20 Years Later, This Is Still Cartoon Network’s Wildest Spinoff (& It Never Aired in the U.S.)

Cartoon Network is now celebrating the 20th anniversary for the wildest spinoff the channel has ever helped to produce, and it’s an anime that didn’t even get an official broadcast run in the United States after all this time. Cartoon Network has some of the most memorable franchises in animation history, and many of them have found themselves coming back to screens with new revivals, sequels, or spinoffs in the last few years. But while those come as a surprise, there’s one show in particular that really seemed to come out of left field.

Toei Animation has officially kicked off their celebration for the 20th anniversary of Powerpuff Girls Z. Originally debuting in Japan in July 2026, the spinoff anime series took The Powerpuff Girls and gave them an entirely different spin with a new production staff, creative team, and more behind it all. Changing the origins of the show’s characters, changing their respective powers, and most notably changing their ages and designs, Powerpuff Girls Z is still a wild anime series that never got a proper release in the United States.

What Is Powerpuff Girls Z?

As part of Toei Animation’s wider celebration of its 50th anniversary back in 2000, Powerpuff Girls Z was planned as part of a collaboration between Cartoon Network, TV Tokyo, Aniplex, and Toei Animation. The show was made without any input from The Powerpuff Girls original creator Craig McCracken (which unfortunately would be a trend for the franchise with its later revival attempts), and instead was directed by Iku Ishiguro with Cutie Honey Flash character designer Miho Shimogasa providing the new character designs for the anime. It was a completely different beast compared to the original series.

Powerpuff Girls Z loosely took elements from the original Cartoon Network show and invented an entirely different kind of magical girl anime experience instead. For example, in this version Professor Utonium has a son (named Ken) and they live in Tokyo City. The Professor isn’t setting out to “create the perfect little girl,” but instead is working on a more powerful version of Chemical X known as “Chemical Z.” When the world is in trouble, Ken ends up shooting a Chemical Z infused light beam into an iceberg and it sends the chemical ray into the sky. Which ends up hitting three eighth grade girls, who become powerful superheroes.

Momoko Akatsutsumi, Miyako Gotokuji, and Kaoru Matsubara gain the ability to transform into Hyper Blossom, Rolling Bubbles, and Powered Buttercup respectively. Conversely, there’s a black version of the Chemical Z ray that hits other animals and people around town to turn them into new anime version of famous The Powerpuff Girls villains like Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, the Gangreen Gang and more with all sorts of new villains added to the roster to fill out the 52 episode long run of the anime. It’s basically unrecognizable when compared to Cartoon Network’s original series (which is also a problem other revivals in the franchise have faced).

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What Happened to Powerpuff Girls Z?

Powerpuff Girls Z had a strong run in Japan, and even released an English dub across territories such as the Philippines, Austrailia, and New Zealand. But despite all of that popularity, there’s a good chance the majority of fans of the original series have never heard about the anime. It’s because even after all this time, Powerpuff Girls has never gotten a proper release in the United States despite that tie to the massively popular Cartoon Network franchise.

There’s yet to be a proper explanation as to why Cartoon Network never released the anime in the United States, however, nor is there a way to actually check out the now 20 year old anime series. The 20th anniversary celebration will release episodes of the anime for fans to check out online for a limited time, but it’s also only limited to Japan. There’s never been a high quality release for the anime or its English dub, so that means it’s essentially been lost to time outside of those fans who remember the wild Cartoon Network experiment.

The Powerpuff Girls is the best superhero show that ever aired with Cartoon Network, so in hindsight an anime spinoff like this does make a lot of sense. But changing so much about the series that it’s basically unrecognizable just doesn’t make that same sense. It might have just been too different from the original series, but all these years later it remains a hilarious piece of the franchise’s history. With yet another reboot in the works, this anime spinoff does showcase how far The Powerpuff Girls can take its core ideas before going too far.

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