Totally Spies! (2001-?)

A 156 episode cartoon series about spies?  I’m so totally there!  WOOHP!

I’ve only seen the first episode and maybe, maybe will watch some more.  For anyone who hasn’t seen it, it’s sort of like a cross between Sailor Moon and the 2000 Charlie’s Angels movie.  Maybe even a better description would be that it’s an entry in the category of “teen girls solving problems+gimmick”.  There have been many of these and will likely will always be plenty.  Examples are W.I.T.C.H., Winx Club, Brace-face, and even Jem and the Holograms.  Totally Spies! has the classic teen girls’ problems story-lines with spy tropes/plot-lines as the gimmick.  This show also does a decent job of absorbing inspiration from current media, e.g. Season 1, Episode 1 features Ricky (Martin) and the plot of the Josie and the Pussycats movie.  Plus it features a villain who looks surprisingly like G Dragon.

It may not be fair to judge a show based on only 0.64% of its content but it’s probably safe to recommend this show to anyone who likes cartoons and spies.  It has the classic questionable anime visual presentation of young women but that should pass over the heads of children and isn’t objectionable enough to merit censure.  It’s like anime-lite.  For the hardcore anime fans out there, this will just be a bland cartoon to you.  There weren’t even any squids or nudity in the first episode!

I may continue watching this but am not sure just yet.  If anything from future episodes seems significant I’ll just update the page but if someone else is a huge fan and wants to put their two cents in by all means share.

–Kryptosfan