weakness of male characters in the series, he said, "Honey-chan is like a mother, and she loves to protect weak men. Their existence is her reason to live, like oh, 'I have to fight to protect you. Honey pays homage to some of Nagai's other creations, such as the Mazinger and Devilman series; the first two episodes alone include many cameos. The first shows Mayor Light and Chokkei in a picture with characters from Nagai's Harenchi Gakuen, Iyahaya Nantomo, and Oira Sukeban, while Devilman titular character appears as a gargoyle. In the second, a scene in a downtown market in Cosplay City has cameos from Hige Godzilla from Harenchi Gakuen and Naojiro Abashiri from The Abashiri Family; a scene in Honey's bedroom shows a bust of Mazinger Z and a framed picture of her father, Dr. Kisaragi; and several scenes show Mazinger Z Sayaka Yumi, The Abashiri Family Kikunosuke, and an unnamed character from Kekkō Kamen as they get turned into plastic-coated statues. Cutie Honey's skin-tight, full-body costume uses the same design and tricolor (blue, black, and red) scheme as that of Nagai's original manga, but its chest opening—with rounded side edges—resembles the one in her 1973 anime attire. The opening sequence used in the first four episodes shows versions of Honey's original seven forms in the TV series: Kisaragi, Hurricane, Misty, Idol, Flash, Fancy, and Cutie. Danbei's techniques parody those of Nagai's super robots Mazinger Z and Grendizer. Later episodes feature appearances by Akira Fudo of Devilman and Professor Kabuto of Mazinger Z. In episode 7, Honey transforms herself into Kouji Kabuto. The title sequence of episodes 5 through 8 features Sirene, Devilman's nemesis, and Akira Fudo of Devilman along with Mazinger Z's Juzo Kabuto. Devilman can be briefly seen as one of the back-up guitarists for the one-time antagonist Saline in episode 3. Media Episodes and releases The eight 25-minute episodes of New Cutie Honey are directed by Yasuchika Nagaoka and produced by Toei Video, with animation services by Studio Junio. Their names in Japan are prefixed by "Stage.", followed by the episode number. Each episode title, from the fifth onward, is prefixed with "". ADV Films released the series in four two-episode VHS tapes with English subtitles. The subtitled versions were released between 1994 and 1996, and English dubs of the episodes were made in 1998. New Cutie Honey was followed by the TV series Cutie Honey