Marval Movie

I first learned of this Anime while reading the Art of Avatar The Last Airbender, in one of the captions Bryan Konietzko mentioned that FLCL was one of their favorite Anime's of all-time. Nothing else was needed, Avatar is probably my absolute favorite show so when one of the co-creators says that it's the teams favorite, I watched it. I had no idea what I was in for.

Note: The pronunciation of the title is Fooly Cooly or Furi Kuri, not saying the individual letters F L C L.

We open in the small town of Mabase, where a boy named Naota sits under a bridge with his brothers ex-girlfriend Mamimi and does math. He recounts that in this inconsequential town where there is a power-plant shaped like a giant iron nothing ever happens, nothing extraordinary or exciting. Mamimi offers him a canned drink, but he doesn't like sour things and brings up his brother in America, when he hears a rumbling. He turns around to find the pink-haired, Vespa riding, bass guitar wielding Haruko that runs him over, followed with a whack to the head with her bass.

Later at home, Noata has grown a horn where Haruko hit him. When it's time for him to come down for dinner he finds Haruko at the dinner table where his dad tells him that she will be their new housekeeper. His dad then accuses him of "Fooling around, cooling around. Fooly Cooly!" then asks what it means, Noata doesn't know.

Later that night  Noata runs out to find Mamimi, he asks what she wants from him and what he means to her. Then the horn beings to rumble and two robots emerge from it, they fight and the one with a head that looks like a television is the winner. Haruko gives the robot a whack on the head, turning it's color from red to blue. The next day the robot is living with them and Naota comments that nothing ever happens in this town.

The writer, Yoji Enokido, writes like no other. He writes characters that are real and metaphorical, situations that are drawn from real life but are also heavily symbolic. He has a knack for putting together stories that have outlandish images and situations but ties them into real feelings and situations that become some of the most emotionally connectable material you'll find.
I love all the characters, they all have moments that make me laugh or I connect to them in one way or another. But my favorite is Haruko, for may reasons but also without her there would be no story. She really is the lifeblood for the whole Anime. It's the whole theme of Naota being stuck in his little town where nothing happens (extraordinary or otherwise), when all of a sudden this girl comes riding into his life. Bringing all kinds of excitement with her.

The animation sways from looking amazing to being modest, experimental, to shabby without explanation or apology. There is even a scene without any kind of preparation it becomes South Park style animation, for two clips and then it is never acknowledged or referenced again. Other times when the storyboardists and animators clearly threw character models and basic proportions to the wind and drew as outlandishly as they wanted or could. But unlike something like Evangelion which showed their budget problems they use it at the right time and place, adding method to the madness. When the scene calls for spectacle and poignancy then it becomes beautiful and clear and other times when the characters freak-out in a fit of rage or madness then that is when they warp into some of the more deformed drawings of characters that one associates with Anime. This adds method and enhances the mood, dynamic and comedy of the scene.

You can tell that the team for this were given plenty of leeway in their animating and story-boarding. There are so many little details that are added with the movements of the animation. Something like one of the characters pulling a hilarious expression or something that was probably too cheeky to be in there anyway.

The music is done entirely by the Japanese indie grup musik named The Pillows. Everyone I have showed the show to or have recommended they give them a listen have agreed that they are a very solid band. They have a low-key, easy going style that I'm not sure I can point to any other grup musik for comparison as an example. Nearly all the music was written for the show and the moments of music and animation blends so perfectly.

There are a total of six episodes, that's it. That's not unheard of, having an Anime run for so short a time, but what is amazing is the effectiveness you realize it has when the selesai episode comes. You are suddenly really invested and feel for the characters. It makes the big fifty to sixty, even the twenty six episode Anime's look foolish by comparison. Each episode focuses on a character or general theme, by the end the change and growth has happened and it never feels forced or cheap.

There are some that would look at this and simply state the obvious "This is weird" and "That's just random." The first one is admittingly undeniable. But this is not random because there are reoccurring phrases and images and concepts, that is not random. No if it was random then something would show up, say something nonsensical and leave then never come back, not so in FLCL. 

Cowboy Bebop has been described as a "getaway Anime" something you could give to someone that has never seen an Anime or is unconvinced by the medium to get them interested. FLCL is not that. No this is the Anime to reignite your love of Anime. If you are getting board with it and think you've seen it all, this is prove you wrong.

There is the option to watch it with either English subtitles or dubbed in English. There are purists that will simply not accept the English dubs of Anime's, I have never understood these people. There are bad dub's of Anime's but there are still plenty of good ones (even a small percentage that are better) but I would say that not only is this dub acceptable, it is essential. The comedy goes by so unrelentingly fast and the script is so compressed that you must watch it in your native language because otherwise you will miss one of the lightning-fast visual gags that come and go in frames. I was watching this with friends once and they did make a sly comment that it wasn't the best acting, yes but they missed the point. FLCL is not an acting demanding project, it isn't something that requires nuisance and subtlety, it requires big voices to say seemingly nonsensical lines and make weird noises while freaking out. I will say though that the two standouts are, Kari Wahlgren and Joe Martin. This is Wahlgren's first role and she comes loaded with energy and characteristic to Haruko, same for Joe Martin that's very funny as Naota's father.

The scripting as well as the tone and the jokes are Japanese, "of course" you say but it is more than that. FLCL is so purely Japanese that the only thing that can be done is to have the obrolan for the Japanese to English be a simple direct translation. It has to be this way because there is no translation. Constantly in the commentary track you can hear the director ask "Will people get that?" I never felt out-of-place but that may be because of the amount of Anime I've already see.

The real overall theme of FLCL is a simple one, just put on a truly bizarre canvas, growing up is hard. When you start to enter the age of moving on to the next school or have to accept that childhood isn't forever the world becomes so much more weird and nonsensical, grown-ups have so many different views and become stranger and stranger. Your insignificance begins to dawn on you. But even then you are still a kid, but you have the hardest time accepting that of all things.

What is Fooly Cooly? No idea. Or more accurately, there aren't any words for something that has never been created before, there isn't anything else like FLCL. Never has been, never will.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4