FLCL

FLCL
Genre	Drama, Mecha, Comedy, Action, Science Fiction
Anime
Directed by	Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masahiko Otsuka, Shouji Saeki, Takeshi Ando
Studio	Gainax, Production I.G.
Manga
FLCL
Written by	Hajime Ueda
Published by	Kodansha Tokyopop

FLCL (フリクリ, Furi Kuri, pronounced and officially romanized as Fooly Cooly) is a six episode Japanese animation OVA series, the brainchild of director Kazuya Tsurumaki and released by Gainax and Production I.G..

The series focuses on Nandaba Naota, a twelve-year-old boy living in the fictional and initially tranquil Japanese suburb of Mabase. Naota lives with his lecherous father Kamon and his baseball-coaching grandfather Shigekuni at their family bakery. He greatly admires his older brother Tasuku, a baseball phenomenon who has gone to the United States to play professionally. Tasuku, though often referenced, never appears in the series (though he can be seen in one flashback scene wearing his baseball uniform, and he is partially visible in a photograph never entirely shown). Naota seems to be very frustrated with his life, and in the opening episode is musing about how constrictive and boring Mabase is. This complaint is borne through to the final episode, where Naota is still troubled by the blandness of his life, even though by then the plot has taken on a distinctly surreal feel.

Story

File:Naotahorn.JPG

Naota, examining his strange horn.

Early in the first episode (after the characters and the bland town of Mabase have been introduced by a monologue from Naota) events kick off when a strange and mischievous girl named Haruhara Haruko arrives suddenly in town and runs Naota over with her Vespa and then, for no obvious reason, hits him on the head with her Rickenbacker bass guitar. Soon afterwards, Naota discovers that being hit with Haruko's bass left more than just a bump - it created a large horn that is actually an early manifestation of a robot. By hitting him in the head, Haruko activated Naota's latent N.O. portal, which allows him to pass physical objects from one astronomically distant point to another by way of his head. This is not immediately obvious, however.

Later that day Naota finds Haruko in his house, hired by his father as a live-in maid. It is gradually revealed that Haruko is in a confrontation with a company named Medical Mechanica (the name is debated to be Medical Meccanical) (whose iron-shaped factory building dominates the Mabase skyline) about recovering a powerful being named "Atomsk".

In addition to being hounded by Haruko, who uses the portal she opened in his head for her own selfish purposes, Naota is being watched by a man named Commander Amarao. He and his assistant, Lt. Kitsurubami, are monitoring Haruko and Medical Mechanica for intergalactic legal reasons and are attempting to save the Earth as the conflict between Haruko and Medical Mechanica escalates.

File:Haruko2.png

Haruko simply doesn't care.

The plot also involves Mamimi, a delinquent and exceedingly isolated girl who fancied herself to be Tasuku's girlfriend before he left. Now that he has gone, she has conscripted Naota as his stand-in, although Naota finds her affections uncomfortable. Alone and friendless, she leans on other people, stray pets, as well as cigarettes. Like the other citizens of Mabase, she is blind to the surreal events that slowly build throughout the series, and due to her isolated nature she rarely directly interacts with anyone, and she appears to be homeless.

File:HarukoCanti.JPG

Some of the cast, in "Brittle Bullet"

Naota also has several friends at his class at school, including a girl named Ninamori who seems to have romantic interests in him. They are overseen by their comically inept teacher, Miya-jun, who tries and fails repeatedly to bring the world in line with her wishes.

The main storyline revolves around Naota's exploits with Haruko, and are more an exploration of Naota's adolescent coming of age.

Style

File:Flcl-1.jpg

Haruko, waving to Naota, whom she has just run over.

FLCL is an esoteric production whose odd style, hyperactive pace, and frequently inaccessible plot logic sets it apart from other contemporary anime. There are many hidden meanings underneath its surface - although what they represent is often difficult to ascertain. FLCL can be categorized as a work of comedy, drama, soap opera, and/or science fiction. Its comedic side is most noticeable, as it satirizes such pop culture icons as John Woo and South Park, not to mention other anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion (which was also produced by Gainax), Lupin III, and Hamtaro. However, its comedic elements at times overshadow what is, at its core, a coming of age story. Puns and sexually suggestive metaphors fly freely.

The stranger elements reflect an overall awkwardness, and often incorporate extremely heavy (yet often vague) Freudian imagery; fans with some knowledge of psychology often have a field day picking psychological symbols out of the seemingly irrational action of FLCL.

File:Mamimi3.jpg

Mamimi's blithe exterior hides her true feelings.

The characters themselves are all highly eccentric: Mamimi obsesses on the past, Amarao obsesses on growing up, Haruko's mood changes with the moment and Kamon actually dresses up as a Nazi at one point to challenge his son to a shootout for Haruko's love. Naota is the least erratic of the cast, but constantly finds himself the unwilling center of attention. His complaints of hatred for his boring town are in stark contrast to the surreal shenanigans that escalate throughout the series.

