FLCL

FLCL is another piece of work from our boys over at Gainax. It was released in 2000 & proved to be a hit amongst audiences, garnering it a place in history. Is it deserving of that though? Lets take a look. For the record, this review will most likely contain massive spoilers for the series, so read at your own risk.

Story:

FLCLs story starts us off down by a river underneath a bridge. A boy named Naota & a girl named Mamimi are hanging out with each other & talking. After Naotao makes a comment about how doing homework at home isn’t “cool”, & Mamimi fondles him for a bit, they decide to walk home. Before they can get home however, a crazy alien on a vespa named Haruko quite literally crashes in on their day & hits Naota on the head with her bass guitar, which is later revealed to create a gateway for robots & all sorts of zany things to pop out of Naota’s head. Haruko then proceeds to do things that manipulate Naota into helping her meet Atomisk, a being with a power that she wants to harness for herself because she simply wants to become powerful. Naota ends up stopping Haruko by the end & releasing Atomisk's power so that Haruko can’t obtain it. The series ends off with Mamimi taking a shot of Naota holding Haruko’s bass guitar & starting a career in photography, Naota coming to the realization that he has quite a ways to go in life before becoming a mature individual, & a final shot of a string on Haruko’s bass guitar being strummed by an invisible force.

I did skimp out on some details in my synopsis. For starters, I don’t want to explain the entire series in one essay, giving you absolutely no reason to watch the series, but I’d also like to lay to rest the myth that “FLCL has no plot” by explaining the basics of what you need to know. Now, I will admit, FLCL isn’t very direct about what its plot is, in fact the plot really doesn’t become abundantly clear until episode 3 of the series, so first time viewers may end up being confused and not understanding what the story is, so I do understand why some may say “FLCL has no plot”. I’d also be lying if I said the plot was the strongest element of this series. It’s definitely a good plot for sure, & creates plenty of scenarios for great character dynamics & amazing action sequences (more on those later) to take place. However the plot definitely takes a backseat compared to the rest of the series. It’s also impressive that this story only had 6 episodes to work with & yet it still managed to cram as much as it did under the hood & has more to offer me than a certain 110 episode sci-fi series I’ve seen.

Characters:

Given the fact that FLCL only has 6 episodes to work with, it’s impressive how fleshed out & memorable our main cast is. I will start with a negative though, the side characters are kind of lackadaisical & suffer from being unmemorable. This isn’t to say they’re bad, rather they really don’t have much to offer outside of 1 character trait & gag to the story overall. Now back to the positives, Naota is a child who lives with a very dysfunctional family & a father who was never really the best care-taker or most mature individual out of people Naota knew, so Naota has an obsession with being mature & has always had trouble looking up to adults. The only one he could ever look up to really was his older brother, but his older brother went off to play baseball in North America, so Naota is back to being by himself with nobody he can really look up to.

Mamimi is somebody who craves attention & suffers from getting bullied in school. She also struggles with knowing what she wants to do or where she’ll go in life (until episode 6 of the series). She was once the girlfriend of Naota’s older brother, & Mamimi loved Naota’s older brother & sort of relied on him to give her attention, which is why Mamimi hangs around Naota so much, & fondles him. Given everything that has happened to her throughout the series, how lonely she feels, & how lost she is in life. Mamimi decides to take revenge by feeding a robot dog she found down by the river (which turns out to be the core needed to power Kazuya Tsurumaki’s hand & unleash atomisk). Mamimi is a pretty shitty individual when you break her down, & she also does a lot of terrible things throughout the series, but FLCL wouldn’t be the same without Mamimi, so her presence is very much welcomed.

Haruko is the arguable antagonist of FLCL. She’s a crazy alien who pops into Naota’s life seemingly nowhere (though we see an establishing shot of Haruko on her Vespa beforehand). Speaking of, her main mode of transportation is a yellow Vespa, & her weapon of choice is a Bass guitar. As I mentioned earlier, Haruko is a power-seeking individual who manipulates people into helping her get what she wants. Haruko is an asshole, but her zany antics are part of what makes FLCL so great. When the scenes aren’t revolved around her, the series is very grounded in reality & centered around the life of Naota & how he goes about it. But then Haruko rears her head and then a bunch of insanely bombastic & awesome action sequences play out. It’s a nice contrast.

Our final character to discuss is Ninamori. Ninamore is kind of like the girl version of Naota, but don’t take that as me saying she has no stand-out traits. Ninamori, like Naota, is concerned about maintaining a mature appearance, as well as not having much trust in the adults around her. Ninamori goes through her own arc (offscreen) about coming to grips with understanding her parents & their living situation (her mom & dad are going through a divorce in the series), what maturity really means, & becoming an overall better person for it.

FLCL may be a 4 character cast with some side characters sprinkled in there for good measure, but I love this cast, they’re all fun to watch, (well, the main characters anyway) bring their own schtick to the series, & create great character dynamics.

Art:

FLCL is a masterpiece in terms of animation quality. There’s a sense of fluidity to the bombastic action sequences that just make them a joy to watch. Even the tamer scenes with not a lot of action going on there’s a nice attention to detail in the movements of the characters to where even scenes like those are fun to watch. So Gainax not only took advantage of the fact that FLCL was an OVA that wasn’t held back by TV animation, but also learned to manage their money for once. Good on ya Gainax.
Backgrounds are good but nothing spectacular. There was a good deal of effort put into the backgrounds, & they’re all nice to look at, but they’re not the most impressive displays of background art I’ve seen. Though they’re good enough to the point where they do more than just “get the job done”. The directing tricks in FLCL are also really good. Some of the episodes have what I’ll call “Matrix cams”, what I mean by that is that the camera will zoom in & spin around the characters, these are used sparingly thankfully, & they show restraint. The camera work in the action scenes also gives them a grandiose sense of scale & tension in the air while watching them. I wish Kazuya’s talents weren’t wasted on the Eva Rebuilds.

Sound:

The music is by the pillows, it fits the scenes perfectly, & they’re great to listen to, do I need to say anything else? 10/10!

The voice acting is incredible. I watch the English dub of this series, & these actors all do great work. Kari Wahlgren as Haruko brings out her zaniness perfectly. Barbara Goodson is a bit of an odd choice for Naota, but she does a good job making Naota sound a bit like a brat, which is part of character. Everyone else also does good work & plays the rolls great.

Overall:

Have I done my job & convinced you that FLCL is one of my all time favorite things? I can only hope I have. FLCL is a piece of work that will stay with me forever. From the bombastic & exciting action sequences, great characters, amazing music, awesome directing, I could just go on and on about why FLCL is one of my favorite things ever made. But I think I’m gonna call it here because I don’t want this to become unbearably long. In spite of my few criticisms, I’m giving FLCL a full 10/10. It’s by far my favorite OVA of all time.