This is not exactly new in the industry. Since as far as the 80’s America and Japan make their own versions of the same story. Famous examples are Macross/Roboteck, American-only sequels to Voltron Defender of the Universe, an American-only OVA conclusion to the Saber Rider and the Starsheriffs, several Japanese-only sequels and spin-offs to the Transformers. The thing is, all those shows were 90% identical or easily recognizable to be of the same franchise. PPGZ is way too different to PPGA to the point it feels as a different show. But I thought it was some what of a good show.
ART (PPGA: 8, PPGZ: 5)
PPGA was using a rather simple to draw and animate artwork which looked very 2-dimensional. It was also made to be a tribute to both the pop-art movement, superhero comic books of the 60’s, as well as a parody to several Japanese anime stereotypes. That made it look special and unique in a way, even if there are several series that were made the same way, like South Park, Dexter’s Laboratory or Ying Yang Yo. It was still somewhat different from the typical cartoon, which packs a lot more animation, 3D effects and lip-synch.
PPGZ on the other hand looks way too typical. If you have watched several anime, you can easily see how average its animation is, with its jerky motions, frozen panels and repeating transformation clips. I’m pretty sure it costs more to create 3D effects and fluid animation but at the same time it looks far less captivating. It has no in-jokes to comic books and the anime jokes are not working that well, since mahou shoujo parodies are abundant in Japan but not in America.
I don’t blame studio Toei for animating it like this, since it follows their recipe of how to make a nice children’s show to the letter. It’s just that it was too safe to be given to them and not to, let’s say GAINAX or SHAFT, which would definitely have done a lot more experimenting and would have produced a far more uncommon result.
I think that was the only problem or thing I hated about this series. But anyway I thought the storyline was better then the original.
