Yes, you’ve read that rating right. I didn’t expect this series to be this good when I started watching it, nearly two years ago now, but Power Puff Girls Z has been a large source of laughs for me whenever it appeared. There’s a good reason why the original length was increased from 39 to 52 episodes, because this series that basically awaited scepsis from nearly everyone turned out to be quite addictive.

If you’ve seen the original Power Puff Girls, then there are a few things you should know: Power Puff Girls Z completely went with its own style. This is a good thing, as in this way it fixed a lot of the mistakes that the original series made. On the bad side, because of these changes it’ll be really easy to see this as a series that only little kids can enjoy.

One of the biggest problems with this series is that it takes a really long time to get used to the bizarre sense of humour that this series has. If there’s any point in the series where you find yourself thinking: “oh god, they can’t go for something that stupid”, it will. This leads to an angry sushi-monster that assaults people who don’t eat the sushi he likes, and monsters in the form of a pen and an eraser who have trouble to understand each other’s feelings.

Fear not, though. Those were just some of the worst examples, and this series especially starts shining once it hits its second half. You just have to love the disco-fever-episode, or the manga-artist one. This series is so incredibly silly at times, but that’s what makes it so much fun. It really doesn’t care about being liked by everyone, and because of that it’s able to come up with these extreme cases.

That, however, isn’t the only reason why I’ve been looking forward for every new episode for the past year. In the original Power Puff Girls, we never really knew where the monsters that were terrorizing Townsville came from and why they wanted to destroy that particular town in the first place, or in what kind of trouble that town must have been before Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup arrived. But Power Puff Girls Z is different. Everything is really explained here. It may seem a bit far-fetched at times, especially at the beginning, but because the first episodes put so much effort into a conclusion, this series actually managed to close off with a pretty good finale, whereas most other comedies are just way too lazy to try and come up with a good ending.

This is also one series that knows how to deliver a good fight. The minor ones aren’t that special, but especially the fights against the big enemies are really fun to watch. You’d think that whenever you’d stand against a very strong enemy, the drama may take over a bit too much, but especially the fights against Him (the major bad guy of this series) are epic, yet hilarious to watch.

I used to watch the original Power Puff Girls a lot, but looking back, it made the mistake of taking itself way too seriously at times. An angry Buttercup or an angsty Blossom can only remain interesting for a very short while, and the original series went way too far in that. Power Puff Girls Z therefore was really refreshing in its light-hearted nature (do not miss the few times at which this series gets to poke fun at its predecessor). It may be a bit childish at times (okay, make that REALLY childish at times), but when it shines, this series really shines like no other comedy. Added to that comes what’s probably the best cheesy J-Pop soundtrack I’ve heard in an anime, the fact that this really is a series that didn’t play all its trumps in the beginning, and you’ve got a very enjoyable comedy-series.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s

Masochists of the world, unite! Seriously, this was without a doubt the worst show of the new season. And without a surprise either. It’s one of these shows that are so bad that it becomes good again. And really, it was a very smart decision from the creators to make all the duels take place on motorbikes now. Everyone’s now wearing helmets, so they won’t burn your eyes with their outrageous hair-styles! If only the same could be said for the monster-design and motorbike-designs. Still, the cream of the crop in terms of badness was without a doubt the fight. It’s so badly written that it’d even give Zaizen Jotaro a run for its money.

Net Ghost Pipopa

While I most definitely won’t watch another episode of this, I can imagine how kids would love it. It’s great to see another kiddie-series that intends to do more than just get kids to buy overpriced toys. Net Ghost Pipopa basically tries to get the young ones a bit familiarized with the internet, by portraying it as a brightly coloured world that some lucky kids can enter. It’s nowhere explained why our male main character is one of those lucky ones, but series of this particular genre could have been much worse (look above). I wouldn’t recommend anyone above 15 to watch it, but if you’ve got a little sibling (and this thing ever gets subbed), you might want to consider showing this to the.

Monochrome Factor

This series has genre-issues! One moment it features a spunky girl confessing over the girl of her love, and yet all the male characters are bishies and two of them even end up kissing each other. In any case, this series isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just boring. It failed to catch my attention at all, and it’s given me no real interest to keep watching it. The fights are dull (monsters just get slashed and that’s it). I also feel that the only female voice-actress was trying way too hard. It’s still better than Hirano Aya’s performance in Zettai Karen Children, but I can’t seem to remember any line in which she didn’t scream.