Current Events > Help me reconcile something about FLCL

(+) Yeah! (+)

What was this to Japan? Like was it super experimental? Not popular? Simply accepted?

Just curious - I know the guy who animated this had worked on Evangelion so I imagine it mustve received some kind of reaction by the masses.. this and the Big-O were my first exposure to anime and I fell in love with the way the city scapes looked like.. the way girls were just these ready, and awesome beings capable of being cooler than Superman (at this age I didnt know the difficulties of women - I simply thought man hopefully theres a girl like this out there), and the scenes themselves were just so suggestive that they made a lasting impression on me for the rest of my days

I just rewatched FLCL yesterday and said oh wait, this is anime.. been wanting to get more and more into it but totally forgot some of the things that went on to shape me as a young boy was from the anime camp

Had a weird revelation yesterday too, I remembered how I waited until after hours just to catch these shows on adult swim.. how I was like wait so these are the adult cartoons.. how can this stuff even make it into an actual cartoon?

Is there anything else like FLCL? What sorta subgenre does this fall under?


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There's a weird charm about that show. I'm not very big on anime and a lot of aspects about the medium gets on my nerves, but FLCL has always been my shit, despite being guilty of things I don't like about anime.

FLCL: Progressive was kind of ass, but I ended up liking Alternative a lot more.

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Kitt posted...

There's a weird charm about that show. I'm not very big on anime and a lot of aspects about the medium gets on my nerves, but FLCL has always been my shit, despite being guilty of things I don't like about anime.

That scene where the main character finds out his dad has actually been dead for days fucked me up as a kid lol pretty much any scene with him just made me say jeez this is incredibly weird for a c a r t o o n

I also remember the part that completely stuck with me was the list of musicians that Haruko mentions in her Elvis getup.. Jimi Hendrix, like that always stuck out as a name to me.. the fact that she swung a guitar around

Im a musician now and I vividly remember having my memories of music literally being stuff I saw on FLCL

This show and MGS2 had exposed me to wayyyy too much early on in my life lol

No wonder I have gray hair now x)

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The subgenre is coming-of-age science fiction. Similar are E.T. the Extraterrestial, Super 8, Flight of the Navigator, The Last Starfighter, the Wonder Years, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Ender's Game

FLCL was very popular in Japan 20 years ago, but its popularity has faded with time

If you like flcl you should check out many of the anime done by studio trigger. It's made by a bunch of veterans that left gainax, the studio that did flcl, and most of their stories are some form of a coming-of-age story, particularly:
Little witch academia
Brand new animal
Space patrol luluco
Kill la kill

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xue1 posted...

The subgenre is coming-of-age science fiction. Similar are E.T. the Extraterrestial, Super 8, Flight of the Navigator, The Last Starfighter, the Wonder Years, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Ender's Game

FLCL was very popular in Japan 20 years ago, but its popularity has faded with time

Hmm.. I didn't really think of those as similar but that's a really cool observation actually - yeah I guess those would be similar

JPN just has this chaotic magic they're able to inject into the stories and premises.. so imaginative compared to shows made here y'know?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


The ending credit song was stuck in my head all day yesterday until I realized that it was actually from FLCL which prompted my watching of x)

Sometimes it's sublte and sometimes it's so straight up in your face - I love it so much<3

s0nicfan posted...

If you like flcl you should check out many of the anime done by studio trigger. It's made by a bunch of veterans that left gainax, the studio that did flcl, and most of their stories are some form of a coming-of-age story, particularly:
Little witch academia
Brand new animal
Space patrol luluco
Kill la kill

Thanks! Will do, had someone rec Kill la Kill to me actually so I might jump to that next. Right now I'm revisiting Trigun since it was a show I remember seeing on Toonami/Adult Swim blocks

so far the only anime series I've watched are:

• Evangelion
• Jojo
• Rourouni Kenshin (Need to revisit as adult link lol)
• Yu-Yu Hakusho (Need to revisit)
• Full Metal Alchemist (Need to revisit)
• FLCL
• The Big-O (Need to revisit)
• .Hack (Need to revisit)

I like them all tbh, just wish I had more time to watch cooler and more recent ones :\


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It was very experimental like most Gainax products, but more importantly, it's an OVA. It did not premiere on Japanese television, and could only be watched by purchasing three DVD sets of two episodes each. So unless you were not only a big anime fan (rare enough in Japan at the time), but a Gainax fan as well, you wouldn't have seen it.

