Ryūko Matoi vs Cutie Honey (Kill la Kill vs Cutie Honey)

(L.A.D.)

(Sharaku Jr.)

(Sand)

(Sirus)

(Cyk)

(Rina Antiqua)

(Mau)

“My body is ready.”

‒Reggie Fils-Aimé

Ryūko Matoi, the Scissor Blade wielder from Kill la Kill.

Honey Kisaragi, the Warrior of Love from Cutie Honey.

When their fathers were taken from them, these girls were left with the same question: who was responsible, and how could they make them pay? Despite coming from different generations of anime, both would inherit extraordinary powers tied to clothing, pursue revenge against the forces responsible for their fathers' deaths, and become icons of the transforming action heroine genre, with one helping establish the archetype and the other becoming one of its most celebrated modern successors, all with a strong ecchi flair. But when these two crimson heroines clash, will Ryūko refuse to lose her way and turn this fight into one nasty sayonara? Or will Honey’s heart go chuku chuku from the thrill of victory as she sends her opponent on a one way ticket to hell? Let’s settle this debate once and for all, and find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

WHY THIS MATCHUP?

(Art by L.A.D., section by Kaiser)

You might have noticed by now that Ryūko has quite a wide matchup spread, and that she also has a few blogs by now. Here we’re briefly gonna go over the reasons why we decided on covering this fight, and explain why this is a matchup in the first place. 

While at the surface this matchup may seem thematically obvious, as both of them are heroines from ecchi manga and anime. However, it's only when you look beyond the superficial that the real parallels truly emerge.

Both are girls with fathers in biological fields that make a discovery that gets them killed at the hands of the antagonist's organization. They become "best of friends" with an innocent airheaded girl that supports them emotionally throughout their journey, and both are proficient swordswomen that transform in ways that allow them to tap into their father's discoveries while also wearing more revealing clothing. Most significantly, their biggest enemies are said antagonistic organizations helmed by sadistic female leaders who use the same powers for evil. Both series deal with core themes surrounding acceptance, repression, the formation of meaningful bonds, and not so subtle queer theming (though handled more clumsily in the early stages of Cutie Honey, it was the 70s).

The next subject is fairly more obvious, but not any less important: legacy. The baseline is pretty simple, Kill la Kill was greatly inspired by Cutie Honey. From the choice to deal with repression and having an iconic transformation that is very revealing, only to attribute their real strength to that change, in being unashamed to show oneself in an authoritarian environment, it’s easy to see the parallels. Such was a problem that Go Nagai faced himself when his manga was targeted for censorship. It, of course, didn’t stop Kill la Kill from taking inspiration from a manga from 1973. In 2004, Toei Animation started releasing an anime OVA called Re:Cutie Honey that (alongside Hideaki Anno’s Cutie Honey live action film and the A Go Go manga) was supposed to celebrate 30 years of the franchise. Alongside Hideaki Anno, animation director Hiroyuki Imaishi (who formerly worked with Anno in a certain mecha anime from the 90s) and scriptwriter Kazuki Nakashima joined the production. This was the first time Nakashima and Imaishi met, which led to their eventual partnership on a little project called Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann under Studio Gainax. You might have heard of it. After many people that worked on that project decided to leave to form their own studio, Kill la KIll was born, created by the aforementioned duo. In short, Cutie Honey is directly responsible for the existence of Studio Trigger, and, consequently, Kill la Kill. With so much common ground between the series, it’s fun to see how compatible they are from an aesthetic and technical standpoint, when Re: Cutie Honey is basically a prototype of Kill la Kill in many ways.

Lastly, the truth is that we just wanted to cover Cutie Honey. After the successes of Mazinger Z vs Getter Robo and Ryu vs Kenshiro, it’s kinda obvious that making blogs on legacy animanga characters is kinda “my thing”, so I wanted to talk about one of the most important figures in the medium, and have a little fun talking about Go Nagai’s universe again. I’m also a huge fan of Hiroyuki Imaishi’s work and so naturally I felt compelled to choose Ryūko as her opponent, given I believe it’s the best matchup for both characters and I find the debate interesting. Do not think this is a blog “for” Honey as everyone here loves Kill la Kill and wants to talk about it, this is not “Honey feat. Ryūko” in any way.

MEDIA

(Mau)

Both characters will be soft-composited for this blog. That is a decision we made with not only debate in mind, but because of the nature of the Cutie Honey franchise, which does not adhere to a singular canon since its inception as a relatively short and discontinued manga in 1973. This is a massively influential character that received multiple different interpretations across the years, and it would be a massive disservice to her legacy if we focused on limited material. This means that Honey will be given all of her appearances across her own franchise in films, tokusatsu series, anime, an audio drama and manga. Of course, it would be simply unfair to not extend this courtesy to Ryūko, who has quite a bit of appearances outside of her original show as well. This means that Ryūko’s material will include her original anime, manga, audio dramas, artbooks, guidebooks and yes, the ever infamous Kill la Kill: IF. While we will make a defense for its canon and scalable status later on, you can rest assured if you feel you cannot be convinced of it: It’s perfectly fair given the treatment we’re giving to Honey, the videogame would be used regardless if it’s canon or not. We also examined crossover appearances and game collaborations for supplementary information when they were consistent with established Kill la Kill material. However, Ryūko is not being scaled to the settings, cosmology, or power systems of those crossover titles themselves; only information that can reasonably be tied back to Kill la Kill lore and Studio Trigger material (more on that later), and the same goes for Honey’s Super Robot Wars content. For a comprehensive list of the material used for both characters, you can check the very end of the blog under “Sources”. 

Last thing to mention is that four community members, Cyber, Observable, sand and Big Iron Yoshi, were a huge help in the Kill la Kill research of this blog. Cyber in particular was also directly involved with production of this blog, but also did his fair share of Kill la Kill blogs in the past. If you think some descriptions and wording are similar, that’s why. Of course, some arguments might have been seen differently upon reevaluation, but even after we looked into all these media again ourselves, we still feel obligated to credit his two main blogs on the series as well:

• Kill la Kill IF (Canon + Stats)

• Ryūko’s Hax given by KLK IF 

Kill la Kill IF also completed 8 years very close to the release of this blog, on the 15th of June, clearly all part of the plan…

CONTENT WARNING!

Some of the images and links in this blog contain sexually explicit and/or graphic content that some may find upsetting or disturbing, such as sexual violence. Some of the contents in the Cutie Honey Franchise have not aged well in the slightest, so please take this 53 year old franchise with a grain of salt when it comes to modern standards for sexualization or problematic content. Do not read this blog if you’re a minor or uncomfortable with the aforementioned topics. It should be obvious that THIS IS A NSFW BLOG, so you have been warned to proceed with caution.

PS: For this same reason, we had to use imgchest for some of the scans that would just be taken down on Imgur. An Ad blocker is recommended, but recommended galleries on that site will often show NSFW content, so you have been warned again. 

Background

Ryūko Matoi

“To hell with your opinion. I'll take my own path no matter what anyone else says!”

They say the scariest aliens are the ones that can walk among us, the ones that can deceive all of humanity into believing that they’re safe. Well in the world of Kill la Kill, aliens walk among us… but not in the way you’d expect.

Meet Ryūko Matoi, 17 year old and run-of-the-mill transfer student of Honnouji Academy. A scrappy and aggressive young girl due to her lonely upbringing, Ryūko was motivated primarily by one thing: the desire to get revenge on the being who killed her father. Little did she know the insane world she was about to stumble into. One day, while traversing the ruins of her father’s old home, she discovered a… strange creature. This was Senketsu, known as an alien Life Fiber, and he would quickly become her best friend and greatest ally in this bizarre adventure.

Senketsu was not the only Life Fiber around, as it would be revealed soon, Life Fibers existed all around, and they hid their existence by disguising themselves as the clothes of their wielders, humans they had formed a symbiotic bond with to amplify their strength enormously. It was in Honnouji Academy that Ryūko learned that these fibers could be synthesized to create more clothing to empower students based on their rank and level of education.

Climbing up the ranks at Honnouji, Ryūko would soon find herself at odds with the president of the student council, Satsuki Kiryuin, a fierce and powerful rival with a uniquely powerful Life Fiber that seemed truly unbeatable at first. But with the help of Senketsu, along with the emotional support of her best friend Mako, she was able to not only overpower her and her cronies, but to discover the truth of this land… Satsuki was her sister all along! Skeptical of her power at first, the two would soon be forced to set their differences aside as they both realized who their true enemy was. None other than Ragyo Kiryuin, the director of Honnouji and their mother, with aspirations of manipulating the power of all the world’s Life Fibers to make herself immortal. To make matters worse, Ryūko herself was experimented on as a child, and was infused with the Life Fibers when she was just a baby. If that wasn’t bad enough, it wasn’t long until Ryūko came to the realization that Ragyo… was her father’s true murderer.

This revelation broke Ryūko, and the manipulation of Ragyo and her sinister right-hand woman Nui became too much to bear, as she succumbed to the madness of the Life Fibers… until the support of her friends and Satsuki let her drive out the darkness inside her. More enraged and empowered than ever, due to the perfection of her bond with Senketsu, Ryūko busted out of Ragyo’s illusion, SLICED the heavens with her double Scissor Blades, and WIPED out Ragyo’s menace to humanity once and for all, freeing the world of the hold of the Life Fibers. While she tragically parted ways with her old friend Senketsu, his sacrifice ultimately allowed Ryūko to move on to a new chapter in her life. For once, it was a life that she and her sister could have with their friends, unburdened by the sins of their parents and free in a world that belonged to them. They could finally live normal and happy lives, but she would never, ever forget what got her to that point.

Cutie Honey

“Stars in the sky! Flowers on the earth! Love to human beings! Warrior of love! Cutie Honey!”

Is a human’s life replaceable? Can the emotions, whims, and overall “soul” of a person be transferred from mere flesh and bone to wires and metal? Or, rather, is there a fundamental element, a “heart” if you will, that gets lost in the process? After he lost his daughter in an accident, one man decided to answer that question by creating an android replica in her image, and that man’s name was Dr. Kisaragi.

Meet Honey Kisaragi, the daughter of Dr. Kisaragi, and the most recent transfer to St. Chapel’s Academy, an all-girls boarding school. With striking beauty and a sweet demeanor, Honey was instantly a hit with everybody there. Her new best friend, Natsuko Aki (who was totally crushing on her hard), showed her the ropes around their weird school. While Honey questioned the school and wondered why her dad sent her there in the first place, she was accompanied by good spirits and a pretty sweet dormitory. Might as well make the most of it, right?

Unfortunately, these good times soon came to an end. One night, Honey heard the pleading voice of her father, and rushed out of her dorm in the middle of the night. Following his voice to a nearby motorcycle, Honey discovered her latent abilities given to her by Dr. Kisaragi. Through tapping her necklace, Honey could transform the elements around her in the air with just the shout of a “Honey Flash!” Rushing back to her family’s home, Honey arrived to witness an attack from mysterious assailants. Transforming into the superheroine Cutie Honey, she was able to defeat them all… but unfortunately, not without the untimely demise of her father.

However, it turned out that Dr. Kisaragi had prepared for this moment, as a robotic replica sprang to life in order to deliver his final message to Honey. It explained that within her was the Airborne Element Solidifier, a device that can create materials out of thin air. The evil organization Panther Claw wished to take said device for their own selfish desires. While Honey was made incredibly powerful, she still has the outer body of a normal human. Sure, her father could have given her power beyond compare, or bulletproof skin and, heh, robot hair, but he wanted her to live as a human for her to gain the most valuable gift of all… a human heart. So, as the building exploded in order to ensure the good doctor’s work would never fall into the hands of evil, Honey arose from the flames with a new mission. Avenge Dr. Kisaragi by destroying Panther Claw.

Honey wouldn’t be alone in this mission, as she found herself new allies in the form of private investigator Seiji Hayami and his family members. Together, they fought against Panther Claw’s members, all sent by their leader Sister Jill, and the mysterious entity Panther Zora, who were obsessed with acquiring the system within Honey’s body. With each fight, Honey’s anger grew stronger and stronger. It all culminated in a full-scale invasion of Honey’s school campus, resulting in the death of Natsuko. By then, her rage broke. Making her way to the Panther Claw base, Honey engaged herself in a brutal battle with Sister Jill, ultimately killing her with a stab through the throat. As their base collapsed, Honey was left with a warning. Panther Claw would be back one day, but Honey would be right there to face it once more, no matter what.

Although that is the end of the original manga, that isn’t the end of Honey’s story, as she’s gone through dozens of different continuations and incarnations over the years. Somewhere, Natsuko is a cop and works alongside Honey and Seiji. Other times, she finally got to face Panther Zora and fulfill her mission. At some point she fought Panther Claw in the far-flung future, and even one where she faced Sister Jill in Feudal Japan. No matter where or when, Cutie Honey will always be here to complete her mission for the sake of love.

Skill & Experience

Ryūko Matoi

Being only a teenager, Ryūko had very little experience with the kind of high-level combat she would later face after putting on Senketsu. Before that, most of her fighting came from her delinquent days, where she regularly brawled with bullies and other street punks while running with a gang. Those encounters were enough to make her a capable fighter, but they were a far cry from the superhuman battles waiting for her at Honnouji Academy which would lead her to grow a lot in her swordsmanship.

Early on, she was also quite fond of the Joestar tactical retreat, though as she grew stronger and more confident, she relied on it less and less. Over the course of the series, Ryūko was thrown into increasingly demanding battles and steadily expanded her experience against a wide variety of opponents. After Satsuki declared her the target of every club in Honnouji Academy, Ryūko and Mako founded the Fight Club and challenged club presidents across the school, allowing her to defeat virtually every club that stood in her way before eventually taking on the Elite Four. These opponents came from all kinds of backgrounds and specialties, ranging from athletes and martial artists to tacticians, scientists, artists, and technology experts, forcing Ryūko to adapt to wildly different fighting styles and abilities. As her journey progressed, she eventually defeated all four members of the Elite Four themselves, students who had spent years honing their skills and proving their worth under Satsuki Kiryuin. On top of that, she became capable of matching Satsuki blow for blow despite Satsuki possessing years of formal combat training and battlefield experience gained under Ragyo's tutelage and alongside her subordinates. 