File:Flcl-2.jpg

The visual style changes with the shot.

Despite its often startling and heavy-handed moments, FLCL actually features an immense dedication to detail. It parodies slightly nostalgic Japanese culture itself, by switching styles to traditional kabuki at one point, presenting discontinued brands of drinks, Japanese style bread, and nostalgic 3-wheeled automobiles that were prominent in post-war Japan. In fact, almost all of the devices and products used in the series are real, and can be identified with sufficient examination.

File:FLCL album cover.png

The front album cover for King of Pirates and Addict.

A significant element of FLCL's appeal is its music. Most of the background music was written and performed by the band the pillows, which has generated mass success and appreciation since the anime's release abroad. In fact, each episode of the series ends with the song Ride on Shooting Star, originally written and released by the pillows in 1998, two years before FLCL's release in Japan. Due to its success, the song is now regarded as a classic the pillows title. Shinkichi Mitsumune wrote the rest of the music; one track was used for the dinner scene in Episode 3, and the others are on the soundtracks. Two soundtrack CDs - Addict and King of Pirates - and a one-CD "best-of" compilation (FLCL No. 3) were released in Japan and later in America. Another interesting note is that the action sequences were choreographed around the individual tracks used and not the other way around. There are also many reference to guitars, which are used symbolically and physically (though rarely musically) throughout the series.

Characters

Main article: Characters of FLCL

The plot revolves mainly around Naota as he interacts with several groups of people, including his schoolmates, his relatives and the government, as well as rogue individuals, such as Haruko and Mamimi.

Language

A common mistake by English-speaking fans is to say that the meaning of "Furi Kuri" in Japanese is "Breast Fondling." This mistake arises from the fact that "kuri kuri" is occasionally used by manga artists as a sound effect for breast fondling. In the anime itself, they make references to "kuri kuri" during the first manga scene, when the Shigekuni describes kneading bread by making hand gestures that unmistakably resemble groping motions. Due to incredibly fast pacing of the scene, many fans mistake his statement as referring to "furi kuri" instead of "kuri kuri." Much Japanese onomatopoeia follows a pattern of being four kana long and having a sound repeated twice. "Furi furi" is also used as a sound effect in a later episode when Haruko is petting Naota's cat ears.

Synch-Point and Production I.G. decided to subtitle FLCL as Fooly Cooly in the US. They wanted to make sure fans knew how to read FLCL. The producer says he still has people come up to him and say how much they like "eff-el-see-el." [1]

There are some places where dialogue is different from the Japanese version, an attempt to make the dialogue easier to understand in the English translation. Examples are:

• In the same manga scene the Japanese version uses the term "kuri kuri" repeatedly. Kuri literally means "chestnut", but it is slang for clitoris. "Kuri kuri" means to "feel up" a woman.

• Haruko uses the term "mouth to mouth" repeatedly throughout the series, though the "th" sound does not exist in Japanese, making it sound like "mouse to mouse". This is used in a pun in "Full Swing," when she crawls out of the Kamon puppet's mouth wearing a mouse suit.

Notes and trivia

Further trivia is also available on the FLCL page at the IMDb, and episode-specific trivia can be found on each episode's individual page.

Cultural

• In late 2003, one of the Adult Swim bumper sequences listed some of the favorite random things of Adult Swim's staff. FLCL was among them.
• While the sour drink in the black can that appears in the series seems to be a drink called Lemon Squash (レモンスカッシュ, remon sukasshu), an actual lemon-flavored brand of soft drink in Japan, the pamphlet accompanying the third DVD of the series explains that the drink is named "KaraC" as a pun on the Japanese word "karashi" (which means "mustard" or something spicy) and beverages that end in "C", like Hi-C.
• Haruko's Vespa is a 1964 180 SS. Most of the vehicles in the series (such as Haruko's Vespa, Miya-Jun's Volkswagen Beetle, Kitsurubami's Fiat 126 and Kamon's Citroën) are European.
• Many of the important characters are left-handed due to the director's belief that southpaws have more outgoing personalities than right-handed individuals. The same distinction is shown in the difference between those characters who enjoy spicy food or sour drinks, and those who don't, as well as those who swing the bat or don't. Note that both Haruko and Mamimi are left handed.
• In Adult Swim's Have-It-Your-Way contest all six episodes of "FLCL"

were aired, along with many of the last episodes of other anime programming.

Production

• The show contains numerous sexual innuendoes which were the lead artist's ideas, contrary to that of the director, though some innuendos were written into the script (the 'split fronts' is one of the most thinly veiled examples).