As for what's like it, I think of weird or experimental shows that actually have a lot of depth to them and maybe turn a lot of people off.

• Samurai Flamenco
• Space Dandy
• Ping Pong the Animation
• Flowers of Evil

Most similar in tone would be Space Dandy, which covered a lot of storytelling and animation techniques while still being really zany across its run.

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The ending credit song was stuck in my head all day yesterday until I realized that it was actually from FLCL which prompted my watching of x)

Hell yeah. The show super got me into The Pillows. They're amazing as fuck.

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TC I think you'll also like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Gurren Lagann for short). It's made by Gainax as well and it's really a crazy ride.

And if you liked the anime on Adult Swim, I think you'll like Samurai Champloo (assuming you haven't already seen it). It's Samurai action with hip hop influences in the music.

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ImAMarvel posted...

I still haven't seen either of the sequel shows (which I really should) but while I'm not a big fan of anime these days, FLCL was, and still is, probably one of the most interesting things I've ever seen. I definitely consider it one of my favorite anime ever. It has such a cool, unique vibe to it.

Fuck, I wish more anime were like FLCL. I'd definitely watch way more anime if it were. Remember back when Gainax was one of the best anime studios and like, everything they did was amazing?

FLCL Progressive was strange. It didn't have any kind of real focus and the theme was super weak. It just felt like a bunch of shit was kind of just happening. Some characters that wasn't really all that important got a lot of attention and characters that turns out to actually be pivotal to the plot received very little attention until the very end. It was pretty disappointing overall.

Alternative, on the other hand -- I was surprised with how much I liked it after the previous season. It's not perfect obviously. There's some things I feel like they could have definitely done better, but that aside; the characters were all really likable and, unlike Progressive, the themes behind it are very strong, relatable and applies to pretty much every episode. In my opinion, it's a really good season that could have been great with a few tweaks here and there. And also, spoiler: It's a prequel.

But my biggest criticisms for both was that they didn't keep the art style from the original. I'm not sure what the reason was, but I did find that pretty disappointing. The original show had this distinct, dreamy look.

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FLCL is similarly beloved in Japan, and the whole project came about because making EVA was depressing as hell, so the director was just all "let me make a small thing full of stuff I like". That's where you get particularly detailed mopeds and guitars and such.

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Rapid99 posted...

Ping Pong the Animation

Fuck, now I gotta watch the whole thing again...

FLCL was kind of lightning in a bottle. It came out at the perfect time, capturing post grundge teens and pre-teens discovering their sexuality and identity. It was produced pre-9/11 but came out in 2003 in the US, and it hits some weird spots.

Bonus: introduced many Americans to the concept of smooth brain.

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ImAMarvel posted...

Also, should I just skip Progressive?

Honestly, yeah. You won't be missing out on anything interesting. The only character I liked was homey with the glasses and even then, 70% of his dialogue was just shouting out the main girl's name.

I say definitely give Alternative a try. I'm a sucker when comes to the concept of friendship and growing up in a coming-of-age setting.

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I watched some of it but I didn't really understand what I was watching. A former coworker recommended it so I gave it a try. He was very enthusiastic about his penchant for hallucinagens though, so I should have expected not to really get it honestly...

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In terms of tone during more spastic sections kill la kill is very similar to flcl but not so much that shows slower more introspective sections. The blend of them is really what made the show special

people might not associate the two but the anime Welcome to the NHK reminded me of FLCL in that there are similar themes of loathing and confusion about the world, and an unwillingness of to accept responsibility which are all big things in FLCL. Its definitely a lot less crazy and comedy tinged though.

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I watched Parasyte and I liked it. I think I saw somewhere that it had at least some of the same people (would make sense)

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Bump for the recs

mattymad posted...

It takes a few rewatches to 'get' as the plot is a bit farfetched and not fully explained.

As a kid or first time viewer, it is impenetrable.

Watching again every few years, I laugh at myself for ever thinking it was all that complicated. It's just that the presentation is so weird, but the symbolism is quite clear.

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FLCL is what caused me to stop exploring any new anime.

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mattymad posted...

Cos it was so bad or you found perfection?

because it irritated the living hell out of me. Milkchan was some obnoxious weeb fodder, but FLCL took it to the next level.

Like a lot of things, anime went bad after the 80's. If I want surrealism, I'll watch European animation.

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