What is Fooly Cooly?
At a distance, it's rock and roll, and sex, and fighting robots,
evil corporations, and space pirates:
everything we love about anime.
But it's not really any of those things.
Fooly Cooly has a lot on its mind
but at it's heart it's a story about a young boy learning about maturity
and the increasingly complex emotions and responsibilities that it comes with
Fooly Cooly, stylized FLCL was created in the year 2000 by director Kazuya Tsurumaki
and screenwriter Yōji Enokido
in collaboration with Studio Gainax and Production I.G
and it was created as a stylistic experiment of sorts:
an attempt to break the conventional structure of anime at the time
Japanese animation is an industry built on perpetual serialization
some shows running for a decade or longer
and that can *sometimes* result in an end product that's bloated or over-baked
but Fooly Cooly was designed to feel almost like a music video
or a Japanese commercial from the late 90's:
short and accessible
but densely packed with character
It's satirical and chaotic and heavily, *heavily* stylized
but it's all contained within six half-hour installments
It never gets lost in its own absurdity.
There's always an emotional through line that keeps the narrative on track.
It's focused on exploring the anxieties and sexual confusion and frustrations
a young boy has when experiencing puberty.
The phallic imagery and violence and sexuality isn't just there for titillation,
it's used as a lens to shape a bigger picture around growing up.
It's less a show *containing* sex and violence and more show *about* those sexual and violent urges
and we're anchored in perspective of Naota Nandaba, a 12-year old boy who's caught in a messy relationship
involving a rogue alien police officer, Haruhara Haruko,
and his older brother's ex-girlfriend Samejima Mamimi,
as well as a classmate, his jealous father
and a seven-foot robot that emerged from a portal in his head that appeared after
being hit in the skull of the bass guitar by an alien whose goal is to free a space pirate
from an evil corporation who intends on smoothing the wrinkles of the planet with a giant clothing iron.
But like I said, it's not about any of that.
It's about adulthood and how that means absolutely nothing.
All the adults and Naota's life of childish and incompetent
[Naota] A stupid adult who doesn't know how to grow up
and they each represent a different aspect of his immaturity: insecurity, abandonment issues
Haruko even calling herself an 'illusion of his youth', the manifestation of the feelings in his adolescent heart
[Naota] Where'd you get that line from, anime?
Naota has this idealized vision of adulthood that he conducts himself by: stoic, removed, uncaring.
He's always focused on appearing cool, like this scene from episode 5
Naota's classmates are chatting about the rumors that he saved the city
[Manabe] ... that you saved the city! That you did it, Naota?!
and he lets that admiration go to his head, feeding his ego.
He's convinced everyone that he's the pilot of this robot Canti, when in reality, he's just the bullet.
He doesn't really understand maturity and he's too afraid to take a chance at expressing himself emotionally
which is what keeps him from maturing.
[Haruko] nothing can happen 'til you swing the bat
He's a kid that's constantly trying to shove his problems back into his head, rather than confronting them.
[Naota] guess I just need to hold it
and those themes are represented in the show through different flavors
[Ninamori] You're just being a kid. It's an adult taste.
He isn't fond of exploring anything new, like the spicy curry or sour drinks
[Naota] You know I don't like sour drinks.
Preferring to stick with the sweetness and familiarity of his childhood,
which contradicts that false identity that he constructed for himself.
But we see his growth as he learns to understand his youth,
realizing that age and wisdom aren't always synonymous.
Fooly Cooly isn't about manhood; it's not a coming of age story.
It's a story about embracing individuality and having the strength to stay true to yourself
amidst the insanity of a world where no one knows what the hell's going on.
Fooly Cooly was a show that I never understood when I was younger but I felt like it was one of the few things
that understood me and what I was going through in that period of my life.
It perfectly articulated that sense of discomfort and confusion that's unique to puberty
and that's what made it so accessible both in and outside of Japanese audiences.
So, if Fooly Cooley seems to you like an incoherent mess,
just remember how you saw the world
when you were 12.