Powerpuff Girls Z Rant

The Powerpuff Girls Z manga is only two volumes. The only villains it covers are a couple random monsters, Mojo, and Princess. The rest of the time is spent chasing after two androids - which wasn't bad, but PPG has so many villains to cover that I'm disappointed that the manga wasn't longer so as to include all or at least most of them. As a result, everything seemed rushed. I'd compare it to Tokyo Mew Mew ala Mode but at least PPGZ got an anime that is more fleshed out than its manga (not sure which version came first), and TMMaM had an origin sequence while the PPGZ manga didn't. Being more Japanese than the dub, obviously, the scanlations kept the Japanese names for the girls (which still bothers me to some degree because it reinforces that these are not the same Powerpuff Girls from the original). I get the impression that if it wasn't trying to be Powerpuff Girls it would have made a great stand-on-its-own magical girl series. It didn't take as long as it usually does to read since the scanlator didn't translate the side panels written by the author.
As for the anime...This show is not as great as the original (which went downhill around the time the movie came out) but it is still pretty good for a Japanese interpretation. In the Japanese, the girls aren't named Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup - they are regular girls with regular Japanese names but become the three PPG names when transformed. In fact, it's a lot like Sailor Moon. Blossom is more like Sailor Moon as she eats snacks all the time and isn't the super smart one and is excited to be a super hero. Bubbles is into fashion, and Buttercup is a complete tomboy. Chemical X got turned into Chemical Z by dropping snack food into it (hence power "puffs") but more darkness came out of it than light, explaining the three girls and Poochi and all the villains they go up against rather than having Monster Isle (Japan has suffered enough with Godzilla, and in Japan it's Tokyo City not New Townsville as in the dub). Most of them are as good as the original, but the RowdyRuff Boys emulated Shin-chan more than their McCracken counterparts. However, the three girls got their powers by shielding three other kids and obtained weapons based on the toys the kids were playing with (a yoyo, a bubble wand, and a toy hammer respectively). The girls are also in middle school I guess, but certainly not kindergarten. And the real PowerPuff Girls don't need weapons.

Pony-to-Puff voice actor comparison: Gilda = Bubbles, Spitfire = Buttercup, Spike = Ken (Prof's son), Celestia = Miss Bellum (blonde, and yes she does a little trolling here too), Rarity = Miss Keane, Soarin = Poochi (robot dog that syncs with Girls' powers and acts as phone...or the Talking Dog). Sam Vincent as background again.

30 episodes into PowerPuff Girls Z, I have gotten used to high-pitched Gilda as Bubbles. She's like New Coke - you didn't ask for her but eventually you get used to her. I liked Bubbles in the original series and episodes centered around her, and I think I have my pick of this series so far. It's stupid, but it guest stars Andrea Libman (Pinkie Pie) and the omnipresent background actor Sam Vincent (Dexter from Hamtaro bow-tie and all). Octi gets a cameo, but instead Him makes Bubbles' pencil and eraser set come to life. If this sounds remotely interesting check it out: Episode 25 part 1 otherwise known in the dub as The Write Way and the Wrong Way. Other than that, Japan has a way of making most of the villains more sympathetic in their backstories (for example, Princess is jealous of her sister and that's why she wants so much attention all the time); others it just can't explain at all, like Fuzzy Lumpkins (although even Him gets a compelling backstory being a devil and all). Otherwise I still find Spitfire enjoyable as Buttercup but Usagi-Blossom still bugs the crap out of me. And Celestia, for the love of God, you need to stop trolling your sister. Ms. Bellum never - at least so far - has found it necessary to tell Ms. Keane (voiced by Luna/Rarity) who the Powerpuffs are so they can leave class whenever they need to. In one episode she goes as far as trying to stop them from leaving, never once buying their excuses let alone the truth from their own lips.
Ms. Keane is an idiot. While it was nice hearing a Rarity-esque mini-tantrum from her (since she's Tabitha St. Germain after all), how low do you have to sink to consider dating Mojo Jojo and then go back to the person who so cruelly dumped you in the first place? Not even Rarity would put up with that crap. And while sending people to the moon is apparently a thing on this show (the Girls even broke it at one point...somehow), it wasn't Ms. Bellum who did it (although on several occasions she's been angry enough to do so). I'm going to finish it, even though I didn't finish the original show and it had just as many bad or questionable plots. While I have no interest in rewatching the original series, I will go back and watch the music videos.

Update: Finished it. What a cop-out. And guess who might be a Nielsen family? My secret wish since seeing that episode of Mathnet may be coming true…(Update: It didn't.)