This highlights Ryūko’s incredible adaptability and how her bond with Senketsu allows her to overcome any skill gaps that would normally hold her back. Their bond also lets her adjust to opponents much faster than most characters in the series, and a great example is her fight with Uzu Sanageyama. At the time, he was using a Life Fiber enhancement that allowed him to read even the slightest muscle movements and predict her every action. Rather than trying to overcome it head on, Ryūko deliberately let him strike Senketsu, sacrificing part of the uniform. The resulting lost fibers temporarily blinded Sanageyama, creating the opening she needed to finally land a decisive blow. She’s pulled off similar stunts against the rest of the Elite Four and her battles against Ragyo Kiryuin and Nui Harime, and it only serves to highlight just how deceptively resourceful she is, despite how she may come across initially. Maybe the biggest reason why she fights so well is her “recklessness”, which makes her extremely unpredictable in battle even for experts in collecting data.

Sadly, once the Life Fibers were gone, so was Senketsu. While Ryūko was still incredibly powerful just on her own due to her incredible physiology, the additional loss of the Scissor Blades not long after halted any chance for her to become an even better fighter in the future. Still, don’t let her short tenure fool you, because she’ll kick your ass to kingdom come if you mess with her or her friends.

Cutie Honey

Don’t let the bubbly personality fool you, as over the years, Honey’s been proven to be as deadly as they come in fighting prowess. Her agility and swordplay have been stated to be beyond human limits by police officer Natsuko Aki, and has been skilled enough to cut through hundreds of bullets shot at her. In Cutie Honey F, she was the top fencing student in St Chapel’s academy, even becoming the fencing club’s coach at the end of the show. She’s shown prowess in hand-to-hand combat too, as she regularly performs wrestling moves such as suplexes and power bombs, grapple holds, and has access to Sister Miki’s and Sister Yuki’s hand-to-hand skills at the end of Cutie Honey: The Live. The latter of whom is able to defeat foes like Duke Seiya Watari the 4th, who is stated to have extraordinary fighting abilities.

Honey has been active in fighting against the efforts of Panther Claw for at least 30 years by the time of Tennyo Densetsu, and has fought dozens of unorthodox members of that organization. Some of which include Taratula Panther, whom Honey was able to fight hand-to-hand against her four-armed form, Chamelion Claw, who is able to turn invisible and fire invisible objects, and those at the top, such as Prince Zera, Sister Jill, and Panther Zora, who are extradimensional entities that have lived since biblical times and have “incomprehensible forms” according to Honey herself. She’s so experienced in dispatching Panther Claw members that she’s been capable of fighting them while bound by chains, and even while poisoned. But she hasn’t just been fighting against Panther Claw members all this time, as she has also fought aliens, champions of prison death matches, and has also been recognized as a legendary member of the Mazinger Angels. She personally trained Sayaka, Hikaru, Maria, and Jun to improve their abilities as the current Mazinger Angels team. 

Though, speaking of Mazinger Angels, she’s also been called “the master of disguise”, which is an apt title given that she’s been able to fool police officers with her disguises. She’s also been capable of tricking foes like Marara by disguising as her dead sister, and Sister Jill by disguising as Tarantula Panther. Heck, even in the Mazinger Angels story, her disguise of Hikaru amazed Sayaka, Jun, and Maria, and they even commented that she sounded exactly like her. Besides that, she’s also been shown as highly intelligent generally, being capable of recalling multiple digits of Pi, and was able to do brain surgery to revert Seiji back to normal after looking up files on a Panther Claw computer.

Equipment

Ryūko Matoi

Vespa

Given as a present from Mako’s father Barazō, it’s an ordinary Vespa, perfect for romantic drives or for a subtle FLCL reference. The gas meter is jammed, so the bike can run out of gas without warning.

Red Motor Bike

Ryūko’s primary method of transportation during the time when Senketsu was in shreds. It pairs pretty well with the rest of her color scheme, I can’t lie.

Purple Motor Bike

The moment she broke up with Senketsu after discovering the truth about her parents and the Life Fibers, the heartbroken and isolated Ryūko stole this bike to confront her mother while completely naked …don’t try this at home.

 

Life Fibers

Life Fibers are extraterrestrial organisms woven into the fabric of human civilization, capable of granting immense power to those who synchronize with them. Through Senketsu and her own hybrid physiology, Ryūko can harness their abilities directly, absorbing Life Fibers from external sources to replenish her strength and recover from injuries. As a human-Life Fiber hybrid, her compatibility with them far exceeds that of ordinary users.

Seki Tekkō

A specialized blood-drawing glove. The Seki Tekkō allows Ryūko to rapidly feed him her blood, maintaining synchronization and granting access to his transformations. Interestingly, when Aikurō first presents the glove to Ryūko, it’s shown it had been hidden inside one of Senketsu's sleeves the entire time as a missing original component of the Kamui, something Ryūko didn’t notice.

Scissor Blades

Created by Dr. Isshin Matoi as a countermeasure against Life Fibers, the Scissor Blades are among the most advanced pieces of Life Fiber technology in the series. Rather than being made from conventional materials, the weapons are constructed from compressed and hardened Life Fibers, granting them extraordinary durability and sharpness. Because of their unique composition, they are capable of slicing through materials that would normally be impossible to cut, making them one of the few weapons specifically suited for combating Life Fiber-based opponents, and can be used in a lot of variations.

Red Scissor Blade

One of Ryūko’s original weapons, it appears to be half of a scissor in the shape of a sword, and well, that’s because it is one. At first Ryūko only held one of the scissor blades as her father’s killer had taken the other, but it was still an extremely deadly weapon on its own.

Rending Scissors

Ryūko eventually succeeded in avenging her father's murder and reclaiming the missing half of the Scissor Blade, finally restoring the weapon to its complete form. With both halves in her possession, she gained access to two primary methods of combat. She could separate them into a pair of swords, expanding upon her usual fighting style with dual-wielding techniques, or combine them into their iconic scissor configuration. This second form is particularly important against Life Fibers, as its twin blades can cut a target from both sides at once. Since Life Fibers are normally capable of regenerating from most injuries, striking them simultaneously from both directions is the only reliable method of defeating them. 

Tiny Mode

For convenience, the Scissor Blades can shrink down to the size of ordinary scissors, allowing Ryūko to easily carry them in her pocket.

Decapitation Mode

The basest of Ryūko’s blades’ super forms is Decapitation mode, it doubles the length of her scissor blades and amplifies their power.

Dual Decapitation Mode

In the final battle, Ryūko recombines the Rending Scissors with a screw that appears seemingly out of nowhere. In this form, their size is amplified by an even greater margin and are implied to be much more powerful than any other tool in Ryūko’s kit. However, their one attack failed, as by this point Ragyo had rendered herself entirely immune to any life fibers.

Alumni Mode

After the grand finale, in the epilogue OVA, Ryūko was able to separate the scissor blades and amplify their size to the largest degree they had ever been, the left one known as Final Address mode and the other Decommission Mode. This is often referred to as Scissor Blade Alumni Mode. The length augmentation increased the Scissor Blades from roughly two and a half feet to over 2,500 feet long, making them approximately 1,017 times larger than their normal size. It can also survive atmospheric entry.

Sen'i Shōshitsu

Regardless of mode, Ryūko can perform a finishing move called Sen'i Shōshitsu, which consists of unleashing a powerful ranged slash, slicing apart an opponent's uniform from a distance, completely dismantling it. This leaves the exposed Life Fiber vulnerable to Senketsu, who can then absorb the alien organisms and prevent them from regenerating or being used further. But it doesn’t stop there…

Cutie Honey

Airborne Element Solidifier

Also known as “Airborne Element Condenser”, “Airborne Element Fixing Device”, “Fixed System of Air Elements”, “Matter Transformer”, “I-System”, “Honey System”... seriously they need to pick a name for this thing and not change forever. Basically, this device is built directly into Honey, and is the main reason for why she can change into so many different forms.

While it has had a great many names, its function has been pretty consistent over the years. In the original manga, it allows Honey to draw upon the elements in the air and create numerous different substances, potentially even being able to generate an infinite number of them. This is also corroborated in the sequel series. In other words, it can pretty much allow Honey to conjure whatever she wants in a situation. It’s pretty powerful (stated to be potentially more dangerous than a nuke), and lets Honey do almost everything she can do. She’s only capable of using such a powerful system because she has the imagination to match its potential, turning her thoughts into reality, so to speak.

Of course, as it requires a lot of energy to generate objects with it, Honey has to eat food in order to keep her energy up. If she ever runs low on energy, she could lose the ability to use, well, her abilities. However, this weakness in and of itself is incredibly inconsistent across her 50+ years of history, both in terms of how long it takes for her energy to run out, and if it’s even mentioned in said continuity to begin with. Even in direct sequels to the original manga or spinoffs like Grendizer Giga and Cutie Honey vs. Devilman Lady drawn by Nagai himself, this weakness genuinely never comes up at all. Even still, the amount of food she needs to get back to her full strength isn’t really that much sometimes, though there are exceptions.

Later series expanded upon how far her abilities go with it. Here’s a general list of what the system is capable of:

• Matter Manipulation & Deconstruction (Sub-Atomic/Quantum Level): Well, duh. It’s been a consistent thing since the original manga that the system draws elements from the air to rearrange their matter. But that’s not all. The system is capable of instantly disintegrating and reconfiguring matter on the level of quarks. By harnessing the “phase contrast between phi space and current space,” it effectively functions as a semi-perpetual motion machine, obtaining infinite energy from hyperspace. Honey can even visualize these atomic elements individually in the air.

• Durability Negation & Absorption: Honey is quite capable of using this power in an offensive manner. Her Honey Flash can outright obliterate foes without a trace left, dispersing people into particles that she can in turn absorb. She can channel it through her sword to slash things into particles, or just flat out absorb elements into her body directly, strengthening her skeleton and muscle mass. At her strongest, simply making contact with her can cause deconstruction. Notably, she was able to use this power to absorb not just Sister Jill, an android comparable to her in complexity, but a gigantic nuke in its entirety. 

• Existence Erasure: In addition to reconstructing matter, the system is capable of deleting matter altogether, such as the time Honey deleted Freddy Claw, a being who was able to regenerate from body destruction, from existence.

• Non-Physical Interaction (Abstract): The AEFD can crystallise beings like Panther Zora, whose essence is composed entirely of the collective greeds and desires of Humanity.

• Biological Manipulation: As expected, her power is able to work on organic beings and objects. For example, she was able to change her spit into nitroglycerin. She could also give her own eyes special hypnotic rays that can control the minds of animals, as well as angel wings that actually let her fly.

• Life Manipulation: Honey simply standing around flowers will cause them to bloom, a result of the system doing its work. Additionally, her tears are able to bring Seiji back to life.

• Regeneration: One of the abilities Honey has consistently kept since the original manga. She was able to regenerate her shredded skin. But it only got stronger from there. Direct sequels elaborate on Honey’s regenerative capabilities. As long as nothing affects her brain or mechanical skeleton, she is able to regenerate an infinite number of times. Muscles, organs and even her heart can be healed from, and she can even delay how long it takes for her to regenerate for stealth tactics. This is corroborated by Nagai numerous times, even going as far to say she can regenerate every single cell. The device, when used by Koji Kabuto, is able to regenerate his entire outer body at once, as well as injuries in his heart. Honey is able to heal the wounds of other people, as well as regenerate from shots to the head. But believe it or not, it goes even further, as in certain iterations she’s able to regenerate her entire body from being disintegrated into particles in a short timeframe, as well as quickly reform her body from nanomachines at the subatomic level.

• Longevity: Her regeneration is the main reason she’s able to exist across several decades with no signs of aging at all, even after her friends from the previous series have grown older.

• Accelerated Development: Every time Honey regenerates, she grows much stronger. Believe it or not, this is pretty consistent throughout the franchise. Oftentimes, Honey will go from being stomped, regenerating, to suddenly curbstomping. Honey also gains these amps through willpower as well, as she oneshot Gala after being impaled due to her belief in others counting on her, and defeated Sister Jill in Universe through others believing in her. Megatron could only wish…

Heart Earring

Honey’s earring can function as a receiver for radio signals, allowing her to communicate with allies from long distances. She can even use it to hone on other people’s conversations.

Honey Boomerang

That armband isn’t just for show, as Honey can use it to shoot out her own Honey Boomerangs. They’re strong enough to cut through threads, chains, and even humans, and Honey can turn them into heart shaped platforms, shoot them danmaku style, or turn them into a drill to pierce through her foes.

Silver Fleurette

Honey’s premiere weapon. While it's very very good at slicing and dicing through foes, Honey has used it for a plethora of abilities throughout the franchise, such as shooting out flames, shocking opponents, and shooting out beams. Its most powerful ability comes from Cutie Honey Universe where it can cut through space itself, slicing through enemies or even the Moon with ease. In that version, it can transform into a Shichishito, or Seven-Branched Sword.

Boomerang Bleu

Sister Miki’s premiere weapon that Honey used after she absorbed her particles. Make sure to stay away from her when she throws it…

Platinum Chakram

Sister Yuki’s premiere weapon that Honey can use after Honey absorbed her. It’s capable of lifting people in the air and making wave blasts. 

Lightning Lancer

By absorbing an electric blast, Honey can reform her sword into an electric spear. The spear generates Super Vibrating Shock Waves that are capable of disintegrating nanomachines in 0.1 seconds. 