• During episodes 1 and 6 the show temporarily uses a unique manga-like animation style. Due to uniqueness of the style, it required much time and effort to create, and the two scenes became the most expensive in the entire anime. An inside joke in episode 6 is that Naota's dad says that they were told to never do that again, which is true - the CG artist had complained to the director about the complexity of the first "manga" scene, and initially refused to believe it could be done at all.
• The Vespa shown in the ending credits of the series actually belongs to the director and at the time of the Japanese DVD release was not in working condition.

The manga, dancing away behind Kamon in "FLCLimax".

• The hand shown in episodes 5 and 6 is actually the hand of the director. The movement was captured on film and then spliced digitally into the animation.
• Amarao's eyebrows are real pieces of nori that were scanned.
• It was rumored that the whole series was merely an experiment by Gainax to test out new techniques (such as perhaps, bullet time), and they used 26 episodes' worth of budget to produce the high quality animation. The IMDb says the series was created as a break from regular anime. More information can be found on the director's audio commentary on the DVDs.

Episodes

The total run-time for this show is 134:19, without commercials or credits. The episodes run as follows:

1. Fooly Cooly (Japanese title: Furi Kuri (フリクリ))
2. FireStarter (Japanese title: FiSta (ファイスタ))
3. Marquis de Carabas (Japanese title: Maru-Raba (マルラバ))
4. Full Swing (Japanese title: Furi Kiri (フリキリ))
5. Brittle Bullet (Japanese title: Bura-Bure (ブラブレ))
6. FLCLimax (Japanese title: Furi Kura (フリクラ))

Reception

The reception for the series, although not widespread in the United States, has been enthusiastic following its release on Adult Swim in the summer of 2003. As of July 2006, the show has a rating of 8.8 out of 10 on the IMDb (which classifies it as an OVA), and a rating of 8.7 out of 10 at AnimeNfo.com. Anime.com also gave the series at enthusiastic review in October of that year, although there was also a minor reference to it in the September "issue". In 2003, it also went on to win third place for Best Animation Film at the Fant-Asia Film Festival.

It was also a success from a corporate standpoint. A Time Warner press release from August 12, 2003 lauds the success of Cartoon Network, and mentions FLCL:

AnimÅ [sic] series FLCL (Monday-Thursday, 12 a.m.) premiered with impressive numbers. [...] The Monday, Aug. 4 telecast of FLCL ranked #42 among all shows on ad-supported cable among adults 18-34.

A substantially less formal press release was issued at about the same time during Adult Swim by the cartoon character Brak, who gives the audience a run-down on the status of the lineup (which had recently added Home Movies, which was, according to Brak, a ratings letdown because "you don't like Home Movies as much"). FLCL is mentioned, and Brak correctly pronounces it as "Fooly Cooly."

Releases

File:FLCL-manga1.jpg

The cover of the American release of the first manga volume. Note that the drawing style is different from that of the anime, and the FLCL logo used on the OVA and CD releases is absent.

FLCL was originally released in Japan as an OVA anime on six DVDs. The story was also released as a two-volume manga by artist Hajime Ueda, and a two-volume novel serialization by Yoji Enokido, who also wrote the script for the show. All were released in Japan starting in 2000. The manga is a much darker and more violent take on the story (Naota accidentally kills his father with the baseball bat in a rather grisly scene; Shinguki has a war buddy who helps him suicide-bomb the Medical Mechanica building), while the novels are a more straight adaptation.

The anime has subsequently been released on DVD in North America in three volumes by Synch-Point which feature exclusive extras not on the original Japanese DVDs. The manga was released by TOKYOPOP in two volumes (ISBN 159182396X and ISBN 1591823978). All soundtrack discs - Addict, King of Pirates and FLCL No. 3 - were released by Geneon. The CD for King of Pirates also contains 'drama tracks', which continue the story in the usual joking manner, such as one segment that has Naota meeting girls with similar names to Haruko and Mamimi.

FLCL has also been seen on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block in North America, starting in August 2003. Starting on August 5 (as part of the late night line-up for the 4th) and continuing on four days a week for three weeks, the entire series aired twice. This was the first time it had been aired in the United States on network television, and from there it quickly ballooned in popularity. It also occasionally aired throughout 2005, usually during the Saturday night "ACTN" ("Action") lineup. From the start of 2006 through February 5, the series ran once through on Monday nights until being replaced by Fullmetal Alchemist, and made its return on August 5, 2006. It has gained a cult following in the United States thanks to the exposure on Adult Swim and the popularity of the DVD release.

The original releases of the Region 1 FLCL DVDs contained booklets with interviews and insight into the series. Later releases of these DVDs did not include the booklets.

External links

• FLCL at IMDb
• Synch-Point, North American distributors of FLCL
• Open Directory links for FLCL
• FLCL ({{{type}}}) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

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