a curated selection of thoughts collected within a 1 gb limit
consider the following: what's a TV show that you seen only once in your life and it's been years since then? sometimes it pops back in your mind very briefly and you start to wonder how well it really holds up. you see the world so differently compared to back then and now you think about how that might affect your perception of this show. oh, and does this certain show involve robots popping out of people's foreheads while a pink-haired alien girl hits the main character with a guitar while indie rock plays in the background? if you said yes to all of this, you better sit down. today, we're going to dive into one of the most prolific animated series of the adult swim generation four years later. this is FLCL.
“huh? four years later? what do you mean?” that’s what you might be thinking right now, but it’ll make sense once you let me explain...please. now think back to 2018. i started transitioning into my freshman year of high school and had no clue what was coming ahead. i called myself an aspiring artist and animator, but i didn’t consistently do art until that year. and talk about aspiring animator. i had nothing at my disposal to make a proper animated short. so one day, i do what i usually do and ponder about a show that i never bring myself to watch. that show just happened to be FLCL, which i’ve definitely heard about before. i saw this video essay about it and i was intrigued by it ever since. it wasn't like anything i've ever seen before. it was this little TV show from the far reaches of japan that not only was considered to be one of the most influential anime series of all time, but it also CAME BACK with two more seasons that same year. so i had to check it out eventually. the results were, shall we say, unexpected for little ol’ me.
so this is the third anime series i’ve watched in my entire life. willingly at least. besides the stuff they used to air on cw4kids every saturday morning (and like one ghibli movie), i barely ever engaged with anime. the two other series i watched before this were cowboy bebop and pop team epic. that’s all the anime stove you’ll get out of that year. i was one of those lame-o geeks who dismissed anything anime because of some made up stigma.
anyway, FLCL was a six-episode miniseries from director kazuya tsurumaki and produced under the FLCL production committee (duh), production IG, and the legendary studio gainax. it follows the tale of 12 year old boy naota nandaba getting his whole suburban life turned around by this weird alien girl with pink hair, a guitar, and a vespa scooter. enter haruko haruhara. she’s basically the main foil for the whole plot and voiced by the talented kari walhgren in the english version. you’ll recognize her in other projects like lucky star or rick and morty. other characters include the high school weirdo mamimi, canti, who’s a robot with a TV for a head, naota’s weird dad, and commander amarao. he’s the one with the really big eyebrows.
it's hard to talk about FLCL without really spoiling it. i mean this has to be the hardest entry that i ever had to write. what the hell can you say about it? but i can assure you that it is fascinating. the characters are simple but deep, the english casting is perfect, and it's essentially a love letter to animation in general. so many little references and callbacks to so many pieces of animation. and oh look, they referenced lupin III. god, this thing was just taylormade for me, huh?
surprisingly, there's a good amount of influence from western media, most notably with south park. seems to be a favorite among gainax because there's at least three friggin references. there's even a bit of matrix if you thought this wasn't 2000s enough. but in terms of japanese media, one of my favorites has to be the daicon reference. okay, if you don't know, daicon IV is this short film from some of the gainax guys before gainax was even a thing. it's essentially a music video set to ELO's twilight that's filled with a bunch of licensed characters, like batman and doraemon, where this playboy bunny girl flies on a guitar and beats up a bunch of godzilla monsters and throws an entire super sentai robot to the ground. oh and she also fights darth vader. it's an impressive feat knowing that this is not-quite-full-of-money pre-gainax we're talking about. in other words, there would be no gainax or trigger if not for this short film. it may never be released legally, but my god they pulled through.
but references are nothing but flattery. we gotta go back to the show itself. the biggest criticism i can think of is the addition of all the, let's say, not flattery moments. you know, like when haruko kisses a 12 year old on the mouth. or whatever mamimi does. it's fine if you don't like that stuff. but i don't think they really do those scenes in a positive light. it's always seen as weird and off-color like a lot of the stuff that happens in the show. for you see the name of the game is relationships. for example, naota has an older brother who's never seen in the show. he doesn't even have a name. he's just naota's older brother who's playing baseball in america. but it's not like we never know him. we start to dive into his relationship with mamimi a little and how that shows her character in tandem. and to say the least, it's not that pretty. and slowly we realize that maybe naota's better off without his brother. he just...disappeared one day. no warning, no reason, just felt like it.