Magical Glasses

Honey just randomly pulls out glasses that can see through walls.

Honey Comet

A single seat jet Honey had to use in order to get to Dolmech’s ship in order to save Chokkei. Was durable enough to ram inside of said ship before exploding. RIP.

Bulletproof Bra

Gotta protect the breasts for all the fans.

Anti-Gravity Boots

These boots make Honey light on her feet, allowing her to work on very small and frail surfaces without applying the effect of gravity on them.  

Mirror

A mirror. Made of glass. Can show the opponent how ugly they look if they aren’t aware.

Bolas

Honey quickly pulls one out to dispatch with a Panther Claw goon. Nightwing is looking up in pride right now.

Car

Honey’s sweet whip that can extend its wheels with enough force to push other cars off the road and can disassemble itself. (and Honey’s clothes too somehow)

Interdimensional Ship

During the time between Cutie Honey and Cutie Honey 90s, Honey theorized that Panther Claw were actually life forms from another dimension (she was right, go figure), and presumably made this ship to travel there. It is capable of creating massive portals to other dimensions.

Cutie Honey Mecha

A mech in the form of Cutie Honey from her time as a Mazinger Angel. Can shoot out Honey Boomerangs and has a giant version of the Silver Fleurette, as seen above. It was also in Super Robot Wars! Neat!

Abilities

Ryūko Matoi

Life Fiber Hybrid Physiology

Due to her nature as a child of experiments performed with the Life Fibers, Ryūko’s human physiology is altered by the fibers that pervade in every part of her body. Because of this, she has numerous abilities far advanced from normal human capabilities, even when not wearing Senketsu. The most important things granted by her physiology are:

Life Fiber Manipulation

Ryūko can use the Life Fibers from her suit for various methods, such as using it as a bladed whip, as a tennis racket, to grapple opponents, blind opponents, you name it! When her swords are inoperative, she’s still able to change Senketsu’s form into basically whatever she wants. Her imagination is the limit and she’s best at using this when it comes to catching her enemies off guard. For example, Ryūko can turn her threads into sharp pins that can attach her into the ground, useful for preventing her opponents from escaping or taking her for a ride, or smash an entire stadium to catch an enemy.

Regeneration and Adaptive Evolution

Studio Trigger really pulled (the trigger) on this concept again. Ryūko and Senketsu’s fusion has great regeneration and adaptive evolution due to their Life Fiber biology. To start with, she’s much more durable than the average human, on top of having an augmented healing factor that allows her to heal from damage extremely quickly. On top of that, she has an ability to communicate directly with her Life Fiber companion, Senketsu, something no Goku Uniform wearer has. Due to this bond, she is able to contend with the strongest characters in her universe with only a couple weeks of experience due to her augmented ability to rapidly become stronger under pressure.

She’s also shown capable of absorbing Life Fibers, something we see consistently during the anime for her to grow in power, overpowering foes she couldn't before in a matter of seconds. In certain cases, they can also acquire new capabilities from the Life Fibers they assimilate. After absorbing Ragyo's Kamui during the series finale, Ryūko and Senketsu gained access to Absolute Submission. As for their regeneration, even the average Kamui can remain alive after being torn apart, regenerating if their separated pieces are reunited, but this duo goes even further. Because of this, Ryūko can regenerate after shoving her hand into her skull and slicing into her own brain to remove mind stitching, as well as from her tooth going right through her skull in her Berserk form. Her mother Ragyō also stated that as long as a single thread connected her body to her head, she would be able to put it back together.

During Kill la Kill: IF, these abilities kick up to eleven. Kamuis are shown to have the ability to turn dreams into physical universes where time is compressed (more on this later), and this compression keeps Ryūko’s stamina refreshed to speed up her power creep. If that wasn’t enough, not only she but the Primordial Life Fiber can absorb Life Fibers from every point in space and time across several timelines and dimensions, past present and future. By drawing these Life Fibers from other dimensions/timelines, they can also sustain an extended form of regeneration that grows stronger as Ryūko takes more and more damage, consistent with the fact Life Fibers are stated to get stronger as the host gets closer to death, à la Zenkai Boost. This type of regeneration is so impressive it bypasses the Life Fiber's usual weakness of being cut from both sides.

PS: While we used the Grand Summoners crossover to provide additional support for Life Fiber's space-time related abilities (more on this later), the crossover's cellular regeneration feat is likely best excluded, as it lacks support from other sources and may be unique to the Life Fiber-infused monster involved in the event.

Teleportation

The Primordial Life Fiber is capable of teleporting, and Ryūko states she’s also capable of doing anything it can. This is directly proven when Ryūko begins to mimic its abilities, even doing them better than the Primordial Life Fiber itself. It’s also a general statement about Life Fibers.

Space-Time and Spatial Related Powers

I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING. Kamuis can turn dreams into physical universes where time is compressed. Ryūko has the ability to cross dimensional barriers to absorb Life Fibers from other dimensions. These walls usually prevent dimensional travel. Her sister, Satsuki, used Ryūko’s Rending Scissors to destroy an entire universe, including its space-time. It overcame the Primordial Life Fiber while its constant regeneration was active, affecting the structure of the universe itself.

Ryūko can also view the future via touching Life Fibers she absorbs from other timelines. Satsuki saw the whole future of the Anime by touching these kinds of Life Fibers, and Ryūko was also made aware the Kisaragi form was something she would receive once more in the future. Senketsu can also sense time anomalies like time compression. To finish this, while out of character for either Ryūko or Senketsu, the Primordial Life Fiber can spin down a timeline into a piece of itself, and Ryūko can do anything it can.

Additionally, the Grand Summoners crossover gives support to the space-time abilities seen in IF. Not only Junketsu can detect temporal anomalies, Life Fibers are stated to repair seams in space-time, and Ryūko eventually creates a space-time rift after absorbing a large amount of Life Fibers. 

TL;DR:

• Space-Time Powers

• Universe Creation

• Time Compression

• Future Sight

• Temporal Anomaly Detection

• Space-Time Rift Creation

• Timeline Manipulation

• Spatial Powers

• Spatial Cutting

• Dimensional Travel

• Dimensional Barrier Crossing

Senketsu Mubyoshi

Think of the Royal Guard. During their battle with Nonon, Ryūko attuned to the rhythm of the attack, redirected its energy and ultimately reflected the assault back at Nonon herself.

Pressurised Air Slashes

Ryūko can slash the air with her sword, which creates a sharp gust of wind usable as a projectile against her enemies, giving her a range advantage in most of her fights.

Ground Burst

In Kill la Kill IF, Ryūko can transform her air slashes into ground bursts that have shorter range but blow up in close quarters, dealing devastating damage to an enemy on the ground and travelling in a straight line like a Reppuken.

Shockwaves

Similar to her air slashes, Ryūko can send out much more powerful shockwaves by slashing at the air, these are much more devastating than her regular projectiles and pack a world of hurt for her enemies.

Chi

As a kid, Satsuki could defeat 499 students simply with her chi, due to being stronger than them. She also used it in her fight against her sister, according to the novelization. Shouldn’t be out of Ryūko’s league.

Boosters

Whenever Ryūko builds up too much heat in combat, she is able to release it in the form of pink bursts of energy from the back of her uniform and Senketsu’s flaps, much like a Mobile Suit. This increases her mobility, speed and striking power thanks to the added thrust.

Smokescreen

Ryūko can exude smoke from Senketsu, creating a smoke wave that disguises her and her attacks from her enemies. Mostly used like a ninja smoke bomb for a quick escape.

Afterimage Creation

Alien Baltan would be proud.

Illusion Creation

Satsuki was able to create the illusion of cutting down nearly a hundred people at once despite none of them being harmed. Ryūko should be capable of doing the same, as she also performed some level of illusionary powers despite being different from Satsuki’s.

Consciousness Absorption

The Kamui can absorb and contain a person's consciousness within itself. One Kamui shirt absorbed Mako's mind/spiritual essence, allowing her consciousness to persist within the garment. After attaching itself to members of the Elite Four, Mako was able to project her consciousness through the Kamui and temporarily take control of their bodies. Senketsu should be able to help Ryūko do the same.

Mako-Specific Telepathy

Ryūko can communicate mentally with Mako through their unusually strong bond. The use of the term "以心伝心" (ishin denshin) implies a direct transmission of thoughts and feelings between the two. How romantic!

Cutie Honey

Android Physiology

Honey’s much more than an ordinary girl, after all! Physically, the outer layer of Honey’s body, including the majority of her internal organs, are near-identical to that of a normal person. This is because Dr. Kisaragi wished for Honey to live her life as an ordinary human. If only she was so lucky. But underneath the hood, she’s much different.

For one (as seen above) her skeleton is made of hyper metals and stronger alloys, making her even more resistant to damage. Her heart is made from electroactive polymers, and her muscle density is much stronger, making her at least 4 to 7 times stronger than an ordinary human. But she isn’t just strong physically. She has generally enhanced senses, including sight that can see in infrared and detect body heat. She can sense demonic presences and bloodlust, even if her enemy is disguised or if the object is invisible. Her brain is a supercomputer which is able to analyze data instantly, even being able to perceive opponents much faster than her. As said brain is a machine, she was able to be completely immune to Sister Jill’s mind control waves, which affected ordinary people in droves. And if anyone asks if an android such as herself feels fear, her answer would be no (she doesn’t know what it is).

In addition, she has various defenses built into her by her late father that protect her from a lot of outside forces. Her memories are encrypted, and she has great hacking potential, possibly being able to take control of the US nuclear system based on Sister Jill, who in Re was Honey’s prototype, doing so. She can operate any machinery as if it was a part of her, and she can sense invisible hackers in their own domain. If she can download the data on something, she’ll be able to construct it. She can even filter out the wavelength of gold (a wavelength longer than 5600 angstroms), as well as detect spirits. 

As a last resort, Honey can both deactivate herself and even self-destruct, although we don’t see her do the latter.

Honey Flash

Honey’s signature “move”. By tapping the choker on her neck and in a flash of light, Honey is able to utilize the power of her internal systems in order to conjure up anything from the air. And by anything, we do mean ANYTHING! Working in tandem with her Airborne Element Condenser, Honey will be able to manifest objects, as well as change herself or things around her. This is how she’s able to change her outfits and create new things on the fly. As stated before, Honey could theoretically create an infinite number of substances out of thin air.

Honey Flash itself can be used offensively. The flash of light that it creates can blind enemies, absorb threads entangling Honey into her own outfit or outright destroy them, as well as easily blast through hordes of monsters. Channeling it through her sword will disperse whatever it touches into particles. It can also be used defensively, as a barrier to protect Honey mid-transformations from attacks.

But it gets pretty nuts as in Cutie Honey Universe, Honey Flash allows her to teleport herself and anyone she desires into a subspace tunnel that weaves all throughout the universe, and possibly even into other realities, as shown in the circus fight.

Honey also doesn’t necessarily have to always tap her choker in order to activate the Honey Flash. Sometimes verbal commands are more than enough, or she can just activate it with her will alone. At its best, it can activate when an enemy does something as simple as make contact with her. So don’t try anything stupid!

Honey Typhoon

Honey spins her sword at high speeds to generate a large pink tornado and launch several opponents high into the air.

Honey Storm

Honey generates an underwater current to trap her opponents in.

Honey Tornado

Honey spins her sword fast enough to redirect attacks.

Tornado Suplex

Honey spins herself and the opponent so fast they fly up into the air and crash on the ground.

Honey Shining

Honey creates 6 shields of different shapes to protect her from oncoming projectiles. They’re strong enough to block bullets.

Honey Mirage

Honey splits into 7 light clones with the colors of the rainbow. Each one can still cause damage to the enemy while attacking simultaneously.

Honey Special

Honey spins around as she materializes gems and diamonds. Perfect for distracting those chasing the bag like Sister Jill.

Honey Beam

Through tapping her choker, Honey can shoot a small laser-like beam to distract or burn through her enemies or obstacles.

Forcefield Creation

When she was trying to embrace Sister Jill, Honey seemingly passively conjured up a barrier to block Jill’s spikes. (Wished she did that before her clothes got ripped off tho…) In Universe she can summon mirages of her friends to deflect attacks as well. She also does this to save Natsuki in the Re OVA.

Gravity Wave

Honey generates a forcefield that causes anything thrown her way to bounce back.

Honey Lightning Flare

Stated as Honey’s “Ultimate attack”, she lunges at her enemy with the fluriette and carves her signature into their bodies, in which they usually explode or evaporate afterwards. Pretty hardcore for a finishing move.

Honey Crescent

Honey spins in a circular motion, cutting through any enemy in her path. Honey also has a variation of this move where she just spindashes through the enemy instead.

Gravity Rain

Through pressing her Fleurette hilt, Honey shoots dozens of black spheres at her enemy.

Dimension Slash

Honey can use the Silver Fleurette to rend space itself, and leave it cut for a while. This attack seemingly has enough range to clear out a storm when used with the sword’s Shichishito form. No black clouds will ever exist in isolation near her.

Surface Scaling

Honey’s shoes possess adhesive cells, allowing her to run along walls and ceilings like Spider-Man.

Honey Jump

Look at her go!

Heat Manipulation

Honey’s anger can cause her body to heat up, enough to the point of conjuring flames (as well as burning her food).

Teleportation

Where did she go? We don’t know…

Levitation

Honey is capable of just flat out levitating in the air during her rematch against Sister Jill in the Re OVA.

Fourth Wall Awareness

Honey (as well as other characters) are pretty consistently aware of the fact that they’re characters made by Go Nagai. It’s not particularly combat applicable, but it is funny.

Illusion Creation

While Honey herself hasn’t displayed the ability, Sister Yuki, a being who had Honey’s AEFD, was able to conjure up an illusion when she was beating up Honey. Honey should be able to do the same.

