Honey Honey no Suteki na Bouken

Not pictured: King Kong, Geronimo, Vikings, and Robin Hood at the Grand Prix.

Literally "Honey Honey's Wonderful Adventures", first a 1966 manga series by Hideko Mizuno, Osamu Tezuka's assistant and one of the first successful female mangaka. Later it was made into a 29-episode anime series by MIC (Movie International Company) in 1981-82, with animation by Toei Animation, and aired on Fuji TV.

It has been distributed as: Honey e il gatto birbone (Italian); Honey Honey (Portuguese, Latin-American Spanish and English); I fantastici viaggi di Fiorellino (Italian); Las Aventuras de Silvia (Castilian Spanish); Les Aventures de Pollen (French); Miodulinka (Polish); Pollen (French); and هني هني (Arabic). Unfortunately the story was cut short because of how poor the ratings were back in Japan, but most of the manga's plot had been adapted, besides a few better subplots. And the series did become rather popular in Europe - two different dubs exist in Italy. An English dub produced by a company called Modern Programs International was shown in the United States on CBN cable and a handful of episodes were also released on VHS, making it one of the earliest shojo anime series to reach the States.

The story begins in Vienna, 1907 (sort of) with vain Princess Flora's nineteenth birthday celebration, where suitors from all over the world are gathered to try to get their hands on her vast fortune and her hand in marriage. The classy masked bandit named Phoenix crashes the party and declares brashly that Flora wouldn't be nearly as beautiful as she is without her ring. Shocked at Phoenix's brashness and fed up with her suitors' motivations, in a fit of rage, she tucks her priceless diamond ring, the "Smile/Star of the Amazon", into a cooked fish and chucks it out the window. A little white cat named Lilly eats the fish whole, swallowing the ring along with it. Flora then declares that she will marry whomever can retrieve the Smile of the Amazon and return it to her.

Lilly belongs to Honey, a young orphaned waitress. Phoenix catches up to her and asks her for her cat, her closest companion, and Honey demands 100 million for her while running off in a hot air balloon along with Lilly. From then on, it's all about the wacky chase over all of Europe, in a race to retrieve a missing ring, with even more surprises in store for the princess, suitors and Honey & company. These surprises range from encounters with more racial stereotypes, King Kong, the evil Slag, Vikings, and more...

Note that unlike most early shojo series, Honey Honey refuses to take itself seriously ( except once or twice, towards the end, and that doesn't stick too much).

Not at all to be mistaken with Cutey Honey or Candy Candy, the latter being a melodrama. Although both series were Toei productions and used some of the same animation staff.

The rights to the series are currently held by Enoki Films USA.

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Tropes related to the series:

