(the lead singer of the group les 5-4-3-2-1, who perform the series' Japanese theme song), and Honey and Chokkei's Japanese voice actors Neya and Matsumoto in attendance. The Japanese name of the series, , became officially romanized as New Super Android Cutey Honey or New Cutey Honey. It has also been spelled with "Cutie" instead of "Cutey". Unlike the original Cutie Honey, the series is an "OVA" (original video animation), one made for home video formats such as VHS tape. OVAs are known for their higher quality than anime television series, and Toei felt the new Honey was especially high-quality because (according to them) each episode used ten thousand cels, three times the usual number. By November 1994, series planner Naoko Takahashi said that Honey was tentatively set to last twelve episodes, with more to be considered later, but the series was cut short at the eighth episode, released in late November 1995. Several scenes in that episode have unshaded foregrounds, partly drawn characters with missing legs, or both. A script for a planned ninth episode was produced as a drama CD voiced by the series' original voice actors. Its English dub, made by ADV Films in 1998, features Jessica Calvello, who was hand-picked by Nagai to perform the voice of Honey. In a post at the Anime on DVD forums, voice actor and writer George Manley—who has worked for the Houston-based ADV—praised both Neya and Calvello's work in Honey as examples of "impressive" performances, and said that the series, whose dub was released four years before he began voice work, "was the title, and I often admit this, that brought me back to watching anime and started me on a long road to, 'Wow, I wonder what might happen if I moved to Houston.... Themes and cameos At the 1994 Anime America convention, Nagai talked about the contrast between Honey and the dark Cosplay City: "I thought... well, what would Honey-chan do if she appeared in a dark futuristic city like in BATMAN. In the movie BATMAN, everything is dark. Dark background and dark characters. However, in the case of Honey-chan, she’s super cheerful and sunny. She really stands out due to the dark background." He believed that New Cutie Honey differed from other anime that focus on settings and characters' expositions, and that Honey instead "makes her own moves, and she carries the whole story". On the relative