and that's where it plays into naota's relationship with haruko. he yearns for something more than this average suburb life and his own father doesn't seem to treat him that well either. they're both on another field of reality where naota is down-to-earth and his dad is anything but. and haruko seems to be the answer to his problem. but at the same time, all the stuff that haruko does is like sensory overload. it's too much weirdness. but as soon as she disappears, something feels wrong. in a way, he sees a bit of his own brother in haruko, which is all the more clear by the last episode. it sort of sparks these themes of growing up as well. everything is so confusing and you learn new things that you just wish you didn't know. by becoming the master of your own destiny, the line gets more clear and you become more ready for something to face you.
my favorite episode is more of a cross between the last two, brittle bullet and FLCLimax. maybe brittle bullet i like more. but both episodes feel like a culmination of what makes FLCL work in the first place. dynamics, storytelling, art direction, animation, it's all accounted for and it's brilliant. but it would be amiss if one were to drop into a random episode in the middle. this is six episodes for a reason. from start-to-finish, what's beneath a series of weird things that kind of happen is a story about growing up and taking on a terrifying world.
of course, it wouldn't be a FLCL retrospective if i don't mention the soundtrack of japanese rock band, the pillows. their music is such a perfect fit for the whole show and it wouldn't be the same without it.
so, if FLCL is so good, where's FLCL 2? and 3 for that matter? well, i haven't seen them in years. but i can easily tell you that they're not that bad. they both have their own quirks that make them perfectly acceptable. FLCL progressive has the better haruko reveal and FLCL alternative has the better action. progressive has the pretty lady with the pink skin, alternative has the better characters. progressive has the better music, alternative has the better theming. progressive...yeah just watch alternative. don't get me wrong, progressive is good to watch at least once, but alternative is only at worst slightly okay. it's weird. they're not exactly up to snuff with the original in any capacity. however, i don't think they need to be. the fact that they're separate stories with an underlying theme seems to make them more like artist interpretations rather than flat-out sequels.
and now it looks like they're making more of them next year. first there's FLCL grunge, which kinda has this new post-apocalyptic CGI look. then there's FLCL shoegaze, which judging from its promo art looks a bit more sketchy and minimalist in some sort. then in 2029, they're releasing FLCL glamrock which is gonna be the first live-action series. and then in 2043, there's FLCL noise folk. see, i know this guy who partially came up with this term called "noise folk" to describe his first EP that's just a bunch of demos. then these guys in suits from production IG and warner bros came up to his door and gave him millions of dollars to license the name alone. it's also why the soundtrack occasionally becomes bass-boosted for no reason, but that's a story for another time. and then in 2050, the series will celebrate its 50th anniversary with an all-new reboot titled FLCL j-rock...as composed by the london symphony orchestra.
you know, i used to think of this series as a fun and wacky romp with cool robots and funky forehead bumps. i didn’t get how people saw how “thought-provoking” it was. looking back on it now, i think i get it. over the years, i started slowly piecing it together with the stuff that i could remember from this show. it concluded its original run with its characters growing while not really growing at the same time. the show that i now appreciate for its animation and narrative structure was the same show that i dismissed four years ago as another weird anime that i kind of liked. i guess i didn't see it that way because i was so dismissive. how can it be that deep? it's a show about a kid who gets a life-sized TV robot out of his forehead.
four years ago, i was a young freshman in high school running in a complicated state of mental health and i was just slowly getting out of that "anime bad" mindset. four years later, not only am i arguably the best i’ve ever been, but i’ve also been consistently improving my art and now i’m in college so i can pursue a degree in animation. and it looks like the next four years will be my biggest and most life-changing yet. and most importantly, i don't think anime is bad. this is definitely more important than mental health.
to me, FLCL will forever be a mysterious thing that will somehow find its way back into my life, especially with it being milked for all its worth. but everyone has a different understanding of the show and i feel that's especially reflected in its official material. maybe the new seasons won't be so ideal. maybe they'll be stupid and boring. whatever the case, i'm still interested to learn what they are and how they see FLCL. all i see are artist interpretations and that's okay. because nothing will replace the original series. times have changed, but FLCL will stay the same. and that's something you can't take away.