Pizza Cats Facts
The flag on the imperial palace says "O-Edo" "O"=Big, translating into "Edoropolis" ("ropolis" signifing a big city, as in "Metropolis").
You might also have noticed the "O-Edo Dome" where the sports arena is.
(Thanks, Issarlk!)

None of the Rescue Team cats carry a sword.

Guido is the first cat in the series to go into action, when he fires his Sunspot umbrella at the Dragon in the first episode.

SPC and DW4: Twin Brethren or Strangers in a Strange Fan Base?
by Skankin'
Throughout Anime history, artists have used ideas from other features for different medias. Dare we ask less of the Samurai Pizza Cats? Just recently, it occurred to me to look at my Dragon Warrior IV* Item Guide. I often checked it during the game and admired the artwork. As a coincidence, I was working with an image of Speedy in Extra-Topping mode. Glancing from an item called the Zenithian Armor, I was shocked to find out they were exactly the same thing.
As I slowly became accustomed to this fact that the shoulder pylons on the Gooney armor matched those of the Zenithian Armor, I inspected more of the game. Sure enough--more was in common with SPC and Dragon Warrior IV than I ever noticed.
The item called the Iron Helmet matches Speedy's helmet almost flawlessly, with the same blue-sphere crystal in the visor as our feline hero. The artist even included the same circular swivel points for the visor lowering, only adding a mane and taking away the ears.
Other items that are coincidentally close is the DW4 armor called the "Demon Armor" which features the same huge shoulder-plates (well..they're pottish, like the thing on BB's head in the un-transformed state.) as the Armor of Worc from Bad Bird Uncaged.
But the artwork alone is not the only coincidence--the characters within are frighteningly close to our SPC cohorts. For example, in DW4, the second chapter of the game allows you to take part in the adventures of Alena, a princess that possesses, "A strong and clever spirit" and wants to taste the adventure of a free life of danger and fighting. Small world she has two bumbling male counterparts, one of which seems to harbor a deep love for her. It also seems interesting that her colors are pink and red, and she fights only with hand-to-hand combat, especially claws...sound like anyone?
Another character is named Taloon--an arms merchant that wants to find or earn a great fortune to run his own shop.
His background may not be anything like SPC, but his fighting style proves otherwise: constantly, through battle, Taloon does interesting--nay, HILARIOUS, sometimes POWERFUL, and downright Speedy-esque--things at times. For instance, he tells jokes during a fight to distract, or get given opponents to laugh uncontrollably, forcing them to cease their attack. He also throws sand into creature's eyes to blind them and steals their stuff...but the best (and most incriminating evidence that he was modeled after Speedy) feature of this character is the so-called "Super Attack"--when a character randomly does an incredible amount of damage--he'll trip over someone else's weapon or foot and do an INCREDIBLE (About 200-350 hit points of damage) amount of damage to an enemy by doing so and accidentally striking them. And it's most commonly known that a few of Speedy's victories were accidents... and man, are they GREAT that way, or what?
And while this game was created in 1992, KNT and SPC were it's predecessors, coming out in 1990 and 1991, respectively (Although SPC wasn't shown in the US until 97--thanks Vi!). This almost guarantees a little bit of "Idea Pooling" from Japanese storyboards.
*--Dragon Warrior 4 is copyrighted 1992 Enix Software.

Featured Character:
Lucille
Japanese name: Omitsu Like most KNT names, it's a pun.
O+Mitsu (mittsu=3, has the Japanese number 3 on her apron) (mitsu=honey)
KNT nick-name: "Mi-chan"
Likes: Fernando Curtainzuela, shopping, public TV
Hates: Politics
Lucille fires a barrage of missles from her hair and clothes when excited or upset. This happens often as Lucille is probably the most emotionally unstable character on the entire show. Lucille's record is 3 missle barrages in one episode (Underground, Underwater, Undercooked). She will also use her missles as an offensive weapon when she is angered, as Bad Bird finds out in "Speedy's Double Time Trick". She has 3 different sized missles, the biggest is only seen in the last episode of Cat Ninden Teyande, and is responable for leveling the city.
She has a brother named Wally who makes sushi (and wears the same size as Speedy).
Lucille's NY counterpart is Lucinda (In Japan, "Honey") who fires a machine gun instead of missles.
Half of the singing duo "The Pointless Sisters" ("Lovely Mipple" in Japan)
Lucille runs a small tea house, but she's not a very good cook herself (she usually has help). She oftens goes to, or orders out from, Pizza Cats for lunch. Both Speedy & Guido (and many other men in Little Tokyo) have a crush on her and spend much of their time flirting with her.
(Thanks, Issarlk and Jonas, for some of the Lucille info)

Links
Francine's Home Page (formerly Otama's Home page)
http://otama.cjb.net

SPC Japan
The English version of this page was shut down, because the owner doesn't speak English very well, and it was more important to keep the Japanese version going (there are very few Pizza Cats pages in Japanese). If you had linked or bookmarked the English page, you can change your link to the Japanese version.
http://home.att.ne.jp/yellow/wtbfh528/piza-05.html

"Lunatic 42's SPC Web Page" has
moved and changed names to "Ultramarine Rain's SPC Page" now at:
http://www.edoropolis.org/umrain/index.html

This Month's Picture
It's Nyangoking, AKA The Great Catatonic

Bye-bye
That's all for this month. Hope you all have a good summer!
We will be back next month with a new issue of Pizza Cats Review.
-Violet

Hope you enjoyed it and see you next month. Also, don't get sunburnt. It hurts like heck! (Trust me.. I know^^)
~~PollyEster~~