Resistances

Ryūko Matoi

• Sourness: See above. How does she even do it?

• Extreme Heat: Rending Scissors are unharmed by atmospheric reentry, Ryūko can touch it whilst it’s on fire with no harm. Survived her own blood and body being hot enough to melt a large area of stone, surrounding herself in a pool of blood as if it were lava while she was berserk. Survived being in the middle of a large fire tornado with no noticeable burns.

• Spatial Cutting: Scaling from Satsuki. Satsuki can withstand attacks from the Primordial Life Fiber, which physically breaks space time, and from the Dual Rending Scissors, which can cut a Universe’s space-time. Good luck, Vergil!

• Transmutation: In Track 3 of the second Audio Drama, Guts (the dog, no relation) eats Life Fiber bugs which transmute and mutate him into a massive monster. Ryūko is forced to fight and absorb these bugs in order to return Guts to normal. She is unaffected by them. Likewise, Satsuki is unaffected by these bugs and her aura burns them alive.

• Mind Manipulation: Satsuki resists the mental influence of Junketsu's Kamui-induced mind control, though she can still be affected by Mind Stitching in IF. Ryūko was able to break free from Junketsu's control on her first exposure, and later Ragyo had to combine Mind Stitching with Junketsu's influence to successfully affect her. Ryūko then overcomes this conditioning entirely after Mako and Senketsu help her reaffirm her identity, to the point that Ragyo no longer bothers attempting to control her.

• This is further supported by the nature of Kamui themselves, which are capable of absorbing and housing a person's consciousness. Given that Ryūko and Satsuki are able to maintain their sense of self while synchronizing with sentient Kamui and interacting with Life Fiber-based forms of mental and spiritual manipulation, they should possess notable resistance to mind manipulation, consciousness manipulation, and similar forms of mental interference.

• Rending Scissors can undo mind stitching 

Cutie Honey

• Extreme Temperatures and Radiation: Caught and redirected a fireball made from Fire Panther, was fine kicking through Sister Jill’s barrier which burnt Natsuko to death, and wasn’t affected by atmospheric re-entry (~1650 ºC). Was at the epicenter of the detonation of multiple nuclear bombs and absorbed all of its energy (100,000,000 ºC). She was also fine drinking a juice that froze food and people solid instantly upon contact (-28 - -40ºC). 

• Matter Manipulation (Sub-Atomic/Quantum level): Was able to resist Sister Yuki’s attempt to absorb her with Honey Flash. Has complete control of every singular particle of her body on this level. (see Airborne Element Solidifier for more information.)

• Mind and Sleep Manipulation: Honey was able to withstand hypnosis beams that caused others to instantly fall asleep when hit by it, and negated Rose Claw’s mind controlling scent. Once Sister Yuki got hold of Honey’s AEFD, she was able to override Kaachan’s control system, and needed a mind control amulet to subdue her. Completely immune to Sister Jill’s brainwave control, as she has an electronic brain.

• Electricity Manipulation: Tanked electricity that killed Cobalt Claw, and was fine after Robo-Watari constantly blasted electric attacks at her. 

• Fear Manipulation: Is said not to feel fear due to being an android. Was fine looking at a panther that causes guards and a whole crowd of people to pass out due to fear. 

• Sound Manipulation: Was fine after getting hit with soundwaves which can break through stone fingers and send others reeling in pain. Resisted the loud sound from multiple nuclear bombs after being at the epicenter of their detonation, which can reach from 240 to 280 decibels.

• Emotional Manipulation: Was stated to have a limiter from romantic feelings. 

• Poisons: The I-System created an antidote for Honey after she was knocked unconscious by Tarantula Panther’s poison. Honey was fine inhaling poisonous gas which killed people.

• Acid: Honey was fine when Snake Panther’s acid splashed on her, which was strong enough to melt concrete and steel.

• Clairvoyance and Possible Fate Manipulation: The Bisque Doll which is stated to have the fate of all things centered in its eyes and was able to reveal Honey’s identity to Seiji, the fate of Dr. Kirasagi, and predicted Nat failing her test was unable to see Honey’s fate clearly, revealing a multicolored rainbow and calling her burdened by fate. Twilight Panther also stated that Honey is fighting for her own fate in the battle against Sister Jill.

• Biological Manipulation: Resisted capsules that turned people into beasts due to being a robot (duh.)

• Corruption/Assimilation/Hacking: Honey resisted Sister Jill’s attempt to take over with her nanomachines, who was able to casually hack and override  U.S Nuclear Missile systems. The I-System was also able to negate Honey’s assimilation into Sister Jill. 

• Spatial Manipulation: Honey’s absorption of the nukes spawned a rift within the space time continuum of the multiverse, and later she was able to seal it. Vergil, RUN.

Forms

Ryūko Matoi

“Inactive” Senketsu

This form fundamentally serves as Ryūko’s civilian attire. She still latently holds the abilities she can access in her higher forms, but limited due to her lack of skin exposure (yes, that does matter in Kill la Kill).

Transformed Senketsu

Ryūko’s base battle form. In it, she gains heightened strength, speed, and agility on par with the strongest in the Honnouji Academy, in exchange for her blood, giving this form a time limit that has been overtaxed in the past. Along with that, in this form, she still cannot tap into the true power of the Life Fibers due to her lack of experience and limited connection with Senketsu, however…

Full Life Fiber Synchronization

…this changes when she attains full Life Fiber synchronization. This effectively becomes her standard transformation once she unlocks it. With her bond with Senketsu complete, in this form she can tap into the upper limits of power granted to her by the Life Fiber connection. She unlocks this form in her battle against Nui and uses it alongside Satsuki in their final battle against Ragyo.

Considering the next form we’re about to show exists, and the fact that Ryūko is based on Cutie Honey, it’s not impossible that the flaps she gains in her Synchronization form are a reference to Mazinger Z’s heat sinks. Truly Breast Fire.

Berserk Mode

The Life Fibers do have their limits, and Ragyo’s short temper has pushed Senketsu past them before. When sent into a wrathful state, Senketsu fully takes over Ryūko’s body and loses control of his mind, transforming the pair into an out-of-control monster that indiscriminately attacks anything within range. Besides being one of the series' more striking transformations, the Berserk form also showcases Ryūko’s absurd regeneration, as she remains active despite having one of her own teeth driven straight through her head while the form is active. Fortunately, due to Ryūko’s mastery of the Life Fibers later in the series, this only appears once. It also makes Ryūko look exactly like Devilman!

Senketsu Senjin

Senketsu’s blade-form, that allows Ryūko to weaponize her entire body with sharp edges protruding out of every part of her outfit, making her a nightmare to fight in close range.

Senketsu Shippu

Senketsu’s flight-form, allowing Ryūko to jet through the sky at ridiculous speeds, using her skirt as a jet to propel her forward… somehow...

Senketsu Shippu Senjin

A combination of her Senjin and Shippu forms that allow her to both fly and use her clothing as a weapon, making Ryūko an absolute beast in aerial combat.

Senketsu Kisaragi

Ryūko and Senketsu’s true final form. Utilizing both their powerful bond and the powers of all the Goku uniforms of the friends she made in her journey, Ryūko is able to enter her golden form, with the abilities of all the previous forms available along with greatly amplified strength (which she can further boost) and speed. In this form, not only did she defeat her sinister mother, but she eliminated all the Life Fibers on the planet after a climactic final battle. Unfortunately, this move also resulted in the death of Senketsu himself, who used his final burst of strength to save Ryūko’s life on the fall back to earth, finally free from the war that drove the two together to begin with.

Cutie Honey

Honey Kisaragi

A girl with a cute butt who’s the center of attention, if the lyrics of her theme song are to be believed. We’ll leave that for the reader to decide for themselves, but this is basically Honey’s “base” form, so to speak. It’s used for civilian activities, and is what Honey looks like when she’s not transformed. Of course, all her mechanical functions still work just fine in this state. While she doesn’t carry any weapons, just one tap of her heart-shaped choker, and they’ll be there at a moment's notice.

Cutie Honey

Honey’s most famous transformation by a long shot. It’s pretty much her default transformation for most combat scenarios, acting as the main outfit she acts in as a superhero. This form is simple in concept yet effective, and usually comes with Honey’s usual trappings, including her Silver Fleuret and Honey Boomerang.

Berserk Mode

When Sister Jill tried to eat Honey’s “heart”, Honey started going berserk and tapped into her fighting spirit. In this state she becomes an indiscriminate fighting machine, constantly creating nanomachine mirages to attack any foes she detects. However this form does have a major drawback in energy consumption as Honey was completely drained and needed a TOTALLY platonic cuddle from Nat to re-energize herself after tapping into the state for a few minutes. In other media, this state can be triggered simply via extreme emotions such as sorrow.

Hyper Honey

By a click of a button (don’t ask where), Honey gets roided out and becomes Hyper Honey. This form greatly increases her physical strength, and can be paired with Armored Knight Honey. 

Hyper Honey (F)

After absorbing Seira into her heart, Honey unlocked a brand new form to tap into called… Hyper Honey… yeah. A lot more tamer than the other version. Beyond packing a new outfit, this form grants Honey a strength boost allowing her to easily defeat foes strong enough to beat down Cutie Honey, and a couple of stylish new moves to boot as well, which are the following.

• Honey Virginal Invitation: An upgraded version of Honey’s lightning flare.

• Rouge Arrow: A miniature crossbow which shoots out arrows with various elemental effects, such as burning, splashing, freezing, or shocking the opponent.

Bullfighter Honey

Honey assumes the form of a bullfighter with a muleta that’s strong enough to deflect bullets.

Hurricane Honey

Honey’s usual form for transportation. She comes equipped with biker gear, helmet and a motorcycle, as well as being able to shoot out lasers and control machines. It can also be combined with Armored Honey to become Armored Hurricane Honey.

Explorer Honey

Outfits Honey with a classic explorer look for hot climates, and arms her with a repeater carbine.

Cowboy Honey

Outfits Honey with a classic cowboy outfit and arms her with two six-shooter revolvers which can be used in quickdraws.

Ryo Honey

Dresses Honey up like Ryo Asuka from the original Devilman manga, and arms her with a scoped rifle that’s able to shoot through a demon comparable to Devilman himself. No, she cannot become Satan. Although…

Angel Honey

Honey sprouts wings and dons her heavenly garments and shield to smite ye wicked foes with the holy blade.

Camerawoman Honey

An ordinary reporter disguise. Comes equipped with a camera that can reveal disguises.

Armor Knight Honey

Suits Honey up in full plate armor for extra defense. She also gets equipped with a jousting lance and a longsword. The armor features retractable spikes that can be ejected to impale opponents.

Nurse Honey

One of Honey’s most iconic forms that allows her to blend in with medical staff. She gets equipped with throwing scalpels like Black Jack and a syringe that contains an anaesthetic.

Ninja Honey

A full black ninja suit with a mask made for sneaking around and blending in with the shadows of the night. Skin tight for… tactical reasons. Comes equipped with sleeping gas. In the Live, she can also do substitution Jutsu.

Jungle Honey

Turns Honey into Tarzan. This form greatly increases her agility, being able to perform acrobatic jumps grabbing on ropes and vines. While it removes her clothes save for a leopard print loincloth, it also equips her with a knife.

Boso Honey

After sleeping for three days straight, Honey accidentally tapped into her boso form. In this state she generates a heat aura that can incinerate steel and gains a massive strength boost, although she is unstable and will destroy anyone in her way, no matter if they’re friend or foe. Just a single kick was able to incinerate a Panther Claw goon in his entirety, and a glare vaporized a motorcycle. Talk about a smoldering gaze.

Cutie Crabby

While fighting Pegasus Claw, Honey accidentally turned herself into a crab that can duplicate itself. Funniest thing we’ve ever seen.

Rocket Man Honey

A form that grants Honey mechanical wings that allow her to fly at high speeds through the air.

Combat Plane Honey

Used during her battle against a fleet of aliens alongside the UFO Robo Grendizer, this form fits Honey with a pair of wing boosters that allow her to take to the skies, even reaching escape velocity beyond the atmosphere. The two guns on her arms are strong enough to punch right through robotic monsters.

Animal Tamer Honey

When fighting some Panther Claw members inside a circus dimension, Honey donned her Animal Tamer form. In this form, she carries a whip and can shoot out eye beams to mind control animals.

Misty Honey

A singer whose skills will leave foes in shock and awe. Someone needs to tell her to get new material tho, and ditch the controversial makeup choice…

Magnet Honey

Honey briefly donned this form to stop bullets in their tracks and take guns away from Panther Claw goons.

Mazinger Honey

Honey summons a Mazinger body that she can control from the cockpit located on its head. It’s huge and stronger than her base form. It is unknown if it retains the same abilities as the real Mazinger Z.

Delinquent Honey

Honey summons a bat and a bike for her and her gang to chase you down with. Sukeban representation.

Disguises

Throughout the franchise, Honey has donned a plethora of different personas in order to trick and defeat Panther Claw members time and time again. Some of these guises are as Natsuko Aki, Geishas, Bronze Statues, Panther Claw goons, Scientists, Soldiers, Rockstars, Stewardesses, Cassopedias, Carpenters, Lyricists, Boxers, Wrestlers, Nuns, Mermaids, an Ultrapink Ranger, Swimmers, Native Americans (don’t ask), Boys, Circus Members, Reporters, Firefighters, Pirate Captains, among many many more…

Friends

Ryūko Matoi

Senketsu

Ryūko’s right-hand man. Acting as her sentient traditional sailor uniform, Senketsu has been with her through thick and thin. Beyond the average powers and transformations he grants, like changing his configuration out of tactical necessity, Senketsu is able to check any immediate change in Ryūko's physiology, even minor things like weight and BMI. He’s also essential to Ryūko mid-fight. Plenty of battles in the series involve the two of them putting their heads together to come up with new and inventive strategies to solve problems. Not only is he a good battle strategist, coming up with plans she wouldn’t initially consider, but he’s a great friend as well. Ryūko wouldn’t have gotten as far as she did without him right by her side.

