What has bizarre dream sequences, an eccentric guitar-wielding “Vespa woman”, baseball, giant robots, and a nearly incomprehensible storyline?
Why, it’s FLCL of course!
Alternate Title: Fooly Cooly (OVA)
Furi Kuri (フリクリ)
Studio: Gainax / Production I.G.
English Liscensor: FUNimation Entertainment
Geneon Enterainment (USA) Inc. (soundtrack)
Episodes: 6
Demographic: Shonen
Genres: comedy, romance, science fiction, drama, mecha
Related Content: FLCL (manga)
Summary:
“Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary.” This is what the normal – albeit pessimistic – 6th grader, Naota Nandaba, has to say about his hometown of Mabase. However, the truth of the matter is that this Japanese suburb is anything but normal; especially after the construction of the monumental Medical Mechanica plant. Naota’s world is immediately turned upside-down with the arrival of Haruko, a strange pink-haired woman who comes to town riding a cute yellow Vespa. She greets Naota with a nice blow to the forehead using a bright blue vintage Rickenbacker 4001 electric bass guitar, knocking him out cold. From this point on, robots begin to emerge from the boy’s head, his family gets a new live-in house maid, and the battle galactic conquest begins.
*NOTE: FLCL contains some objectionable content including bloody violence and/or crude humor.*
Review:
This show is weird! In a good way, though. Essentially, the main focus of Fooly Cooly is Naota’s maturation, loss if innocence, and the complexity of human interactions. These topics remain low-key throughout the series, though. This sci-fi drama is coated with a thick layer of comedy that parodies the different aspects of cliché over-the-top anime series (I especially loved the exaggerated slow motion scene) and manages to drag the audience through a wacky well-animated journey. Where does it lead? I’m still trying to figure that out.
All random tomfoolery aside, the music mix of indie rock and power pop (courtesy of The Pillows) compliment FLCL’s wacky characters well, while the show’s sound effects and English dub make the experience all the more enjoyable. Its display of pastels and bright colors really draws the viewer’s attention, not to mention the art style gives FLCL a nice vintage anime feel.
Overall, Fooly Cooly is a wonderful audio-visual sci-fi adventure; however, it lacks it a couple of ways: length and depth. Now, I’m not saying that a great show needs to be long and drawn out, nor am I suggesting that all shows should have some sort of deep life-changing meaning for each viewer; but with a show like FLCL, it’s a shame that its creators didn’t choose to further develop its interesting characters or its underlying coming of age theme. Although, its brevity one of the very aspects that makes audiences appreciate Fooly Cooly’s energy and oddness even more. If you’re looking for a crazy good time, a brief messed up plot, some sci-fi drama, a little baseball-throwing, guitar-swinging, super robot action, then FLCL is a must-see.
Unpredictable? Always. Disturbing? Sometimes. Serious? Maybe. Awesome? Definitely!
Rating: «««
I swear I have seen this show before, but it was not called as it is now. I saw this show and I remember the show being Flikki or something like that. The art style sure had changed a lot and the series looks way weirder than the last time I saw it. I got to admit the story never made sense to me, what the heck is an alien (pretending to be a girl) doing here in the first place. This is a good show (as how I remember it), but it did not have a real plot so the three star rating is accurate nevertheless.
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