiculous and reeked of deus ex machina. In the end, the only thing that really ended up happening was the removal of Him’s soul, while everything else stay the same.

Thoughts:

Much, much more improved over the first half of the series. Now that they established the show, they were able to use those ideas in much better storylines. It was great to see some stuff from the original show included and tweaked in PPGZ, and overall, their choices of original stories were more entertaining and not a lot of WTH moments. It could be that we weren’t sure about what the show would bring or we clung really close to the original show and were expecting more of the same in a different style. Once it was sure that the show was taking a completely different route, we kind of expected it to be that way. That was one of the main problems with the first half, especially the first few episodes. Everyone who watched it had in their mind what they were expecting it to be, but no one was prepared for what came. Appalled that the show was nothing like PPG, most viewers left without giving it a chance, and yet others immediately discarded the show as trash. I remember reading the comments on Kotaku when they finally decided to talk about the DS game. Basically, there were those who didn’t like PPG to begin with, those who did and thought the anime version would be disastrous without even giving it a chance, those who did give it a chance and were sorely disappointed and voiced their opinions, and the very, very few who agree it wasn’t that bad. This show is a perfect example of the phrase “a diamond in the rough.” What started out as something really muddy and wary of ever gaining much popularity became a gem to anyone who stuck it out and watched it to the end. This was the second anime I’ve seen (the first being Sonic X), so I had very little knowledge of anime and manga and the culture that revolves around it. Because of that, I thought the show to be great from the beginning, since I never saw anything like it. I liked the creativity that the producers had for the show. This show was my introduction to the world of anime and opened my eyes to other masterpieces, like Ojamajo Doremi (frankly, never got through the whole thing), Lucky Star (the greatest comedy I’ve ever seen), and Keroro Gunsou (still working through it, but loving it).

Like the not-late Bob Barker said about his retirement, he wanted to leave the viewers wanting more. It is a sign of a good show, and Powerpuff Girls Z delivered that in spades. With the spike in quality in the series, the anticipation for next week’s episodes grew higher and higher. Then, it was all over. Many fans, including myself are holding onto the thinnest thread of hope that there is still something left. A movie, an OVA, another series, a spin-off, anything! Just give it to us so that we can see our girls in action one more time. I doubt this will occur, unless some spike in popularity arises, and it might be evident. Two of the Collector’s Edition DVDs sold out on CDJapan before I could even get it. Just today, I saw an advertisement of the show in some kids’ anime catalog thing. Whatever gets the word around. I’m always looking for more people to look at the series and see what they think. If enough people get the message that this show is great, especially after getting through the rocky beginning, maybe we’ll see something. I feel that I’m not really happy until I get one last bit of action. For now, I’ll have to stick to fan art (as long as it’s not ecchi or higher), fan comics (of which I’ve seen a couple of really good ones), and fan-fictions (if I can find one that does not incorporate the annoying Kaoru x Miyako coupling). “Good things come to those who wait,” and for those who stuck with the show all the way to the end, they definitely received a treasure at the end of the journey. Someone who is an avid anime viewer might look at episode 51 and say, “Well, that wasn’t bad” has no idea of what we feel. If someone considers that mediocre, to those who suffered through the pitfalls of the show, that mediocrity is grand compared to what we saw. Long live Momoko Akatsutsumi, Miyako Gotokuji, and Kaoru Matsubara! You’ve three have given us quite an experience, with a new outlook on animation and a great deal of new friends. We shall never forget you.

Favorites:

This is my list of favorites. If you think some of the categories are just there for me to talk about…you’re probably right.

Best Heroine: Momoko Akatsutsumi / Hyper Blossom

What can I say? Cute, funny, and desperate. I have a weakness to cute, but I also love anyone who’s hyper and unpredictable. I’ve always lived a rather uptight life, so it’s kind of a breath of fresh air.

Best Villain: Mojo Jojo

He was great in the original. He’s still great in the anime. Sure, he’s no longer the super genius he is, but after getting used to it, you can’t help but love him and his crazy attempts.

Worst Villain: The Gangreen Gang

Forget those weed monsters or those other strange one-time villains. This group of rowdy teens had much potential. With their first appearance, you could see they were somewhat like their counterparts. Unfortunately, they only appeared a few other times, and when they did, it was too long in between and ended up being a total fiasco.

Best Animation: Episodes 8, 21, 27, 33, 40, and 46

The animation in these episodes is simply superb. I can’t really explain it. Just look.

Worst Animation: Episode 50

You would think that the most important part of the story should be treated well. It wasn’t. This is especially evident right after the commercial break. Everyone just looks so darn horrible. At least episode 10 had slightly better animation and was funny to accompany it.