Cutie Honey

Saber-Scan

A robotic companion for Honey that debuted in Cutie Honey Nova. It can surf the internet for information, hack into devices, detect enemies, fly, and help Honey transform.

Feats

Ryūko Matoi

Overall

Power

• Pulled Nonon’s giant mech out of the air - (1895.5 to 11010.8 metric tons)

• Ryūko and Satsuki create a massive air pressure blast with just their willpower - (1.14 tons of TNT)

• Smacked Omiko so hard that she causes a crater and small explosion on impact - (1.98 tons of TNT)

• Sliced apart two buildings with just the air pressure of her sword swing - (381 Tons of TNT)

• Caused a huge burst of water - (74.8 megatons of TNT)

• Her final clash with Satsuki creates air pressure that craters the ground around them and covers the entire arena they were fighting in - (231.3 megatons of TNT)

• As Berserk Ryūko, the Clash with Satsuki launches giant pillars and creates a huge column of fire - (1.6 teratons of TNT for the pillars, 1 gigaton of TNT for the fire column)

• As Berserk Ryūko, her initial clash with Satsuki creates a huge burst of dust - (5.5 to 135.3 teratons of TNT)

• Used Absolute Submission to disperse the Cocoon Genesis Sphere - (45.1 Yottatons of TNT)

• IF gave us more clarification on this move, and now we know Ragyo’s Absolute Submission is AP based as the move can be used as an energy beam that Satsuki prevented Junketsu from using by weakening it. Ryūko is described as having absorbed Ragyo’s power when she uses it.

Speed

• Ran to the top of a large pillar in seconds - (Mach 2.3)

• Flew to space in seconds - (Mach 23.3 to 291.5)

• Sliced millions of tennis balls into string in less than a second - (1.02 million times FTL)

• Both the Script Book and the Manga not only imply that this number is meant to be taken literally, but also clarify that it refers to the move of a single person throwing all of the balls simultaneously

• The CD Drama has Ryūko specifically referring to the 110,000,000 serves themselves, instead of naming the attack, implying she is talking about the actual number of balls fired. Given Ryūko personally intercepted and cut through the serves during the fight, it makes her a credible source for commenting on their quantity. Additionally, the Tennis Club Captain is present during the conversation and does not dispute this claim, further supporting that interpretation. Since the Drama CDs were written by series writer Kazuki Nakashima, this likely reflects the author's intent. In addition, the Script Book contains the scripts for the CD Drama, and in page 375, it confirms the interpretation above

• Absorbed some Life Fibers from beyond Satsuki’s dimension, across time and space, as well as different versions of herself - (At least 11.24 Quintillions c, likely Immeasurable, Check Before the Verdict)

Durability

• Survived a heart blast from Nonon that caused a crater on a metal tower - (0.24 Tons of TNT)

• Withstood an explosion that destroys a large boulder without Senketsu - (0.1 - 0.94 Tons of TNT)

• Casually deflected a slash from Nui caused a large water explosion  - (1.58 Tons of TNT)

• Survived being at the epicenter of an explosion that destroyed Ragyō Stadium - (3.3 Petatons - 9.1 Exatons of TNT)

Cutie Honey

Overall

Power

• Has the strength of four men - (Wow!)

• Has the strength of seven men - (Wow!!!)

• Shot Sirene’s eye out

• Sliced open Jun Fudo’s side

• Slices a Panther Claw monster and motorbike with ease

• Throws a motorcycle far away.

• The I-System operates by disassembling matter at the sub-atomic level, allowing Honey to recreate it into different objects, such as

• Her sword, the Silver Fleuret - (285.121 Kilotons of TNT)

• Her own body - (6.333 Megatons of TNT)

• A racing bike for the Hurricane Honey form - (37.983 Megatons of TNT)

• A small one-passenger jet - (43.641 Megatons of TNT)

• The I-System can convert Honey into pure energy - (1.3 Gigatons of TNT)

• Honey used energy from three other Honeys to seal a rift that shook all of reality and threatened to collapse it - (7.5 MegaFOE for each Honey, Check Before the Verdict)

Speed

• Can run faster than any human alive could

• Dodges and outruns machine gun fire

• Avoided a flurry of bullets

• Cuts through hundreds of bullets 

• Dodged the Hell Song multiple times, a sound attack

• Jumped over bullets - (Mach 1.4 to 1.5)

• Dodges soundwaves - (Mach 2.6)

• Intercepts dozens of missiles before they reach the police - (Mach 24.4 to 28.4)

• Combat Plane Honey flew to the upper atmosphere - (Mach 32)

• Travels deep into the cosmos to the hyperspace gate - (3.07 Billions c)

Durability

• Crashes through walls frequently

• Survives a Rose Bomb

• Survives a Prison Island’s explosion

• Absorbed a storm that covered an entire city before “dying” - (1.358 Megatons of TNT)

• Absorbed a nuclear bomb that detonated over Tokyo - (4.68 Gigatons of TNT)

• The detonation of the bomb created a rupture across multiple Cutie Honey timelines - (5x Universal, Multiversal+?; Complicated, Check Before the Verdict)

Scaling

Ryūko Matoi

Satsuki Kiryuin

Ryūko frequently clashes with her sister and is proven to be her equal, in addition to using a Kamui uniform that shares all of its properties with Ryūko’s. Even in their super forms in IF Ryūko is both shown and stated to be equal to Satsuki. Scaling is simple enough. 

• Defeated 500 students alone when younger

• Kicks Ryūko so hard that she creates a crater on the wall without making direct contact - (0.085 to 0.24 tons of TNT)

• Snipped Junketsu’s universe apart - (Either Uni or High Uni, Check Before the Verdict)

Ragyo

Ryūko is capable of defeating Ragyo (with help, but still) in both the original series and Kill la Kill IF. At the height of her power, she’s constantly portrayed as Ragyo’s physical equal and as being capable of enduring her attacks. Scaling should be fairly direct.

• With Absolute Submission, covered the entire planet in Life Fibers and formed the Cocoon Sphere - (76.7 zettatons of TNT)

• IF gave us more clarification on this move, and now we know Ragyo’s Absolute Submission is AP based as the move can be used as an energy beam that Sastuki prevented Junketsu from using by weakening it. Ryūko is described as having absorbed Ragyo’s power when she uses it.

• Flew to a satellite in seconds - (Mach 14.5 to 182.2) 

Primordial Life Fiber

Ryūko directly overpowered the Primordial Life Fiber and was able to defeat it in Kill la KIll IF. Satsuki also matched and would have killed the PLF if not for its regeneration.  Ryūko explicitly says she can do anything the PLF can, so scaling directly to its feats is fair game.

• Ragyō stated that a realm such as the one that Junketsu created can be spun into a single thread of yarn with the Primordial Life Fiber - (Either Uni+ or 2.98 - 32.71 Billions x Universal, Check Before the Verdict)

• The Primordial Life Fiber was going to absorb literally all Life Fibers from past, present and future, including other dimensions - (Arguably Multiversal+?, Check Before the Verdict)

Honnouji Academy

By the end of the series, Ryūko has evolved far past every other character in the series that didn’t get a scaling section and is constantly portrayed as their superior, making so she vastly upscales the feats listed below.

• Nonon’s band created heart shaped craters - (0.63 tons of TNT)

• Nonon survived an explosion that destroyed her whole mech - (69.3 tons of TNT)

• The Elite Four combined cause dozens upon dozens of explosions and a large airburst - (18.5 tons of TNT)

• Mako created a crater with a punch - (529.3 Tons to 4.5 kilotons of TNT)

• Manga version

• Sanageyama bonked Nui dozens of times in less than a second - (Mach 10.8)

• Gamagōri swung a student around the entire Honnōji Academy arena, sometimes crossing its entire diameter within a single frame - (Mach 2132.2 to 3349.3)

Cutie Honey

Panther Claw

Tha Panther Claw organization are the main villains of the Cutie Honey series. All the feats listed are from the dozens of Panther villains that Honey is capable of keeping up with in speed, strength and durability, as she obviously beats them all.

• Can bust through a wall

• Twilight Prince Zera blows up an ice cliff

• Dragon Panther busted a tree

• Scud Panther blew up an entire town 

• Black Claw makes a storm

• Marara also makes a storm

• Sister Jill tanks an RPG blast

• Transformed Saline’s Hell Song creates multiple craters - (0.015 Tons of TNT)

• Scarlet Claw blasts through three buildings - (123.023 Tons of TNT)

• Sister Jill’s power lifted the Panther Claw Island over a kilometer above the ocean - (478.884 Kilotons of TNT)

• Coral Claw raised a volcanic island from the sea, which sunk again with her death. - (71.788 Megatons of TNT)

• A Panther Claw member freezes the sea - (812.275 Megatons of TNT) 

Dynamic Pro Characters

(See Before the Verdict)

Honey is capable of seriously harming Sirene with her rifle in Dynamic Heroes, and Sirene can fight and harm Devilman, on top of surviving his punches. Further in the story, Honey is capable of surviving a water blast from Mermane’s staff, outspeeding her and cutting her in half along with the staff. In the Devilman anime, Mermane is capable of sending Devilman blasting back in pain with water blasts from her staff, on top of beating him down physically with it. Devilman himself notes that the staff is dangerous, saying that he couldn’t allow Mermane to use it. 

Additionally, while Honey likely is unable to scale to the Super Robots themselves, she should feasibly be on par with the humans who pilot them, thanks to their fights with Devilman in giant form and the fact they need fast enough reactions to perform their speed feats. Honey is capable of keeping up with and fighting Devilman Lady in their crossover manga. Canonicity will be addressed in the appropriate section.

Devilman Lady

• Jun Hono effortlessly stomps three mooks

• Jun Fudo effortlessly wrenched the head off of a monster

• Jun Fudo and a Devil Beast snapped several trees in half

Devilman

• Devilman punched Sirene through a building floor

• Devilman frequently creates thunderstorms when transforming - (60.8 Kilotons of TNT)

• Devilman erupted a volcano by firing his Devil Beam at it - (83.212 Kilotons of TNT)

• Devilman can fight and destroy Magdler’s body, who is powered by the magma inside the Earth, and also survive his attacks. Magdler’s power causes the Earth’s crust to move, meaning he can affect tectonic plates to varying degrees

• Magdler can erupt an underwater volcano inside the Samida River - (9.32 Megatons - 52.41 Gigatons of TNT)

• Magdler can cause a massive earthquake that triggers the eruption of Mount Fuji - (2.341 Teratons of TNT)

• Devilman can fly to outer space in seconds - (Mach 1860.7)

• Devilman can fly to the Moon - (0.01c)

Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer

• Koji Kabuto punched the teeth out of a Panther Claw soldier in a single hit

• Great Mazinger can dodge electromagnetic beams - (0.56c)

• Mazinger Z can fight Baron Ashura, who can dodge his Photon Beams - (1.44c)

• Duke Fleed can pilot Grendizer at high speeds and react to enemies mid-battle across 2,300,000 light years of travel - (2.01618 Billions c, Debatable)

Getter Robo

• Getter Robo can slash missiles that can reach Earth from outside its Graveyard Orbit in seconds - (0.013c)

• Getter Robo G can dodge Gamma X-Rays - (2.6c)

Weaknesses

Ryūko Matoi

While Ryūko’s survivability and regeneration is impressive, it’s important to note that it’s not limitless. Senketu requires Ryūko’s blood, meaning if she loses too much in a fight or the battle is prolonged for a period of time, she will detransform. Even then, her impressive regeneration will not save her from damage that’s too severe. For example, her heart, as seen with Ragyo crushing her own. Seeing how Ryūko and Ragyo are both infused with Life Fibers, it's safe to assume that if Ryūko’s heart is destroyed, so will she. Her portrayal in her episode wasn’t the best either…

Cutie Honey

While the I-System/AES’s capabilities are limitless, this doesn’t mean Honey’s invincible (™).  The (inconsistent) stamina weakness was already previously mentioned in the I-System/AES section, but another weakness is its inability to properly function if there is really good ventilation or sometimes just randomly, leaving Honey in some awkward situations to say the least. Another weakness is that due to her body being nearly human-like, she’s been affected and even knocked out via poisons. (although, as noted in the I-System/AES section, the system can clear the toxins out.) She also jobs a lot in The Live and Dynamic Heroes unfortunately…

Before the Verdicts…

Is IF canon and/or scalable? (For the LAST time)

Back at Anime Expo 2018, Studio Trigger surprised audiences with the announcement that arena fighter game Kill la Kill IF was going to be a canon part of the anime story. Further interviews with staff revealed the game was Episode 8.5 of the anime, officially part of its story and explicitly NOT an alternate continuity or any sort of non-canon spin off. Kill la Kill IF is meant to display and go into full detail over abilities the Life Fibers were meant to demonstrate in the anime but could not do due to budgetary limitations and time constraints (and also show how powerful the Primordial Life Fiber is). The game is fully canon and even segways back into the beginning of the anime while also showing abilities Ryūko would eventually get by the conclusion of the series.

An issue some might have is that the game occurs in a dream… except it's really messy. In line with the intent for IF to reveal the secret abilities Life Fibers had that had only been alluded to in the anime and script books, IF reveals Kamuis like Junketsu have the ability to “transcend space and time” and make dreams entirely physical (raws here) The plot of the game is that Junketsu takes Satuski’s dream and makes it a physical universe that Ryūko and company are trapped in and Junketsu sustains the reality with its Life Fibers.

