Craig McCracken is a big fan of tokusatsu (he told me his favorite tokusatsu TV series is Keep Trying, Robocon!), and added plenty of tokusatsu influences in this show! Besides the many kaijuu references, there's Mojo Jojo (based on Spectreman's Gori, wearing the helmet of the Japanese superhero Shadow-Star)!
When I first saw the 1995 pilot, I dubbed the Girls the "Super Sentai Babies," because they were similar, in a way, to the Super Sentai heroes (color-coded group), although they don't carry weapons, and are probably more similar to Ultraman and his brethren.
And years later, I heard that The Powerpuff Girls was based on a student short by Craig McCracken called Whoopass Stew! (which featured the then-named Whoopass Girls)! I was impressed when I finally saw it (as well as three other "animatic" episodes). Craig was originally influenced by the Stevie & Zoya animated shorts done for MTV (they were MTV's first animated series)!
Besides all that, I love the character/background designs and retro-style animation by many artists who helped on the show, including Genndy Tartakovsky, Don Shank, and many others.
This series is already a great classic. I urge people to check it out! (They're currently airing it on Boomerang, weeknights at 10PM.)