The OMG! Moment: Preview to episode 44

Kaoru…in a dress! ‘Nuff said.

The WTH Moment: Episode 10

Everything and anything to do with the Great Michel is strange, weird, and funny.

The Tear-jerking Moment: Peach’s “death”

If you did not have the impulse to cry you eyes out every time you see this, you’re cold and heartless. Maybe…

The Cutest Moment: The Powerpuff Kids

Need I say more?

The ROFL Moment: Episode 49, Part One

Futo furi kearuto rabu! Rabu! Attaka~ rabu! Rabu!

Kimi to boku wa rabu rabu de~

Tottemo tottemo raburururu~~n

Best Action Scene: Episode 46, Girls vs. Him

Just when you thought that Him was never going to face the girls in direct combat comes this gem, complete with my favorite animation, a reference to the retro, and a slew of new attacks, this was the total package, and it came at a time that it was desperately needed.

Worst Action Scene: Episode 1: Girls vs. Mojo

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and ice cream will never make it better.

Best Reference to The Powerpuff Girls: Episode 36

I would have chosen the girls’ appearance in episode 51, but that was kind of expected and too short. This was fantastic. They took the idea and ran with it all the way to the winner’s circle. If only more episodes were like this.

What We Need More Of: Miyako x Takaaki

Really, why leave it until the end? You could do so much with that. Now that I think about it, we should also have more Sakurako x Souichirou now that he knows.

Worst Episode: Episode 1

I can’t stand to watch this atrocity anymore (but I must). This episode reeks of bad. Poor animation, poor action, poor use of breaking the fourth wall, poor decisions (ice cream, anyone?), and very poor way to start off the show. This is the reason why there are not a lot of fans. Just imagine if this episode was scrapped for something better. It would be a whole different ballgame.

Best Episode: Episode 51

No need for words here. Everything you’ve ever wanted in this little package.

Final Words:

I would like to take this time to thank pKjd for allowing me to work on this on his site. I feel like I’m an integral part of the fan community. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be writing this, watching the series, or even liking anime…or other things that I’m not going to mention. I still feel very ashamed for screwing up the Saimoe Tournament coverage, but maybe he’ll give me another chance for next year. Okay, that was stupid. Forget that. Congratulations on achieving 2,000,000 hits on your site. Here’s to another million.

I would also like to thank the fans. You guys are all great. This was the first time I was able to really talk about what I really like with a lot of people. I’ve always had a vast difference in taste from what my brothers like, and I never really found anyone who cared. But now, I’ve come to realized that even if I am ridiculed for what I like, I don’t care. It’s my interest. You don’t have to love it.

I would also like to thank everyone over at To the Z! for creating a strong environment for discussion and fun. Personally, I can’t wait until this hits the United States and we see what other people think.

Most importantly, I thank God, because he is super awesome!

And lastly, I feel I should thank my half-brother, since due to a series of strange and unmentionable circumstances, I became interested in the Japanese style of animation. Well, for the wrong reason but then I found better things to do with my time.

I now depart from here. Thanks for all the memories. You guys have been great. And now I hand it over to pKjd. She’s all yours, dude.

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From pKjd:

Last time I reflected on the show, I made it quite clear that I was rather passionate about covering each episode; writing short summaries; sharing my thoughts and opinions; and overall having fun with it. The positive feedback being received at the time was my motivation to continue moving forward with the reviews. However, I can’t help but feel that something had changed during the second half of the series. If I look back at all the old episodes from the first half, I can tell the atmosphere and story direction was vastly different from that of the second half. The personalities of these characters were still being established, but at the same time there was this sense of innocence present — which went missing later. All this may have been attributed to the constant rotation of script writers being used — there were many but the three most notable were Urasawa Yoshio, Kageyama Yumi, and Yamada Takashi.

Even with this sudden change I was feeling at the time, I continued with the work, feeling that if I decide to stop now, I’m going to disappoint many — which right there should tell you that things weren’t the same anymore. The minute this began to feel more like work rather than fun was my indication that I needed to take a break. This break I took was around early May and late June — just when the show was nearing its end. Thankfully I was able to find Umandsf who agreed to continue the reviews for me.

My decision of taking a break from the coverage can also be attributed to my time spent over at “ToTheZ” — the most popular English-speaking PPGZ message board on the net. I was, and still am today, an active member on the boards — I’m also a moderator there as well. Everything went great, met a lot of nice people, helped as much as I could, however, there were a few who decided to give me a hard time there. I can honestly say that the drama this one particular member there made me face literally killed my spirit for the show. Apparently this person felt the need to tell me that they hated everything about me — which I never understood. Later I was informed by others that this person confessed they were actually jealous and couldn’t stand it anymore as I was their source of jealousy. Today I no longer have to see their face, or presence in this case, since they voluntarily left the boards on their own. But it was too late. My spirit already being broken and all, I just couldn’t get motivated enough to review the show like I once did — this would also explain why I never got the PPGZ contest going as well. But luckily I was able to find someone else, who was as big a fan as I was, to take over.

