“It is not what's there on the screen that disappoints me, but what's not there.”

Although this quote is used in reference to the influx of computer generated imagery in film at the beginning of the 21st century, it perfectly summarizes how I feel about Flip Flappers.

What the audience is presented with is, at its best, a marvel of animation and a beautiful synergy between three main characters, but at its worst, a lacking overarching story that feels repetitive in and of itself. As the story forces itself to develop, it starts losing the magic of wonder and adventure that it proved that it was capable of perfecting in earlier episodes. The highlight of this series is the episodic, and fails to create conflict developed enough to justify straying away from it.

The end result is a series that has extremely well-made scenes, writing, storyboarding and the elements that captivate fans of magical girl, adventure, and artsy anime, but too much of the rest of the series is dedicated to trying to be overly ambitious on stringing together an elaborate, scientific, yet godlike, supernatural conclusion.

To say that this series did not know what it wanted to do, or what it was doing, is a disservice to the production team behind it. They knew exactly what they wanted to do, and the audience can easily note where each piece is introduced and expanded upon in order to fulfill the studio’s vision, but this series fails to reach the level of sophistication that the team was looking for.

Studio 3Hz is still a new studio. They’ve only had two other series in total, one of which was an adaptation. I believe they aimed too high, too early. Flip Flappers could have easily been improved with a couple of rewrites, and both a heavier episodic focus or spending the time to think about how to better the story further are equally plausible scenarios that can drastically formulate a series where there is exclusively those moments that make the audience want to love it.

However, they are absolutely still impressive. I have nothing but respect for the people who worked on this show because Flip Flappers provides concrete evidence that they are capable. Polish is needed. But only polish, is needed. A new staff isn’t needed, a new animation style does not have to be invented, and I look forward to hearing about a new project.

I genuinely recommend this series to all fans of the genre that this series touches upon, but personally forewarn that as it develops, it may start to lose you. Despite episode 5 being possibly one of my favorites of all time, it lost me enough to the point where I had mixed feelings and where I had to question whether or not I actually loved, or even liked this series.

I wanted to love this series, and particularly in those specific episodes and scenes, I do.

It brings agony that I can’t say that I always do.