FLCL Grunge is the worst FLCL sequel yet. The original FLCL was one of the most creative, beautifully made anime of its time, with every bit of it oozing with the passion of every person involved, but as has been proven time and time again, Americans getting their hands on anime has heavily hurt the industry, and the FLCL sequels commissioned by Adult Swim have been no exception. Not even bothering to bring back the minds that made the original great, Progressive was a swallow attempt at trying to make the OG again, but lacking any of the charm and boundless inspiration that it had, instead coming across as a cynical rehash solely made to satisfy corporations. The next sequel, Alternative, fared even worse, as it completely butchered even basic ideas that the original had, completely misunderstanding the metaphors it had used, and just overall had nothing to offer thanks to its bland and inspired art that, while pretty, had nothing to make it stand out from any other anime. I believed things couldn't get worse for this once great series, but then Adult Swim came again with 2 MORE SEQUELS, and FLCL Grunge sure didn't disappoint in how bad it is.

Let's start with the elephant in the room: the visual style is the equivalent of a pig rolling in shit. From the second the trailers showed this season would go full CGI, I had my expectations at rock bottom, but the compositing here is just atrocious, mixing horribly with the aesthetic of the returning characters, and making the new ones feel like they belong in a completely show. The fact it sometimes mixes the cel shaded CGI in with some traditional animation (which still doesn't look good, mind you) brings back nightmares of Berserk 2016, even if this at least doesn't reach such criminal levels of bad. The fact the series tries to recreate scenes from the original show, but using this ugly look in place of the brilliant original, they just look plain bad as the visuals the OG had gone for just don't translate to CGI at all.

Even if you let the visuals aside, another great issue with Grunge is the story, as this franchise whose main message is growing up sure has been stuck repeating the same plot for 4 seasons now. So yes, the plot is again a copy paste of the original whose deviations just don't matter, as nothing this blatantly corporate product could do would hope to match the most thematically perfect coming of age story of this century, let alone when the execution in this one is so poor even 2/3 into it you're not sure what even is this trying to do beyond said rehash, as the story goes literally nowhere by the end. Really, when a franchise starts contradicting its messages, you know it has gone for far longer than it should've, as the fact this keeps preaching to move on while being stuck on trying to cater nostalgia for the original series as its only marketing method is just disgusting. Oh, and they couldn't even bother to get back Haruko and Amarao's voice actors, showing once again that they just don't care and only want a cheap cash grab, the only positive I can even give to this show is once more bringing back The Pillows, as their songs are just as good as ever.

In the end, I just don't get who this series even is for. FLCL fans have no reason to watch a criminally watered down version of the show they can watch again in one sit, most new people wouldn't start watching a 20+ years old series in the 4th season, and anyone who would do it anyway won't get anything of real value out it since it's just a bland, corporate and ugly turd. Earlier this year, I said that a certain isekai show would be the worst anime of the year unless something went really wrong, and seeing how Grunge just utterly fails in every conceivable aspect and I see no reason anyone should waste these 90 minutes of their time even trying to watch this mess, I see I summoned the monkey's paw, as I know declare this to be the worst anime of 2023.

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