So there it is. Something I never revealed to any of you until now. Hope this makes it more clear as to why I chose to take a break. It’s better to know the truth rather than think I “abandoned” my work. If it wasn’t for this show, I would’ve never been able to meet so many good people, including the next guy who has a few words of his own. He’s the artist of the top banner on the site, as well as many other drawings he’s made in the past. He knows and respects my love for the red-headed princess, so that makes him an awesome friend right there. So I’ll turn it over to him and let him speak. Thanks again for all the support. Before I leave though I do want to mention that if you’d like to visit “ToTheZ,” please do so. Everything you want to know about current events going on regarding PPGZ or even the original PPG series is there. I’m there as well. Not just as a moderator anymore, but as an administrator, so you guys can sit comfortably knowing that I won’t come down hard on you — that is unless you speak ill of waifu… *insert ojousama laugh* :P

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From Hetdegon:

Personally, I tried hard to like PPGZ. I swear to God I did.

I was charmed by the cute characters such as Miyako and Himeko, and amused by some of the villains. However, the charm died soon, leaving nothing but an empty series with little interest to anyone but fans of the characters themselves, or those hardcore enough loving the series for being an adaptation of the original PPG.

It’s difficult not to feel like this. The incredible QUALITY (AKA bad animation) and battle sequences only surpassed in crapness by Zelda:Wand of Gamelon, stereotypes and lack of character “balance” (specially noticeable for Miyako fans), made this a complete ordeal in order to catch the few good moments it provided.

It wasn’t, indeed, completely devoid of good stuff. Some villains delivered a decent amount of satisfaction, as well as other significant moments. However, it’s easy to be critical to those, being generally fetish-ridden situations (pajama party with “ghosts”, Kaoru becoming feminine, etc) that can be mostly labeled as fanservice for fanboys/fangirls.

Seriously, PPGZ failed in many areas that could have been better if taking a little look at the original PPG. The original PPG was a parody, a nice satire of superhero/anime clichés, and had a fair amount of pop culture references. PPGZ, even as goofy as it was, somewhat pretended to be above, turning the parody into what was parodied in the parody (time paradox). After this, it becomes clear the only way to appeal anything but 5 years old Japanese children was to put some fanservice in form of cute girls doing silly stuff. I am surprised they didn’t start to walk the dark and perilous path of pantyshots, although the tight body suits kinda made the work for many.

Another major flaw of the show was the horrible lack of balance. While there are three major characters, protagonists, group members, the spotlight was generally focusing a bit (too much) more on Momoko, and in the villain field we got enough Mojo to overfill Chouginga Gurren Lagann. Some amusing characters such as the show’s original, flamboyant Michel only had an one-shot, and filled with horrific QUALITY (Those sunglasses were a “way-too-obvious” way to stop the animators from drawing eyes wrong before the entire episode became MUSASHI GUN-DOU with cute girls…at least GUN-dou was so crappy it was fun, but this one didn’t reach that ludicrous level…). Also, “goofy, irrelevant” episodes were far too many while the few story episodes, aside from being scattered around in a really unexplainable way, felt like too little to me.

I know I sound really bitter about the show, but it had many, many tickets to become a good show. It was based on a well-known cartoon most of us like, had good/cute designs, nice voice actors and lots of anticipation, but it failed to deliver due to budget (or should I say “hobo-class”) animation and a massive lack of balance. I was really trying to enjoy it, but the bad things fairly displace all that is good in there. And, the second OP really, really got my hopes high only to get them crushed. That OP was pure win, filled with references to pop culture and the original show, but it was just a…trap.

Well, let’s at least enjoy the good things it left. There’s Himeko, who thanks to a certain individual’s contagious enthusiasm got to my favorites list, and I still enjoy the first OP theme. Miyako is pretty good as well, of course, who can’t like a cute, polite girl like her? But as far as the show goes, I kind of prefer to forget it happened and stick to the huge-eyed, miniature original PPG.

Hetdegon off, have a good time.

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Almost forgot. Below are collections to random PPGZ fanart/photoshops that were never used on the site before. They are divided into three separate categories…

  • Normal: [Link]
  • Ecchi (maybe NSFW): [Link]
  • Ero 18+ (definitely NSFW): [Link]

More fanart can/will be found on TTZ with a few sources provided. Hopefully I’ll see you guys there!