FLCL Vol. 1
(aka: Fooly Cooly)
(2004)
review by Samara's Madness

How do I even begin?

A girl from outer space with a mean bass guitar harasses (physically mentally and sexually) a sixth grade boy and his high school aged girlfriend.

And that’s just the first five minutes.

FLCL (pronounced Fooly Cooly) is the reverend mother of all acid trip animes. Its slick editing, lightning fast cinematography, and fuck on cocaine pacing are threatening to alienate you from the moment you begin watching. As you might guess from the ladder description it’s wired to a specific type of fan, and even at that manages to exclude parts of its target audience. But even for all the head scratching and digging for comprehension, it’s a well crafted, well written shining gem of animation. Here’s a rundown of the episodes on this disk.

Episode 1 FLCL: Naota is a normal everyday sixth grader. Mabase, the town where he lives, is pretty ordinary too. Ever since his brother left to play baseball in America his girlfriend Mamimi has been hitting on Naota HEAVILY. One day while hanging out by the river, the two are accosted by a beautiful young woman on a vespa who carries one wicked bass. After running him over (which should have killed him) the woman proceeds to beat him with her bass, causing a nasty, ill – shaped bump on his head. Where is this woman from? Dose she have a connection with the new medical plant that moved into town? Only time will tell.
Episode 2 Fire Starter: This episode revolves around the clinically insane Samajima Mamimi. So she’s a loner. So what? She likes to hang out by the river with her cats and play video games all day. Video games! That IS unusual for a Japanese school girl. Normally their too busy with their innumerable side projects and interests… like arson.

So what IS FLCL? At its core it is a remarkably plain coming of age story. What sets it apart is the strange people and backdrops set against it. I’m a firm believer in the philosophy that every story on earth has already been told, probably by the time the Renaissance reared its ugly head (that’s right, those “man in the attic/woman with long dark hair” stories were already told in one form or another). The mark of a good writer/director is to retell those stories with flair and style. In this case, the beautiful, illustrious world that director Tsurumaki and writer Enokido create more than make up for the core story’s lack of originality. There’s so much unique material to pad the plot that it seems like a completely original concoction, when really, it’s just a quiet story about a boy growing up in an equally quite place. So much goes on, in fact, that if you asked the casual viewer; they would be at a loss for a description. No average anime junkie could tell you what it’s even about. Making something so simple seem so complicated deserves props.
I haven’t even gotten to the characters yet.

Enokido has a wonderful sense of depth of character. Here he’s molded players that not only seem real and thus evoke empathy, but they become so real that you wonder what their lives are like outside what we’re shown in the anime. Each person is so distinctly part of the tapestry that if any of them were removed it would be flat. In a world where anime writers use disposable characters as a way to move the plot alone, it was refreshing to watch a show where everyone is an integral part of the plot
Equally important is director Tsurumaki. FLCL is a very director centric anime (which doesn’t happen as often as you might think) and as such is like a first class trip into one mans psyche. I LOVE those. Cats, bass guitars, vespa scooters; all of these are things that the director likes and put in just for shits and giggles; another thing that factors in the confusion. It’s for this reason that many of the questions that arise in the course of this anime can only be explained with “because, that’s why”.

I have far too much to say in this review alone (I haven’t even gotten to the English/Japanese translation comparisons yet or the scads and scads of pop culture humor) so to save time and space I’ll spread all the points I want to make between all three volume reviews, so you’ll just have to wait for the rest (that’s right, beg for it).

The extras here are wonderful and an invaluable decrypting tool if you just didn’t quite understand. The director commentary is also an excellent source of trivia for you cult fiends and I highly recommend that if you own the DVD that you listen to (or rather READ) it. Unfortunately in order to do that you have to buy the import and it’s a hefty amount. In fact that’s the only thing about FLCL that makes it hard to recommend to the uninitiated (God, I make it sound like a cult… who am I kidding, if you understood it, you basically ARE part of a cult) each volume in the series (there are three mind you, and only two episodes per disk) costs about 30 bucks depending on where you live and where you get your anime.
If this review peaked your interest the best suggestion I can make is to watch Adult Swim on Saturday (or whatever got forsaken day they show it, Adult Swim changes its schedule more often than a cheerleader changes gang bang panties) and watch for yourself. Be sure to catch it FROM THE BEGINNING. FLCL also happens to be the reverend mother of “watch from the beginning” animes. I know it’s a standard rule for all Japanese animation but watching FLCL from the middle having never seen it is so difficult it’s retarded. Other than that I have no more warnings. I can’t guarantee that you’ll like it, but I can guarantee that if you like it, you’ll love it.