• Acting for Two: Fuyumi Shiraishi (best known as Mirai Yashima in Mobile Suit Gundam) voiced both Princess Flora and Lily.
• Agony of the Feet: Honey, as said below, at some point is caught by Vikings and forced to walk over red-hot coals. Subverted, it's to see if she has a certain mark.
• Anachronism Stew: Played for Laughs. Not only in terms of the time period, but in terms of geographic location. For example, the wanted poster in episode 1 is not in German as one would expect in Austria, but in Japanese.
• Arab Oil Sheikh: One of Flora's many suitors, all of them encompassing one offensive racial stereotype and playing it for laughs.
• Art Shift: Episode 22 has the highest-quality animation of the entire series, with Akira Daikubara (a veteran Toei animator who worked on many of the studio's classic full-length features of the '60s) serving as animation director. The rest of the show can be quite Off Model at times.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Honey and Phoenix.
  • Downplayed with Phoenix and Flora, since she throws tantrums when he teases her whereas Honey snarks back.
• Berserk Button: Honey is very, VERY attached to Lily. It's best to NOT try separating them. And it's even worse if one tells Honey to ditch her, sell her, or hand her to Flora.
  • Flora detests when she's told she's a Spoiled Brat or has her looks mocked.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall
• Domino Mask: Phoenix wears an uncharacteristically frilly red one.
• Door Step Baby: Honey herself. Actually a variation on this trope, as Honey is left not at someone's door but in a field in the springtime, surrounded by honeybees - which is where she got her name from - and subsequently brought up in a (presumably Catholic) convent. Her cat Lily was also abandoned, and as Honey explains in the first episode, that's why she and her cat are so close.
• Dub Name Change: Honey's name is almost always changed (the English dub is an exception), but most of the rest of the other characters' remain unchanged.
• Engagement Challenge: As per usual with the trope, sets off the plot entirely.
• Hair Decorations: Honey's enormous bow.
• Excited Episode Title: the English dub played with it. The hammy announcer would often exclaim! every title, the first episode's being "The CAT ate the RING?!?!"
• Fallen Princess: What Honey turns out to be.
• Fiery Redhead: Princess Flora.
• Gag Dub: Particularly the Portugeuse dub, but the original Japanese is equally silly.
• Gag Series
• Gentleman Thief: Phoenix
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: A popular and fondly remembered series in Europe and Latin America despite its relative failure in Japan.
• Growling Gut: Honey in episode 22, when she's imprisoned in Slag's castle and goes on a hunger strike, refusing to eat unless she and Lily are reunited. A guard overhears it, but Honey denies this and tells him it must be his stomach growling.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: A girl with Sayaka Yumi's voice travels the world with a gentleman jewel thief with the voice of Captain Harlock.
• Hidden Purpose Test: The Vikings capture Honey and force her to walk on red-hot coals. She thinks it's just to torture her. Actually, she has to remove her shoes because they are looking for a rose-shaped birthmark that represents royalty on a young girl's foot. Guess what, she has it!
• Historical Fiction: Played for Laughs.
• Horny Vikings: Kidnapped by Vikings. Yes. They turn out to be former retainers of Honey's parents (hence why they knew about the rose-shaped mark), and their leader Erik is also Phoenix's father.
• Interspecies Friendship: Lily is NOT just Honey's pet. She's pretty much her sister in all but species. And Honey will leave it VERY clear.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Phoenix, perfectly complimenting Honey's Tsundere.
• Meal Ticket: Princess Flora, and she disapproves.
• Meaningful Name: The protagonist, abandoned as a baby, was given the name Honey Honey by the nuns who found and raised her, since she was found among flowers and honeybees. This carries over into some of the Western versions despite Dub Name Changes: in the first Italian dub, she's known as Fiorellino ("little flower"), and in Brazilian Portuguese, she's Favos de Mel ("honeycomb").
• Medium Awareness: Depending on the dub, but most characters make references to the writers or the commercial break, or the frequent Anachronism Stew (i.e. "I didn't know lasers had been invented yet!" "They haven't.")
• Minori Matsushima
• Mysterious Protector: Phoenix seems to serve as this, being the well-dressed fellow with an eyemask far before Tuxedo Mask, although his role is taken far less seriously than in BSSM.
• Names to Know in Anime: Quite a few veterans of Toei productions, namely Yugo Serikawa and Takeshi Shirato, worked on this show. The biggest name involved may be head writer Masaki Tsuji, who has been writing anime screenplays for six decades (and as of 2023, is still active at age 91).
• Only in It For the Money: Repeatedly claimed by Phoenix, but as the series continues it becomes clear that he doesn't mean it.
• Shout-Out: Flora is kidnapped by a giant ape and carried to the top of 70's skyscrapers in a King Kong reference, and the show makes no apologies for that.
  • Spot the reference when she goes to Hollywood
  • One episode is an entire reference to I Dream of Jeannie.
• Talking in Your Sleep: In one episode, the boy who finds Honey tells her she was calling out for someone named Phoenix in her sleep. She's embarrassed.
• Tsundere: Combined with Plucky Girl in Honey. She may be an orphan and a very kind girl, but she's not particularly the heartwarming/helpless type, and she does what she can to keep Lilly safe and doesn't hesitate to tell Phoenix off. She can be quite the Action Girl too.