So, uhh... How's everybody feeling about that recent Powerpuff Girls reboot?

I admit, when I heard that there was going to be a new PPG series, I was skeptical. PPG was a huge part of my childhood, and I honestly didn't want to see it ruined. When the new designs were leaked, I had hope though... The girls look so cute! Especially Bubbles, with those little beads in her hair!

But then... The show actually came out... And I saw clips, and GOOD LORD, is it terrible!! The voice acting is just atrocious -- the girls original voice actors haven't retired, so why did they get new ones? But what's even worse is the use of outdated memes as humor. That scene with Bubbles saying "no me gusta" made me cringe so hard.... They didn't even animate her using the right meme face, for crying out loud, she was using the "NO" face, not "no me gusta"! And, I haven't seen it myself, but I heard that one particular episode, Horn Sweet Horn, is under fire for apparently having a rather transphobic metaphor going on. Again, I haven't seen it, so I won't judge, but that's pretty bad coming from a show that's on the same channel as Steven Universe.

I heard from a reviewer on YouTube that they started planning merchandise for this show before it even began airing. If that's true... It really says what they were planning, weren't they? Just a quick, cheap buck to capitalize on people's nostalgia. That's really sad. Powerpuff Girls was a great show, and it deserves better.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

I've heard nothing but bad things coming from people who watch the show. Things like the fact that Ms. Bellum was removed from the show because apparently she doesn't fit what they're going for. How confusing it is that the girls are apparently not in kindergarten anymore, looking out of place among classmates who could easily pass as teenagers. Re-hashing storylines from the previous show. You name it.

I've only seen literally one clip from the show and I can already tell I hate this show. XD



On the flip side, it's giving me the urge to reconsider PPGZ, which I dropped after the first episode, deciding that the humor wasn't quite for me. Maybe it deserves another chance.

Oh man, you know what makes that particular scene even worse? A few seconds later, Blossom and Bubbles start twerking with the panda. Yes, twerking. My initial thought was "Aren't they supposed to be five?" but seeing that they're apparently not in kindergarten anymore.... Ugh. Still doesn't make it appropriate.

I like PPGZ, but I admit, the humor is pretty lame. Especially in the first episode. To be honest, I haven't seen that many episodes of it, and the ones I did watch were entirely out of order. But I liked it a lot when I was a young teen. It was one of my first anime, actually. Since it had ties to PPG, it was a pretty good gateway series for the magical girl genre, along with Sailor Moon. It's good, but VERY different. A lot of people who were fans of Blossom in the original were really unhappy to see that Momoko had none of her smarts, and was just a typical hyper mahou shoujo lead. I never really liked the original Blossom -- my favorite was always Bubbles -- so it's not really surprising that Momoko became my favorite of the PPGZ. Miyako was a bit more mature than Bubbles, and Kaoru was basically the same as the original Buttercup, just older. The villains are different too, some for better, some for worse. I'm pretty sad PPGZ never came to the States, honestly. It was dubbed into English, but never aired here. *sigh* I guess America just hates shoujo anime so much...

I have no desire to watch the reboot. Just air the oringal CN. 

PPGZ isn't that bad. I watched the whole series. I liked them being magical girls, but I wished they were sisters. Yeah I will admit Momoko is quite different from Blossom, but it works for the show. She's the lead so it would make sense for her character to be into the whole magical girl genre. 

The villains are so so. Mojo Jojo was awful. Plain awful. They changed his character completely. They made him a fool and a punching bag. Mojo was still a punching bag in PPG, but at least he was capable. My favorite villain was Princess. I can't remember why, but I enjoyed her character.

The openings and ending themes are great.

I liked Princess too! They did a dark magical girl angle with her and Sedusa, it was pretty neat. They even had henshins! Mojo Jojo was terrible, though, I agree. I know that his speech pattern from the original wouldn't have worked in Japanese, but good lord, was the saying "mojo" at the end of every sentence thing just obnoxious.

I forgot about Sedusa! I liked her character as well. A shy woman transforming into a bitch. Lol

Mew Ami wrote:

 Mojo Jojo was awful. Plain awful. They changed his character completely. They made him a fool and a punching bag. Mojo was still a punching bag in PPG, but at least he was capable.

Another thing the PPGZ version of Mojo was criticized for is the fact that in the original, his manner of speaking was very Japanese influenced, so to take a character parodying Japanese dialog and translate it back into Japanese doesn't work.

I'm pretty sure that he said "mojo" at the end of every sentence in the Japanese dub of the original cartoon, too. The way the Japanese language works, the best way to give someone a verbal tic is to just have them end their sentences with something silly. Like quite a few of the fairies in Pretty Cure! Or that one girl in Pripara that was so annoying I couldn't even stand to watch the entire first episode of the show and dropped it immediately.

Wasn't PPG big in Japan?

I'm not sure, honestly. I know it got a dub, at least, and it had a pretty cool opening.




The fact that PPGZ even exists kind of leads me to believe that the show wasn't too big... Maybe they liked the concept? But the execution of the original was too foreign, so they made a mahou shoujo version of the show that would be more familiar to Japanese audiences? That's my guess.

Either way, I know that PPGZ wasn't too big in Japan either. I actually have a really close friend from Japan, and she loves magical girl shows and has never heard of PPGZ before.

LOL that opening is badly done. The song is fine, but the clips they picked do not go with it. XD

Yeah PPGZ has fallen into obscurity. XD

Yeeeeeaaahhh, that OP wasn't quite as cool as I remembered it to be before I posted it.

I know PPGZ was fairly big in South America! They had McDonald's toys and dolls, you can find them sometimes on eBay. I don't know why it was never brought to America, though. It was dubbed into English and everything! One of the many lost magical girl dubs that never made it here...

Because girls don't watch TV duh and they don't buy toys from their favorite shows either. >.>

I saw it. I saw them twerking. I watched a clip just to see. I think it's fair to say my inner child is screaming in pain.

I legit loved the PPG when I was a kid. It was my show. It was written well and enjoyable for everyone of all ages. 

Now we get this? A show filled with memes and twerking? Why must everything have memes!? Yes they can be funny. On the internet. That's where they belong! 

I JUST UGHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Bubbles go get them!

Mew Ami wrote:

A show filled with memes and twerking? Why must everything have memes!? Yes they can be funny. On the internet. That's where they belong! 

Because pandering. Kids in particular these days are stereotyped as texting on their phones and browsing the internet 24/7, so they must think that the easiest way to appeal to them is to bring the internet to TV.

It's also sad that they keep using memes and such because by the time an animated show can produce an episode using a meme, it's likely already outdated. I never even knew taking selfies with duck lips was a thing when Fairly Oddparents referenced it.