It swaps the Cartoon Network hard angles for full Toei magical girl gear and somehow makes both halves work. These aren't kindergarteners anymore: Momoko is a sugar-addicted shounen manga fiend, Miyako is all fashion and softness, and Kaoru would rather die than be caught in a skirt, which means her secret identity crisis is really about her wrestling-obsessed family finding out she wears one. The weapons are the tell that somebody actually cared. A yo-yo, a bubble wand, a giant hammer, all deployed with the kind of stock transformation footage you'll have memorized by episode ten and still sit through anyway. Mojo Jojo starts as a zoo monkey hit by a black Z ray, Peach the robot dog barks the alarm, and the whole thing runs 52 episodes of monster-of-the-week with zero shame about it. Show up for the novelty, stay because Kaoru is the best Buttercup anyone has written.

When an experimental formula called Chemical Z goes wrong, it scatters mysterious black and white lights across Tokyo. Three ordinary first-year junior high girls, Momoko, Miyako, and Kaoru, are struck by the white lights and gain the power to transform into superheroes. But they're not alone in their transformation. The black lights turn their victims into monsters, and one of them hits a zoo monkey, turning him into Mojo Jojo. As the newly formed Powerpuff Girls Z, the trio sees their normal lives thrown into disarray. Adapted from the American cartoon The Powerpuff Girls, the series pairs magical girl transformations with comedy, action, and science fiction.