Anime Reviews ⇢ FLCL
FLCL
Furi Kuri
Average Rating: 5 / 10

Hits: 5352
Ratings: 5
About these ratings

Add your own Rating/Review of this Title
Content Overview
Violence: 4.7 / 10
Nudity: 6.3 / 10
Theo Theme: 3 / 10
Neg Theme: 6.3 / 10

Brief Description:
Naota is a normal Japanese 6th grade boy (although a little cynical), but when his older brother leaves for America to play baseball, his brother leaves his homeless 17 year old girlfriend Mamimi behind. Mamimi is sending mixed signals and advances to Naota, and he doesn't know what to do about her. But to make matters worse, Naota's world is totally turned upside down when he is run over by a woman on a Vespa. During their first encounter, she hits him over the head with her guitar, which then causes a horn to grow out of his forehead. She calls herself "Haruko" and her presence changes Naota's life to even further insanity.

Licensed by Funimation.
Date released: Most recent release was in 2010.
Suggested for ages 16+.
FLCL is completed at a 6 episode OVA.
User Reviews
12/14/2011: ClosetOtaku [ Already Rated ]

FLCL defies description. It’s a coming-of-age story wrapped in a sci-fi thriller wrapped in a romantic triangle drama wrapped in a pun-filled Monty Python sketch topped off with numerous insider references that only true anime cognoscenti could appreciate. The animation is superb. The background music consists of non-stop pulsating rock anthems punctuated with soft rock ballads or moments of reflective silence. With all this, could FLCL possibly go wrong?

Well, in a word, yes. FLCL assaults you mercilessly with sexual innuendos – both visual and verbal – that do little to otherwise propel the plot. Mind you, nothing is really ever seen, everything is suggested, and by the end you aren’t sure that anything much happened between the characters, but the damage has already been done. That is why I cannot recommend this anime for anyone under the age of 16, and perhaps it should not be watched by Christians at all. “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality” (Eph 5:3). This will probably be a difficult series to share with fellow Christians who have not built up a tolerance to anime entendres.

The plot starts simply enough. Naota is an insecure elementary school kid growing up in a small industrial town in Japan. Naota’s older brother has gone off to the U.S. to play baseball. He leaves behind his slightly ditzy girlfriend, Mamimi, who is now hitting on Naota.

Suddenly, an alien girl riding a Vespa motorcycle runs over Naota and, after giving him CPR to ensure he is alive, thwacks him in the head with a Rickenbacker bass guitar. Naota grows a rather phallic bump on his skull from this encounter, which subsequently turns out to be the door to an extra-dimensional passageway from which rabid robots will frequently emerge and fight each other.

Did I mention the plot gets complicated?

There are a lot of sub-themes to FLCL: the hole left in Naota’s life by the absence of his brother and the strained relationship with his father; the numerous love triangles that pop up that alternatively involve Naota, Mamimi, Haruko (the alien girl), Naota’s father, and Naota’s friend Ninamori; and the mystery of who Haruko is and what she is after. The nonlinear time sequences and cartoon hyperbole often make you wonder whether what you’ve seen actually takes place at all. The wordplay is fast and furious but really only appreciable if you listen to the Japanese language track.

All of this stands in stark contrast to Naota’s constant assertion: “Nothing amazing happens here.” It is the visceral cry of a generation of post-modern animators who want to shake up the routine anime world with a product of startling quality, yet who manage to weigh it down with mostly directionless fanservice. It’s a pity, because FLCL is otherwise a remarkable work of artists talking about what they love.

Music
FLCL’s music is primarily done by the Pillows, including tracks with names like “Runners High”, “Fool on the planet”, “Happy Bivouac”, and “Carnival”. The driving rhythms provide an appropriate background to the unpredictable and hyperactive story line, with an occasional ballad thrown in for variety.

Sub vs Dub
The dub is pretty good given the complex nature of the dialogue, but to truly appreciate some of the wordplay you must listen to the Japanese soundtrack. The subtitling takes some shortcuts from the dubbed version, so this is one anime where listening to both tracks helps in your understanding of what is going on.

Manga
There are two tankoubon (graphic novels) published by Tokyopop that cover the same characters and general plot line. The manga and anime series came out the same year, and the anime series was not based on the manga, so there is some divergence between the two. While the anime is hip and light, the manga is described as somber and not as graphically brilliant.

Violence
A lot of cartoon violence: Naota has a tendency to get run over by moving vehicles, and is frequently whacked on the head with guitars. In one episode, three dozen armed Matrix-type agents empty their machine pistols in the direction of Haruko (they all miss). Characters routinely pummel each other with a variety of weapons, but the body count remains zero. One of the characters becomes obsessed with fire and it is suggested she was (and is) an arsonist.

Language
The subtitled and English track contain a few instances of the s-word (translated faithfully from the Japanese) and other, more milder, oaths. The booklets that accompany the DVDs use more colorful language to describe Mamimi’s chastity (or lack thereof), so purchasers should be warned in advance.

Nudity
A lot of suggestive images with no real objectionable parts shown. In different scenes, Naota and Ninamori are seen naked while washing up in the bathroom, from behind or covered in the front. Haruko is shown clad only in a short towel. Mamimi’s short skirt and undergarment are frequently shown. Occasionally, a character loses their bloomers.

Sexual Content
FLCL has a great number of sexual innuendoes, double entendres, wordplay, visual symbols, nosebleeds (a typical anime convention referring to the perverse), and other suggestive images. Some are straight forward: in the opening episode, Mamimi nibbles on Naota’s earlobe, then tackles him. Ninamori has to deal with her father’s infidelity becoming a tabloid event. Others are more obscure: In one scene, Haruko reaches into Naota’s head to retrieve a guitar; the accompanying dialogue is a role-reversal patter with suggestive content. Naota overhears a conversation between his father and Haruko that is highly suggestive (although turns out to be nothing in the end). In yet another vignette, Haruko appears to have plugged Naota’s father into an electrical outlet and is using him as a body massaging device. These sorts of things will probably sail over the head of the average 9-year-old, but it is clear what the very adult animators are implying.

Religious Material
Mamimi mistakes one of the robots that emerges from Naota’s head as a god. She names him “Canti” after the “God of the Black Flame” who opposes demons taking over the world in a fictional video game called “Firestarter”. Firestarter, by the way, is a game that can never be won; at best, the demons can only be held at bay. The Japanese director suggests that this reference would be misunderstood in the West, as in Japan anything that you rely on could be referred to as a “god”.

December, 2011: airichan623 [ Already Rated ]

Closet Otaku's desciption of this title gives you a good idea of the content level in this series. However, I really liked this series in spite of this.
I recommend the dub due to the fast pace of the dialogue and the hundreds of cultural references throughout.
This series, in all of its insanity, does have a rather simple yet relatable message: "growing up is hard to do" and tells it wonderfully.

For more on this series' quality, I recommend looking up web anime-reviewer JesuOtaku's video "Anime Review: FLCL."

The following users rated this title without reviewing it: uc pseudonym | Cc4FuzzyHuggles | rocklobster.
Added: December, 2011