A Powerpuff Girls Villain Pays Homage to the Series' Japanese Influences
When I first saw
The Powerpuff Girls
on the old Cartoon Network, I really didn't get it. Then I discovered
Japanese TV shows and the concept of satire, and suddenly everything
clicked.
Cartoon Network Studios
"So it's like stealing, but OK?" -Me, circa 1996
The huge eyes, the giant monster fights, the
Sailor Moon-esque
juxtaposition of superheroism with the mundane problems of everyday
life: That stuff made a lot more sense once I realized it all traced
back to Japanese television. Sure, the satire wasn't especially clever
or anything, but it made me feel smart when I first understood it all
those years ago. Then I found out about the show's other super obscure
references that I'd missed and felt stupid all over again. (
The Powerpuff Girls turned out to be a real emotional roller coaster for me.)
Take Mojo Jojo, for example -- one of the series' chief antagonists
who happens to be a superintelligent green monkey in go-go boots:
Cartoon Network Studios
You'd have that face too if you had that much Rule 34 made about you.
At first glance, he looks like any other '90s supervillain, right
down to the dome housing his cartoonishly oversized brain. But
when designing the character,
series creator Craig McCracken actually based his look on two
characters from old Japanese TV shows that most Japanese people don't
even remember. For instance, the green simian/space magician look was
based on Dr. Gori, the main villain from the 1971-72 Fuji TV series
Spectreman.
Fuji TV
"You damn dirty ape!" -NOT an actual quote from the series, if you can believe it.
Embodying the tokusatsu genre made famous by
Power Rangers,
Spectreman
was a show about a super cyborg fighting the monsters created by the
mad scientist Gori (think an illegitimate love child of Rita Repulsa and
Dr. Zaius). The series also had a heavy-handed environmental message,
which luckily never made it into
The Powerpuff Girls, unlike the costume of the main hero from another Japanese TV series:
The Kagestar.
Toei
It's like if Deadpool and the Red Ranger had a special needs child.
Recognize the spiral pattern on his head? According to McCracken, the
heroic Kagestar's helmet served as inspiration for Mojo Jojo's brain
jar. Was it a subtle indication that there's still some good in the
villainous monkey? Actually, considering that
The Kagestar's main
villain was a Nazi scientist called Dr. Satan, it's a safe bet that its
influence on the cartoon didn't go past the wacky helmet design.