Physical Dream Worlds are also a thing in the anime, shown with Junketsu constructing one for Ryūko during her brainwashing and Mako & Senketsu being able to enter said physical realm (Senketsu even gets cut by Ryūko). When Ryūko breaks out of the brainwashing, Mako and Senketsu are physically ejected from the dream world and a strange kind of “star liquid” is released from Ryūko. This occurs prior in the series as well, when Berserker Ryūko and Satsuki clash. This liquid is called an “Ocean of Light“. Furthermore, Ragyo explains the beginning of all things lies within the Primordial Life Fiber. This is a bit metaphorical but Life Fibers are one of the secrets of the universe. Ragyo shows multiple realities with Ryūko, something also shown to be the case in IF.

The world is called a timeline/dimension, with reference made to several others that the Primordial Life Fiber draws Life Fibers from. Stars are shown to be in the sky. Most importantly, Ragyo confirms she would have gone through with her Cocoon plan, meaning the stars and space visible in the realm have to be real for the Life Fibers to spread across the cosmos (it’s the same as it was in the anime). The glossary confirms this to be the case, explicitly calling it a universe (japanese raw for reference).

During the events of IF, we are shown the full extent of power of the Life Fibers in the form of the Primordial Life Fiber. As discussed above, Junketsu makes a universe by turning the dream into a physical plane (it has a starry sky and is confirmed in the game glossary that the copy of reality is a universe). The Primoridial Life Fiber (PLF for short) towards the end of the game begins absorbing all Life Fibers that exist across past, present and future across all timelines and universes that exist in the multiverse. This sets Junketsu's universe to hit critical mass and collapse. Ryūko copies the same tactic and absorbs Life Fibers from all space and time to beat down both Juneketsu (who is driving Satsuki mad) and the PLF. Shortly after, Satsuki uses the Dual Scissors Blade to cut Junketsu's universe in order to destroy it and free herself, Ryūko and everyone else. She and Ryūko awaken in the original world and they vaguely recall the events that occurred, likely forgotten due to erasing Junketsu's meddling. There is one more cosmic level feat we will discuss in the next section, but first we want to take a look at a potential speed feat in IF.

One might argue Junketsu's Universe creation is purely hax. The issue with this argument would be that basically anything a Kamui does uses energy. This can be seen all throughout the anime with Senketsu constantly needing more blood at least at the beginning because of the energy it uses during its fights via transforming or any of its special moves. During the events of IF, Iori mentions the Life Fibers in Junketsu are sustaining the realm’s physical existence. Junketsu is physically sustaining the creation of its universe. Not to mention that the other universal feat, PLF destroying the universe is done via it hitting critical mass and not through non ap related reality warping. The PLF has also spun down timelines, so physical scaling holds (see below). 

To further add to this, even esoteric abilities from Life Fibers like Ragyo's Absolute Domination are expressed via energy, as shown by Ragyo's ultimate attack in IF, which is labeled as Absolute Domination, being a massive energy beam. Ryūko is described as having absorbed Ragyo’s power when she uses it. Junketsu also was capable of using Absolute Domination but could no longer use it after it was weakened permanently from poison used by Satsuki, showing that the esoteric abilities of the Fibers also tie to its physical state.  According to Ragyo, the strength of one’s Life Fibers can also be used to take over other worlds, such as the one created by Junketsu.

It's also important to address that while time is indeed compressed in Junketsu's Universe, the level of power of the residents of the universe has not been changed from what it should have been in the anime. Satsuki and Ryūko do indeed get stronger faster than they normally would have because of the time compression, but by the end of the game Ryūko is on the same level of power Kisaragi would have in episode 24 (she indirectly implies this in the game, where she predicts she will achieve Kisaragi once more in the future). We know this because Junketsu Shinzui (Satsuki's final form in IF) was originally supposed to be in the anime alongside Ryūko for the final battle against Ragyo (not making it in due to time constraints) and both it and Kisaragi are stated to be equal. As such the scaling from IF is viable for both Ryūko and Satsuki.

Beyond just showing a cosmic level of power for Kamuis and Life Fibers (something previously implied by official tweets from Studio Trigger), Ryūko displays the ability to bring countless Life Fibers to herself from all space and time, from Past and the Future. The PLF actually uses these Life Fibers threads that physically travel through time to attack Satsuki and Ryūko, and both have shown the ability to dodge these attacks. These fibers are coming in from every point in the past, present, and future, having to physically travel through time with sheer speed. To emphasize this when Ryūko calls them down there's a physical shake that occurs and we see come in from space via the sky down to Earth where she is. They aren't merely traveling through portals to skip distance, as parts of the sky and the universe were cracked open due to the universe hitting critical mass yet the Life Fibers are not only traveling from the cracks but just flying in through from parts that haven't been affected where there is no portal. 

Ryūko absorbs Life Fibers from beyond Satsuki’s dimension, across time and space. She copies the PLF 1 to 1, so she is absorbing every life fiber from every point in time from several timelines. Ryūko is also shown merging with other versions of herself in this process. Now standing still and absorbing the fibers isn’t a speed feat. It’s more so reaching out across timelines and bringing it to herself in split seconds. The logic behind it is that via her own will power she is guiding every single Life Fiber that has ever existed across all time lines across all points and said timeline to herself. She is mentally processing them in real time as she is able to take the Life Fibers from the PLF simultaneously. That and her absorption speed in series isn’t much faster than her own combat speed.

Assuming it comes from whole universe diameters: 

Speed: (8.8e26 meters)/(686/60 seconds) = 7.696793002915e25 m/s or 256.737 Quadrillions C (Massively FTL+) 

The distance each fiber needs to cross is a universe diameter, since it’s pulling it from all points in time. The glossary confirms the cocoon sequence in the anime, and we know the Life Fibers cross the cosmos. Counting the threads on screen though makes it more impressive at 11.246 Quintillions C.

Ryūko absorbs Life Fibers from literally every timeline. That would include ones that don’t exist anymore and include the Billions/Trillions that now make up the Primordial Life Fiber. Both the PLF and Ryūko are bringing in and reacting to Life Fibers traveling from every universe and timeline across the multiverse. While this may seem it only scales to her absorption and processing speed, as shown above the Primordial Life Fiber uses some of these threads to attack as they are traveling, and Ryūko and Satsuki can consistently dodge them and move in tandem with them. These threads have to be moving massively faster than light in order to travel across countless universes to reach Junketsu's universe and are likely moving even faster considering they are traveling through different points in time via speed to reach there, which would be immeasurable speed.

As shown in Ryūko's speed section, she was already able to move a bit over a million times the speed of light to deal with 110 million tennis balls by just the second episode of the show and her speed drastically increased as time went on. When Satsuki dodges these attacks she is wearing Junketsu in its Shinzui form, its final form on par with Senketsu Kisaragi. Considering Ryūko bringing in all the light fibers is what leads to that form in IF, and it's her peak in the anime, only God level Kamuis like both forms and the PLF/Ragyo at their peaks would scale to this speed.

Last thing we’d like to get across in this segment. There’s a stigma in the community that including IF in conversations with Kill la Kill characters is “compositing” them. We ultimately think this distinction simply should not exist. While it was indeed a retroactive addition to the storyline, it was one that was always supposed to exist. It’s like if we said combining Prequel Anakin and Original Trilogy Vader’s feats together was a composite, even though the two are obviously a part of the same canonical storyline. That doesn’t sound right, does it? It’s likely this came from the idea that IF was a dream, but now that it’s been proven it applies to the series regardless, people are less keen on accepting it as a real part of the original story.

Some people may be disappointed on how IF can change a lot of matchups in terms of debatability. We can understand the disappointment in a decently close idea becoming much more of a stomp. But the facts, at the end of the day, are facts. We ultimately have to present them as such, regardless of how it changes certain ideas.

In summary:

• Kill la Kill IF is canon and usable for scaling and is not only a dream. It should not be distinguished as a composite, as it is a part of the main story.

• The game has several cosmic feats that scale to Ryūko.

• Ryūko and Satsuki can dodge threads used by the PLF that travel through time via movement speed.

How massive is the Primordial Life Fiber?

In Kill la Kill: IF, Ragyo has a particularly infamous statement about the Primordial Life Fiber that led to many differing interpretations across the years. In it she states that a world such as the one Junketsu created could be spun into a single yarn with the power of the Primordial Life Fiber. This has been interpreted in many ways, including one that pushes the feat to billions of times Universal as you have previously seen. How valid is that? Let’s take a look.

First, why is this world even universal sized? Simple, it’s stated to be able to transcend space and time, and explicitly called an universe by the glossary of the game. It has multiple stars and everything you’d expect from a real physical universe. The size is thus resolved. Diving right into the many interpretations this statement can have, the simplest one is that it can compress an entire universe into a thread, thus making the feat Universal+. Blatant enough, and the bare minimum you can argue for it.

Another way to view it is that Ragyo means that this thread would be contained within the PLF, and represent only one of the multiple fibers that compose its body. Thus, making each one of them worth an Universe, and the total count a really high number of Universes. There are pros and cons to this interpretation, and, as always, context and wording are key when it comes to such statements. For starters, Ragyo never once says “WITHIN the Primordial Life Fiber”, but “WITH the Primordial Life Fiber”. This is confirmed by the Japanese version. On one hand, you could argue there’s nothing implying each fiber within the PLF is supposed to represent the energy necessary to compress an entire universe, at least as a baseline level to compose its body.

On the other, since we know that it can make a universe into a single thread, it would stand to reason that each of its threads are equivalent to the universe thread, even if they weren't originally universes, but only because the phrasing from Ragyo makes it deliberate that even a universe is completely insignificant, only being 1 single yarn. We believe both have their merits. Were you to run with the higher interpretation, you could use many of the shots in the show to gather the PLF’s volume and account for its hollowness, and then compare it to the largest ball of twine in the world, alongside the longest individual thread in the world. By obtaining the twine’s total length and dividing it by the longest thread, you can get the number of threads that compose it, and apply a ratio to get how many threads each cubic meter of the ball has. Applying that ratio to the PLF gets 2.98 to 32.71 Billion threads, and as such the feat would be worth 2.98 to 32.71 Billion times universal.

A more fringe interpretation is that the world would be spun into a single yarn, including the empty space that composes the vast majority of the volume of the universe. Transmuting all of the volume of an universe into yarn using the density of Life Fibers (which are stated to be as hard as steel) would get ludicrously higher than the mass of the universe, bordering on the Nonillions of times the mass of the universe. Unfortunately, that is quite a generous assumption, and we have basically no proof it would be doing that instead of generically just compressing the actual physical elements of the universe.

In conclusion, there are a few ways you can take this feat. It’s at the very least Universal+, with characters significantly upscaling it given how casual and insignificant it is treated as. As a high end, it’s possible to push it to be on the Billions of times Universal range. Both have merit, and will be accounted for in the verdict. 

Kill la Kill and the Triggerverse cosmology 

How is Kill la Kill connected to other works?

Over the years interviews and Q/As from various Trigger staff and ex-Gainax staff have suggested that there exists an interconnected multiverse of sorts for most Studio Trigger properties. Luluco and Inferno Cop explore this idea by appearing in each other series and Luluco shows that Life Fibers exist in other Studio Trigger universes. This “Trigger-Verse” is a real thing (first bullet point here). Two different Trigger properties show the existence of Life Fibers. Space Patrol Luluco and When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace. The whole “absorb every Life Fiber that has ever existed across numerous dimensions/timelines” would apply to Space Patrol Luluco and When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace. Life Fibers, Hakodate’s tennis racket and even Mako all appear in When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace. More importantly, they appear enough in Luluco to commence the cocoon plan, on a world designed “KLK Planet X”.

We know from IF that other versions of Ryūko exist in the timelines she’s pulling from. None of these are merely references, as Luluco can bypass the dimensional walls that separate different universes, and she shows that the universes are further out, such as when she crosses over with Akko from Little Witch Academia. This blog covers in more detail the nature of the Multiverse and all the confirmed properties that make the Trigger-Verse. Side Note, Trigger doesn’t need to own a property for it to be a part of the Trigger-Verse, so long as it was made by Gainax.

If you need evidence, we can go over other shown canon crossovers with Triggerverse. Space Patrol Luluco has crossovers with Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, Sex & Violence with Machspeed, and Inferno Cop. Chief Over Justice from SPL is even stated to be the same person as Alexis Kerib from the Gridman Universe. Lucia from Promare is shown texting with Luluco, Over Justice, and Midori. Inferno Cop exists within BNA. It is evident that the Trigger-Verse is a real interconnected Multiverse.

As for how many universes exist across the Trigger-Verse? An Infinite amount. Gurren Lagann is considered part of the Trigger-Verse and it has an infinite amount of universes. While Life Fibers cannot be proven to exist in the higher spatial dimensions of Gurren Lagann’s Multiverse, they do exist in other universes Luluco has to cross over dimensional barriers to get through, even existing as full size planets. In Kill la Kill IF it is mentioned the PLF is absorbing all Life Fibers from all dimensions and timelines, past, present and future. Given Life Fibers seem to exist across the Trigger Verse as they appear even in When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace, the PLF and Ryūko would be pulling them from all corners of the Trigger-Verse. This leads to an interesting topic below:

Multi+ Kill la Kill?

While we do not claim this to be the absolute truth, we believe the available evidence warrants presenting the argument. A big question over the Primordial Life Fiber feat is that if she was really pulling all the Life Fibers or not, and there’s two popular counter arguments to say they are only tackling a finite number of Life Fibers:

• Inumata's critical mass statement

• We see the Primordial Life Fiber still has Life Fibers attached to it after Ryūko powered up, so neither couldn’t have pulled every Life Fiber ever

We’re going to explain why these aren’t actual problems to the interpretation. Let’s start with the latter, which ironically can be easily debunked with the former complaint. Something extremely relevant with Inumata's statement is something a lot of people miss, and the biggest avenue for our argument: the Primordial Life Fiber hasn't caught every Life Fiber yet, but they are in this process and will end up nuking that realm when it finishes, where they would helplessly watch that world fall apart. "When all Life Fibers past, present and future have been absorbed, this world will reach critical mass." 

