FLCL Vol-2
(2005)
review by Samara's Madness

Hey Kids! As promised I’m back with a review of FLCL Vol. 2, the fast paced alien mind fuck anime. I hope you’ve had a chance to see the first couple episodes, or at least research a bit (you better have, it counts for 50 percent of your final score at the end of the review, so go now1 Study!). If you have, well, hopefully it hooked you; if not, you can go home now and still get partial credit. As before; I’ll start my lecture off with a rundown of the episodes on this particular disk.

Episode 3, Marquis de Carabas: Ninamori and Naota are having a bit of a problem getting along as of late. She roped him into doing the school play (by diabolical means, but she won’t tell YOU that) and taking her role as director a bit too seriously. You can’t blame her; she’s got a lot to worry about. Her Dad, the Major of Mabase is caught in a big ugly sex scandal (Woo, HOT) and the town is watching the families every move. To make matters worse, Haruko mows down Naota causing the domino effect of Naota bucking heads with Ninamori, Ninamori’s mysterious illness, and a sleep over. How could things get worse? Let’s just hope Ninamori can handle the robot that will inevitably birth itself from her head.
Episode 4; Full swing: Grandpas baseball team, the Martians, is not doing so well. Is that Haruko playing fro the other team? Naota really isn’t much help ether, maybe some late night lessons from Haruko San could give him a lift. And always remember Naota, no matter how jealous you are of your Dad, MURDER IS NOT THE ANSWER. The last of our main characters join us when special government agents Commander Amarao and Kitsurubami enter the fray (I know; four episodes in and we only just NOW meet the entire cast). I almost forgot to mention the massive, self – programmed, space – aged bomb hurling itself right towards Mabase. Sounds like a good practice opportunity for Noata, huh?

Let me just say that if you were hoping for clarification on the last two chapters you will be sorely disappointed. I’m a writer not a magician of the high Cabbalistic arts. What I would like to do, however, is illuminate some of the subtleties and quiet humor that might have gone unnoticed if you didn’t have me around. Oh, and I’ll list ‘em all too, I’m a windbag like that. In episode 2 when Naota and the gang are inspecting the wreckage of the latest arson Ninamori makes a comment about the arsonist being a bedraggled housewife. “Just too many dirty dishes” she says. To the ear of an American audience this line seems like a bit of a throw away, but it would have gotten a chuckle from a Japanese audience because the word for fire has a dual significance that also means chores. Ninamori made a funny, see?

In episode 3 we see one of those rare occurrences where the English translation manages to better on the Japanese script. When Naota asks his classmate Masashi where he got a copy of the racy tabloid exploiting Ninamori’s family he mentions a corner store that sells “outdated soda”, then Gaku adds “the one that that pop star did commercials for”. The reference is fairly bland in the original Japanese, but when the English script writers substituted “Crystal Pepsi” and “the one that Van Halen did those ‘Right Now’ commercials for” they crafted a wonderful joke that harmonizes on an almost sub – atomic level with geeks and pop culture nuts (like me).

Another good example of this is found in episode 5 (which I, admittedly, haven’t digested in review form yet; but I might as well explain while I’m on the subject). Haruko breaks out in a cosplay tangent (rest assured it has NOTHING to do with what’s going on around her) dressed like Elvis and barking about her “master the guitar in one millisecond class”. She then begins to list off the names of hard rock bands that you could emulate, ending with (in the Japanese) “Sameji no King”. Naota immediately counters her with “the last one doesn’t fit the list”. The joke here is that this particular man is a spoof artist who dresses like the king from a playing card deck (hence the title) and in the American script might have been compared to Weird Al, but instead of using the Weird Al reference (which could have easily been taken) the English scribes manage to one up the joke. In English, Harukos full tirade becomes; “You too can be a rock super star like Slash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Rage Against the Machine, or RICHARD CHEESE!” followed by Naotas “there’s one that doesn’t fit the list you know”. The glory of this line is that while there was an easy, more accessible tidbit of pop trivia (Weird Al) they choose to use the less known, and therefore more cult inspired, Richard Cheese (Who by the way is also a spoof artist that covers metal and alternative music as lounge lizard tunes; he’s cool, you should check him out). While the shows use of more obscure artist probably DID alienate a few of the fans that it worked so hard to get, it just demonstrates to its viewers the type of depth and levels it contains, and its almost psychic ability to home in on geeks, nuts, and cult heads.

It’s not without its bumps in translation though. Later on in the very same episode is a HUGE, Mack truck sized gap in translation. When Kitsurubami is parked by the river she starts to scream “BLUE, BLUE;COBALT BLUE!” and proceeds assault Canti with a rain of bullets. I’ll break down the next part line by line for the sake of ease:

Kitsurubami: What do you get when you write fish and blue? Mackerel!
Haruko: Mackerel my ass!
Mamimi: Actually, writing fish with blue is a common mistake.

After this little dialogue volley, Japanese Kanji appears on the screen with an ENGLISH explanation (mind you no editing what so ever occurred between the English and Japanese versions of FLCL) that it’s the correct way to spell mackerel. It seems completely random in context however, because the English joke goes something like this:

Kitsurubami: If seven of nine needs a cy, what do you get? Cyborg!
Haruko: Cyborg my butt!
Mamimi: Actually, confusing robots and cyborgs is a common mistake.

They tried hard to cover it up. They made a similar error comparison and even geeked it out a bit, but it just doesn’t translate. Director Tsurumaki said that he felt sorry for the translation department because FLCL maintains so many inside jokes and cultural leanings, but I say the Englishmen did about (if not better than) par for the course considering that if the altered jokes were twice removed and translated, the Japanese might not understand them ether.

Well class, that’s about all I got for this period, by now you’ve probably seen (or at least acknowledged) just how many different spider webs of brilliant material make up FLCL. I still want to touch on the topics of the voice cast (English AND Japanese), the music, and the overall impact of this self titled “millennium anime” so rest assured, I’ll still have fodder for the next outing. That being said; don’t let anyone tell you that FLCL is nothing but raucous anime nonsense. YOU know better. Anything crafted with this much care and on as many different levels as FLCL cannot be meaningless. Sure you have to dig , and probe, and God forbid THINK; I just hope I kept you interested enough to stick around for the climax! CLASS DISMISSED!