Honey Honey no Suteki na Bouken


Literally "Honey Honey's Wonderful Adventures", first a 1966 manga series by Hideko Mizuno, Osamu Tezuka's assistant and one of the first successful female mangaka. Later it was made into a 29-episode anime series by Toei Animation for the Kokusai Eiga (Movie International) company in 1981.

It has been distributed as: Honey e il gatto birbone (Italian); Honey Honey (Portuguese, Latin-American Spanish and English); I fantastici viaggi di Fiorellino (Italian); Las Aventuras de Silvia (Spanish); Les Aventures de Pollen (French); Miodulinka (Polish); Pollen (French); and هني هني (Arabic). Unfortunately the story was cut short because of how poor the ratings were back in Japan, but most of the manga's plot had been adapted, besides a few better subplots. And the series did become rather popular in Europe - two different dubs exist in Italy. An English dub produced by a company called Modern Programs International was shown in the United States on CBN cable and a handful of episodes were also released on VHS, making it one of the earliest shojo anime series to reach the States.

The story begins in Vienna, 1907 (sort of) with vain Princess Flora's nineteenth birthday celebration, where suitors from all over the world are gathered to try to get their hands on her vast fortune and her hand in marriage. The classy masked bandit named Phoenix crashes the party and declares brashly that Flora wouldn't be nearly as beautiful as she is without her ring. Shocked at Phoenix's brashness and fed up with her suitors' motivations, in a fit of rage, she tucks her priceless diamond ring, the "Smile/Star of the Amazon[1]", into a cooked fish and chucks it out the window. A little white cat named Lilly eats the fish whole, swallowing the ring along with it. Flora then declares that she will marry whomever can retrieve the Smile of the Amazon and return it to her.

Lilly belongs to Honey, a young orphaned waitress. Phoenix catches up to her and asks her for her cat, her closest companion, and Honey demands 100 million for her while running off in a hot air balloon along with Lilly. From then on, it's all about the wacky chase over all of Europe, in a race to retrieve a missing ring, with even more surprises in store for the princess, suitors and Honey & company. These surprises range from encounters with more racial stereotypes, King Kong, the evil Slag, Vikings, and more...

Note that unlike most early shojo series, Honey Honey refuses to take itself seriously ( except once or twice, towards the end, and that doesn't stick too much).

Not at all to be mistaken with Cutey Honey or Candy Candy[2], the latter being a Melodrama.

The rights to the series are currently held by Enoki Films USA.


Tropes used in Honey Honey no Suteki na Bouken include:
  1. depending on the dub
  2. although both Candy and Honey Honey share the same Japanese voice actress
This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.