Pay attention to his sequence of reasoning:

1. Satsuki is sustaining this reality.

2. The Primordial Life Fiber cannot directly destroy the source of reality.

3. Instead it's feeding on Life Fibers from countless other worlds/timelines.

4. Eventually they would absorb all Life Fibers, and all that amount accumulated would cause the world to reach "critical mass"

5. Once that threshold is crossed and the sleeping entity awakens, everything collapses.

Besides the usage of "when", he hammers the point again that the Primordial Life Fiber is pulling all of them. Why are we saying “again”? Because this is also stated by him before in an earlier scene. Ryūko also states the same, saying she is (still) gobbling up every Life Fiber ever. Speaking of her, she never states she's going to absorb all of them, but only some, so she can have enough power to save Satsuki. With all this, the fact the Primordial Life Fiber still has Life Fibers after Ryūko does the feat shouldn't be a debunk on it trying to absorb all of them. This doesn't mean Ryūko couldn't do that either, after all, anything the Primordial Life Fiber can do she can also replicate. Basically, they should be able to grab all of them, it's within their power.

The only thing left to address is the Inumata's line being used as a cap for a finite number of Life Fibers. But then again, it's weird for us to say they aren't infinite, given we know they are under the Triggerverse, which works under a MWI Multi+ structure (thanks Simon), and we know Life Fibers exist in other worlds like Luluco's. Additionally, we know the Primordial Life Fiber was absorbing Life Fibers from other dimensions. The important thing is that Inumata's statement is describing a future state where all Life Fibers have been absorbed. At that point, we think there's a reasonable argument not only for the feat to be Multi+, but that the realm itself may be infinite in size as well. We don't think "critical mass" necessarily implies a finite supply, especially where we have full knowledge this multiverse is indeed infinite and not just a theory. This wouldn't be the first time something this absurd happens under Trigger, as in their first produced series, the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are both larger than universes in scope, despite the fact each universe is also infinite in size.

In somewhat of a tangent, we want to REMIND YOU OF THE FOLLOWING: Please bear in mind what we said in the beginning of this subsection, that WE ARE NOT PUSHING THIS AS A DEFINITIVE ARGUMENT. This is merely a proposal of a higher end that can be compared to one of Honey's own high end interpretations you’ll see in a bit. Please don’t get tunnel visioned into assuming this is an “agenda” that we're trying to push. 

Go Nagai crossover scaling

(Art by Sirus)

Some of you might have noticed the scaling section for Honey with all the various Go Nagai characters. Well, in case you weren’t aware, Nagai follows a similar philosophy to Osamu Tezuka or even the Triggerverse, that being the “Star System.” Essentially, Nagai often has recurring characters make different appearances throughout his different manga, playing similar roles each time they show up, just with a few alterations to suit the story. Sort of like how actors show up in ensemble films playing similar characters. This is how we have characters like Koji Kabuto appearing in Violence Jack, or how we can sometimes have Devilman show up entirely unrelated in stuff like Mazinger Angels.

It works on a case by case basis, of course. For example, the aforementioned example of Koji in Violence Jack is a boy who sits on the shoulders of a blind martial arts master, this world’s version of Mazinger. A vast departure from his backstory in the original manga. But when Honey appears in Shin Mazinger Zero? It’s just… Honey, straight up. Her abilities and personality are completely intact. This is why cross-scaling characters across appearances in the first place is tricky. While personality-wise they might be identical, some characters might not have the same powers, capabilities or story as the one from their home series. Because of this, we decided to stick to feats that Honey does/can scale to in just the events of the crossover themselves, rather than feats from each home series. Stuff like manga Devilman’s higher-dimensional cosmology or Mazinger Zero combining a bunch of timelines into one will not be taken into account.

The big exception would be Dynamic Heroes, in which multiple past events from the Toei anime continuities of Devilman, Mazinger, Getter Robo and Grendizer are referenced, including their past crossover movies. In addition, the manga was directly written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Kazuhiro Ochi, who’s responsible for the modern illustrations featured in physical releases of those anime, explicitly aiming to reproduce the original artwork. With all of this said, we believe Dynamic Heroes to be perfectly valid as a canonical entry of the Toei Dynamic Pro shared universe, thus making the 70’s Cutie Honey anime canon to the Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Getter Robo, Grendizer and Devilman shows, alongside their movie crossovers.

How ‘bout that planet feat?

If you have the most tangential knowledge about Cutie Honey in the versus community, and by that, I mean if you looked up “Cutie Honey VS Battles Wiki” on Google, you might have an idea about a certain feat we haven’t brought up yet. In the series Cutie Honey Flash, this feat has been calced to around the planet-to-star ranges. But there’s a huge problem. It’s LITERALLY a dream. It doesn’t happen. And not in the Kill la Kill IF kinda way where it takes place in a different universe that was made tangible or something like that. As in, this was an actual daydream Honey had out of fear of the Matter Transformer going haywire. It’s genuinely impressive how this didn’t manage to get noticed for nearly eight years. It is, in no conceivable way, an actual feat we can use, as she never does anything on this level…

…Not in the original show, at least. Because now we get to talk about why it wouldn’t matter anyway in the next BTV!

The Audio Dramas Strike Back

Before you ask, no, it’s not R>F stuff.

So y'know how Re:Cutie Honey only has 3 episodes? Well, it actually has a fourth episode in the form of an audio drama called Harmony, and it reveals some pretty wild consequences from the nuke explosion at the end of Episode 3. The energy released by it created a distortion across multiple parallel worlds, causing the prior anime incarnations of Honey to appear in Re's universe. Yes, somehow this is a real thing that happened.

We're shown the different Honey continuities being pulled together, along with an additional universe where Panther Claw monsters originate from. Later, the four Honeys have to combine their power to seal a rift threatening Re's reality itself. On its own, this gives us a pretty straightforward interpretation: the event affected multiple universes simultaneously. At minimum, it involves the four anime continuities and Panther Claw's universe, making it at least a 5x Universal feat.

As previously mentioned, Dynamic Heroes establishes that the 70s anime versions of Honey, Devilman, Grendizer, and Mazinger all exist in the same universe, and would therefore share the same cosmology. Do you remember the Mazinger Z vs Getter Robo blog we did in the past? Well, we're going to have to bring back Mazinger Z: Infinity for a moment. This film, which is directly stated to take place ten years after the original Mazinger anime, implies that the multiverse operates under a Many Worlds Interpretation model. Lisa, a robot who experienced the power of Goragon and later learned to manipulate its dimension in a way Koji could comprehend, explains that a universe can generate infinite possible universes. This is later visualized when Koji and Lisa enter a space containing an unquantifiable number of cubes, each one stated and shown to represent a possible future of their universe.

These futures are not merely hypothetical, because at the end of the film, Koji and Lisa use Goragon's power, which allows neighboring realities to be superimposed onto one another, causing Koji and Sayaka to marry and have Lisa as their daughter. As a result, the original Lisa fades away and is reborn as their child, showing that these futures are tangible realities rather than abstract possibilities. Sayaka further explains that Goragon is the result of parallel universes overlapping in accordance with Multiverse Theory. While no specific model is named, the way parallel worlds function in the film closely resembles the Many Worlds Interpretation, where every possible outcome creates a parallel world. Since these universes are generated from the possibilities of the original universe itself, there would be infinite possible variations of the Toei universe.

Given they all share the same cosmology, the version of Honey that appears in Harmony would exist as part of an infinitely branching multiverse. We know the 70s Toei Honey is one of the versions brought into the crossover, even being voiced by her original voice actress, the late Eiko Masuyama. Since the Toei universe would have infinite ramifications under this model, that would also mean this particular Honey exists across infinite parallel universes, directly affecting Re:Cutie Honey’s cosmology to be inside this infinite multiverse. If so, would the distortion created by the nuke not merely affect a handful of universes, but an infinite amount of them?

There’s the problem, the audio drama itself never states that the distortion affected all possible worlds generated by that cosmology, nor does it explicitly say the entire multiverse was shaken. At most, we know that parallel worlds were affected. There are translations that use the term “the spatial and temporal axes of phase space” instead, which could strengthen the argument, as phase space refers to the set of all possible states of a system, in this case potentially the multiverse itself. The problem is that the term can also be used synonymously with concepts like spacetime, and those same translations later use it when referring to a single universe as well, leaving the wording open to interpretation. 

The last point worth mentioning is a popular translation floating around on YouTube. In that version, Honey states that there are Honeys fighting the threat in “every universe”, which would obviously be a massive point in favor of the Multi+ end. Unfortunately for that argument, it's just a mistranslation of the original line, so it doesn't actually help us much here. We ran this script through several translators and they all seem to imply it is not the case.

Because of all these issues, we're much more comfortable treating the lower end as the safer interpretation. The infinite multiverse argument isn't impossible, but it relies on enough assumptions and disputed wording that we don't think is that solid. 

Fan Art

(Kaiser)

(Sharaku, Mazinger sprites by Nonman)

(Monev)

(L.A.D.)

(Huge thanks to @MrGuardianeye on Twitter! They made these incredible drawings! Thank you again for allowing this blog to show ‘em off! Go follow ‘em!!)

Verdict

Speed

To start off, a fairly uncomplicated category. Starting with Honey, the Warrior of Love is capable of multiple feats in the Mach ranges, such as dodging bullets at Mach 1.5, soundwaves at Mach 2.6 and even multiple missiles in mid-air at over Mach 20. Thanks to scaling to fellow Go Nagai characters in the Toei universe, Honey is even capable of surpassing the speed of light! By comparing in speed to Devilman and the pilots of multiple Super robots, Honey can scale to feats such as Devilman flying at 0.01c, Great Mazinger dodging an electromagnetic ray at 0.56c, and Getter Robo dodging Gamma X-Rays at 2.6c, solidly bringing her speeds to FTL with a lot of supporting feats. But that’s not her cap, however. In Cutie Honey Universe, Honey is able to launch herself and fly into deep space past a nebula, a feat worth up to 3.07 Billion times the speed of light. 

How does Ryūko compare? Starting with lower showings, she is capable of running up a pillar that’s over 6 km tall at over two times the speed of sound, and flying to space at speeds of at least Mach 23 to 291. Higher Mach speeds are consistent when you factor in scaling, like Ragyo being capable of flying to a satellite at over Mach 14 to 182, and even Gamagori far surpassing this number by swinging a student at Mach 2132 to 3349. But what about that juicy FTL scaling? There are a few ways to get Ryūko that rating.

First with the infamous tennis ball feat. While heavily contested in the past, new findings led most of us to believe the numbers seem to be quite literal, meaning Ryūko would have to be slicing hundreds to millions of balls at at least a million times the speed of light. Hardly the end of what you can push for her. In Kill la Kill: IF, Ryūko is capable of pulling Life Fibers from beyond a dimension across space and time from every timeline. There are many ways to calculate this feat, but even lower interpretations still leave the feat in the 11.246 Quintillions of times faster than light range. Logically, the feat is much higher. Since the Fibers are being pulled from every point of time across several timelines, it only makes sense that this feat can just end up being Immeasurable. This is supported by the fact Satsuki can dodge Life Fibers used by the Primordial Life Fiber while it’s absorbing Fibers from every moment in time.

The numbers don’t lie here. Even being conservative with Ryūko when comparing their best speed feats, she still ends up 3.663 billion times faster. Using the (ironically) more logical immeasurable interpretation, Ryūko would be INFINITELY FASTER.

Speed goes to Ryūko.

Power

This one is a bit more complicated, and that's mostly due to how debatable their various ends are. Going with Ryūko first, the biggest feats she can match are the Primordial Life Fiber being able to create realms with Life Fibers, with its interpretations ranging from Universal+ up to billions of times Universal, and again the Primordial Life Fiber was going to absorbing all Life Fibers ever, a feat that could understandably be claimed as Multiversal+, if you choose to accept it. If you think she was the only one giving us a headache, you're wrong. Moving to Honey, her best feat would be a somewhat direct one: absorbing a bomb that created a rupture across multiple, potentially all, Cutie Honey timelines, thus making this feat ranging from at least 5x Universal to arguably Multiversal+, if you choose to accept it... But of course, the discussion does not end at a simple comparison of numbers. 

Let's say you think Ryūko is (finitely) stronger. Even if Honey were to find herself physically outmatched at the start of the fight, she possesses several avenues through which she could potentially close the gap. Honey's body can become stronger as it recovers from damage, meaning that prolonged exchanges with Ryūko may gradually push her AP and Durability above instead of just wearing Honey down. Beyond that, Honey's I-System could theoretically allow her to construct her own Life Fiber-based equipment, as she can scan and understand new data to recreate objects identically. If successful, this would give Honey access to the same type of power growth methods that allows Ryūko and Senketsu to rise in power quickly. Another avenue would be, should she gain access to Ryūko's weapons or fragments of Life Fiber material during the battle, she could potentially incorporate those components into her own body, making herself more durable and more powerful. She can also get more powerful via bonds. Of course, we established Ryūko is faster no matter what, but if Honey doesn't die instantly, she is definitely able to pull either of these off.

Let's now change scenarios. If you believe that it's Honey who is (finitely) stronger, Ryūko's not only so far back in her lowest end that she would be AP stomped by Honey, but her own adaptive evolution, her regeneration and the fact she can simply draw power from Life Fibers across time and space means Ryūko and Senketsu would be matching Honey really easily no matter what, and with her speed advantage, it's really hard to disagree with this notion.

The final thing to consider is how these arguments interact with the infinite ends for both characters. There are Multi+ arguments available on both sides, but they do not necessarily line up perfectly with one another. Depending on which ends you accept, you might come across as having one character infinitely stronger than the other, and (obviously) the power growth both characters have won't be enough to match the other. But even if one does not consider the Multi+ ends fully equivalent, the existence of arguments for all avenues means that neither character can be indisputably said to maintain a definitive edge in power, and because Attack Potency is not going to be the deciding factor in this debate, we believe the fairest conclusion is to treat Power as a tie between them.

Skill/Experience

Next up, we have another category that is relatively easy to decipher. Ryūko is perhaps one of the most inventive fighters in her series. Even early on into her tenure, she spent a lot of time as a kid learning how to fight. Once she met with Senketsu, her skills only grew further and further. She was able to go toe-to-toe with experts in their field that had been practicing much longer than she has. She easily defeated all of Honouji Academy’s club leaders, and later on bested all of Satsuki Kiryuin’s Elite Four, the cream of the crop, as well as Ragyo Kiryuin, who stood head-and-shoulders above everyone else. Senketsu himself also provides plenty to the equation, of course, coming up with his own different strategies that Ryūko can put into practice. Two heads are better than one, after all, and combining this with their incredible adaptation and unpredictable fighting style, they are certainly not lacking when it comes to skill.

However, don’t count Honey out yet. Even before the series begins, she’s already well-versed in fencing, and only grows more skilled as the series goes on. She’s an excellent hand-to-hand fighter and has contended with plenty of unconventional foes every day of the week. Honey even bested the likes of Sister Jill and Panther Zora, beings with incomprehensible forms who have existed since biblical times! Her mastery of disguise is no joke, being able to mimic people’s appearances down to their voice. She’s been in constant battle with Panther Claw for as much as thirty years straight in some incarnations. Not a bad showing at all.

But what truly gives Honey the leg up here is her brain. Her mind is a supercomputer which can analyze data in an instant, and if she can scan something and download the data, she’s able to replicate it. Add this with Honey’s own exceptional adaptation, and the tide begins to shift in her favor. There's arguments for Ryūko to eventually adapt to Honey's skill and she is very unpredictable overall, which makes data analysis difficult, but the way we see it, the point is giving the edge to who has the superior skill at the end of the day. And we're talking about a lady with a supercomputer level brainpower at that ON TOP of her own evolution.

Skill/Experience goes to Cutie Honey.

Versatility

In terms of versatility, both fighters have it in spades. Let’s go over the notable hits. Ryūko and Senketsu have a wide variety of powers at their disposal. Her range, for one, is insane. Not only can she create massive air blasts and shockwaves with just a swing of her blade, but she can pull on Life Fibers from whole other timelines for a pick-me-up! In general, the abilities she gains from matching and outdoing the Primordial Life Fiber are no joke. From snipping apart space-times with her scissors to gaining insight on future events, to even being able to absorb the consciousness of others. Pretty damn crazy stuff. Senketsu has incredible potential when it comes to shapeshifting, suiting plenty of mid-combat situations. With afterimages, smokescreens and illusions at her disposal, confusing her opponent isn’t out of the question either if she wants to try a different approach. And if she ever takes any damage, her special Life Fiber physiology can soak up any potential lethal bows, allowing her to regenerate from being cut in half or having her brain punctured. That combined with her power boosts and adaptation is a deadly combination.

However… Honey has her number not just in quantity, but quality as well. First off, Honey’s shapeshifting easily surpasses Ryūko’s. Sure, Ryūko has pulled off incredibly unique showings with it, such as turning Senketsu into a huge mat to slam down across all areas, or using his threads as a way to redirect Nonon’s sound. Her regeneration is still great as well, being able to recover from direct damage to her brain, or being outright sliced in two. However, hers have a lot more notable flaws when compared to Honey. Senketsu is still limited by how much fibers he has in his body, and Ryūko can still be killed if her heart is totally destroyed, just like how we saw with Ragyo. By comparison, Honey’s Matter Transformer/I-System/whatever, is capable of absorbing elements directly from the air itself, deconstructing and reconstructing matter down to the level of quarks. She has way more transformations at her disposal, and can even combine them with the use of Saber-Scan. Add that in with her supercomputer of a brain, and she has just as many answers for any situation that Ryūko puts her in. Additionally, she can recover from being reduced into nothing but tiny particles in the air, easily exceeding Ryūko’s regenerative powers. Just like Ryūko, she also grows more powerful every time she regenerates but unlike Ryūko, she can also grow in strength just based on thinking about her loved ones. Plus, if Honey converts herself into pure energy, Ryūko can’t exactly hit her. Her only exact method of non-physical interaction, spatial cutting, is something Honey actively resists.

Due to the fact that the Honey Flash can serve as an area-of-effect attack, it’s entirely possible that Honey could simply absorb parts of Ryūko’s weaponry or Senketsu and integrate them into herself, growing stronger. Ryūko’s higher finite durability wouldn’t even matter in this instance, as it bypasses it entirely. A number of Ryūko’s abilities like the consciousness absorption or even out-of-character options like Mind Stitching simply wouldn’t work on Honey, as she’s an android who has resisted things that affect brainwaves of normal humans. Even then, she’s actively fought against corruption and the absorption of her consciousness in the past as well, and it’s unclear if such powers would even work on her electronic brain. Even if Honey somehow ran out of energy, there’s nothing stopping her from going to get more mid-fight.

Finally, if Honey is capable of understanding how the Life Fibers work and analyzing their data, she can simply recreate them with the I-System, as it’s based on her imagination. Essentially, she’d give herself her own Kamui in order to match Ryūko. It’s not as if Ryūko is devoid of advantages. Senketsu is a significantly better support than Saber-Scan, just off of being just as durable as Ryūko and having better showings of partnership. She also easily takes the range and AOE advantage. But these aren’t enough to make up for the huge gap everywhere else.

In the end, both fighters are incredibly resourceful and creative when it comes to using all of their powers. But Honey’s versatility and stronger showings of imagination simply goes above and beyond what Ryūko has been shown to do.

Versatility goes to Cutie Honey.

Wincons

Lastly, considering all that was said before, it’s time to decide who has the upper side in wincons, or, to put it more directly, who has the best argument for actually putting down the opponent. This is, surprisingly enough, a pretty straightforward category. 

In order for Ryūko to win, you have to operate on the interpretation that Honey’s regeneration limitations are a hard cap and discard her statement in Cutie Honey: Tears, assuming destroying her body is enough to put her down. In Honey's case, all it takes for her to win is to target Ryūko with her deconstruction or Honey Flash’s existence erasure effect. The key to deciding which is better simply lies on the actual limitations of Honey’s regen not mattering that much.

If you noticed, Honey is capable of both delaying her regen and turning into a cloud of nanomachines, or a body of pure energy. If Ryūko cuts her down the first time, she’s smart enough to rationalize the stat gap before reforming, given she’d still be sentient due to being able to operate and think while turned into a bunch of nano particles. From there, she can use this strategy to disintegrate Ryūko. Remember, Life Fibers are alluded multiple times to be cellular in scale. Comparing them to the smallest human cells would make the scale of what Ryūko can destroy or cut in the micrometer range. The smallest working nanomachines (the size of which would be fair to compare Honey’s to given they operate on the sub-atomic level) would sit right on the nanometer range, several times smaller, and still capable of separately regenerating at the sub-atomic level. This means that Ryūko is incapable of interacting with Honey in this state, and, despite the stat gap, Honey would still be able to think and deconstruct Ryūko’s entire body. The same applies for Honey turning herself into pure energy, a state of which Ryūko has no way to definitively eliminate. With this, Honey is capable of winning even if you consider her energy limitations, since she’d still be capable of one or two full body regenerations before figuring out that with her genius intellect and analysis capabilities. If you use Honey’s statement of growing stronger with each regeneration, the limitation is removed outright, leaving Ryūko completely hopeless to take her down for good in any way shape or form. In this span of time Honey can also just power herself from her and Ryūko’s bonds, or simply leave and find food with her MFTL+ travel speed that Ryūko doesn’t match, which is kind of ironic considering her infinitely eclipsing in reactions/attack speed.

When you look at it, it seems simple enough to argue for Ryūko, but when you take everything into consideration, Honey simply has multiple options that are in character to use against Ryūko’s massive speed advantage, and as such, is the only one with the most reliable wincons between them by far at worst, and the only one with a wincon at all at best. Wincons go to Cutie Honey.

Conclusion

With all the cards on the table, this is fairly clear cut. Ryūko can arguably be stronger, but Honey can similarly be argued to either evolve to match her or already match her in different interpretations. Ryūko is massively faster, but Honey’s regeneration, intelligence and versatility means she can stall Ryūko for long enough while becoming untouchable to her. Honey only needs brief contact with Ryūko’s body to completely disintegrate her at the sub-atomic level or erase her from existence, while Ryūko has basically no way to put her down for good. If things were slightly different, Ryūko could have won, but Honey has all her bases covered and far superior wincons in both number and quality. It might be quite the newsFlash, but this result is not Ambiguous at all. The winner is Cutie Honey.

Summary

Ryūko Matoi

“This is a keepsake from my father. And this Scissor Blade was left behind by the person who killed him. Now you're going to tell me who this Scissor Blade belongs to... Satsuki Kiryuin!”

Advantages:

• Much stronger with finite high ends

• Much faster regardless of end

• Much bigger range and AOE

• Girlfriend is alive and well

Equal

• Both resist each other’s spatial and mind manipulation

• Similar AP under lowest and highest interpretations

Disadvantages:

• Less intelligent, skilled and experienced

• Far inferior regeneration, survivability and versatility

• Cannot survive Honey’s quantum level deconstruction and existence erasure

• Cannot touch Honey while she’s transformed into a cloud of nanomachines or pure energy

Cutie Honey

“I believe in man's innate humanity! The human heart is the birthplace of love and kindness! If you return, then I swear I'll return as well! I'll come back again and again to destroy you once and for all!”

Advantages:

• Smarter, more skilled and experienced

• Insane versatility advantage

• Has many ways to negate Ryūko’s durability

• Regeneration makes it practically impossible for Ryūko to kill her

• Can copy and integrate Ryūko’s Life Fibers and weaponry

• Lesbianmogs

Equal

• Both resist each other’s spatial and mind manipulation

• Similar AP under lowest and highest interpretations

Disadvantages:

• Far slower

• Far weaker in finite high ends

• Far smaller range and AoE

• Girlfriend is dead in many continuities

Final Tally

Ryūko Matoi (0): “Show them what it means to be a shining star”

Cutie Honey (8): Cyber, Flip, Kaiser, L.A.D., Monev, Sharaku, Tony, Mau

Happy Pride Month!

Next Time

YES, THIS ONE IS FINALLY HAPPENING AS THE NEXT TIME

But wait… there’s more??? Soon, a bonus blog will drop as well!

Next Time… Two!

Sources

Ryūko Matoi

• Kill la Kill (Anime, 2013)

• Kill la Kill Episode 25 (OVA, 2014)

• Kill la Kill (Manga, 2015)

• Kill la Kill Drama CD (2014)

• Kill la Kill Script Complete Works (2016)

• Kill la KIll: IF (2019)

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime, 2007)

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Otoko Series (CD Drama, 2007)

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Light Novel, 2014)

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann The Movie: Childhood's End (Anime movie, 2008)

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann The Movie: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (Anime movie, 2009)

• Space Patrol Luluco (Anime, 2016)

• Kill la Kill: IF (canon + stats) by Cyber

• Kill la Kill: IF hax by Cyber

• Ryuko vs Crona blog by Loka

• Satsuki vs Erza blog by G1

• Simon vs Kyle blog by G1

• Multiple linked calculations from VS Battles Wiki

Cutie Honey

• Cutie Honey (Manga, 1973)

• Cutie Honey: The Another (Manga, 1973)

• Cutie Honey (Anime, 1973)

• Cutie Honey ‘90 (Manga, 1992)

• Shin Cutie Honey (OVA, 1994)

• Cutie Honey Flash (Anime, 1997)

• Cutie Honey Flash: The Movie (Anime movie, 1997)

• Cutie Honey & F (Manga, 1998)

• Cutie Honey Tennyo Densetsu (Manga, 2001)

• Cutie Honey A Go-Go! (Manga, 2003)

• Re: Cutie Honey (OVA, 2004)

• Cutie Honey (Movie, 2004)

• Cutie Honey: The Live (LA TV Series, 2007)

• Cutie Honey vs Abashiri Ikka (Manga, 2009)

• Oedo Honey (Manga, 2012)

• Re: Cutie Honey Chapter 4 - Harmony (CD Drama, 2013)

• Cutie Honey vs Devilman Lady (Manga, 2013)

• Cutie Honey 2023 (Manga, 2023)

• Cutie Honey Nova (Manga, 2025)

• Abashiri Family (Manga, 1969)

• Dynamic Heroes (Manga, 2004)

• Mazinger Angels (Manga, 2004)

• Mazinger Z (Anime, 1972)

• Mazinger Z vs Devilman (Anime, 1973)

• Mazinger Z vs The Great General of Darkness (Anime movie, 1974)

• Shin Mazinger ZERO (Manga, 2009)

• Shin Mazinger ZERO vs The Great General of Darkness (Manga, 2012)

• Mazinger Z: Infinity (Anime movie, 2017)

• Great Mazinger (Anime, 1974)

• Great Mazinger vs Getter Robo (Anime movie, 1975)

• Great Mazinger vs Getter Robot G: Great Sky Clash (Anime movie, 1975)

• Grendizer Giga (2014)

• Getter Robo (Anime, 1974)

• Getter Robo G (Anime, 1976)

• UFO Robot Gendizer (Anime, 1975)

• Grendizer, Getter Robo G and Great Mazinger: Decisive Showdown! The Giant Sea Beast (Anime movie, 1976)

• Devilman (Anime, 1972)

• Multiple linked calculations from VS Battles wiki