A lot of words have been spent dissecting and analyzing FLCL, or "Fooly Cooly",
Gainax and Production I.G.'s absurdist OVA about adolescence, baseball, sex, giant robots, Vespas,
and man, a lot of things, all densely packed into as tight a space as they can be.
It quite possibly has as much going on as Gainax's other landmark title, Evangelion,
but packed into just three hours instead of twelve.
In light of that, it makes sense that people have spent so much time and energy discussing it,
breaking down the layers upon layers of obscure references, inscrutable symbols, and metaphors
in search of deeper meaning.
And there is plenty to be found:
commentary on what it means to be an adult,
and to be a kid,
on sex and violence and how those impulses are intertwined,
on anime and art in general, the creative process, self-expression, the history of Gainax,
like I said, a lot of things.
I could go on, but in a certain sense,
I think that going on would be antithetical to what FLCL is really all about.
It's just not meant to be picked apart frame by frame and understood on every level,
even though, like every anime, it was made that way:
frame by frame.
And I'm saying that as a guy who literally picks apart anime for a living.
Despite being built in a similar multi-layered way,
FLCL is the antithesis of brainy, dense shows that demand analysis like Evangelion.
On first viewing it seems crazy, confusing, contradictory, and kind of stupid,
but the difference is that it's meant to be experienced that way.
It's meant to leave you scratching your head
as jokes and story beats fly by and over your head at a million miles a minute,
and still be a thoroughly enjoyable ride
even if you don't fully grasp even a fraction of everything that's happening.
But don't take my word for it,
the show itself says as much when it pokes fun at Naota's dad, who wrote an Eva book once,
and who tries to analyze the deeper meaning of a robot living in his house
even though in the context of the show's world,
it's just a crazy, random thing that is happening to him and his family that couldn't possibly
have a deeper metaphorical meaning behind it.
Okay, so even that is circumstantial evidence,
but luckily, we've also got the direct word of the director Kazuya Tsurumaki,
who, when asked to define the show in one sentence at Otakon way back in 2001, said,
"With Evangelion there was this feeling that you had better be smart to understand it or even just to work on it.
With FLCL, I wanted to say that it's okay to feel stupid."
Which is definitely a good thing to keep in mind when living your life
and something the show tries its hardest to impress upon us through the story of Naota and his family.
Naota has no idea what he's doing,
but neither do any of the adults or other kids around him.
They're all fumbling through life, but things work out mostly for the best in the end anyway.
But I think it can be even more important to keep in mind while watching anime, or any media really.
Tsurumaki goes on to describe the logic of FLCL as
imagination being made physical and tangible,
just as it is for him when he takes whatever's in his head and draws it.
It's a show meant to capture Tsurumaki's messy stream of consciousness,
with strange moments, over-the-top action scenes,
references, stylistic shifts, and fourth wall breaks thrown in just because it feels right.
Tsurumaki and everyone else who worked on FLCL is a human being,
so that all comes from somewhere.
Ideas don't exist in a vacuum,
and everything that we decide to create has some meaning inherently packed into it because of that.
Sometimes that meaning is some deep treatise on what it means to mature as a human being,
and sometimes it's just a dick joke.
FLCL has both in spades,
but you don't even have to be able to tell the difference between them in order to enjoy it.
And that's a good thing.
When it's put together with care, a show that's pure dumb fun can be just as enjoyable
as an intellectual arthouse piece.
FLCL exists to say that sometimes it's okay to just not think about things and enjoy the ride in life
and when you're watching anime,
and that, I think, is as valuable a message to take away from a work of art as any deeper meaning about
the human condition or our place in the universe that you might glean from a headier show.
It's common among critics especially to scoff at the idea of just turning your brain off to enjoy something.
And I hold a lot of disdain for that idea in general as well;
if two seconds of thought is enough to shatter my suspension of disbelief or my emotional investment
in a piece of media, then that's a big problem.
There's a lot of stuff that's just too dumb to enjoy like SAO or the Transformers films,
but there is a wide spectrum between mindless tripe like that
and intellectual arthouse works,
and there's a lot of quality content in that middle ground.
Hell, there are some masterpieces in there.
Face/Off is like maybe the single dumbest movie ever made,
but it doesn't matter because it's awesome. Like all John Woo movies!
Which is, judging from the tease at the end of episode 4, the main thing that FLCL likes about his work as well.
FLCL is maybe a little bit smarter than that, or,
let's be real, it's a lot bit smarter,
but that also doesn't matter because it's... awesome.
And I mean that quite literally.
Yeah, FLCL makes me laugh,
it makes me get hyped for its action setpieces,
but above all, it fills me with awe at what the human mind can dream up,
and the way that a talented enough team can bring that vision to life through animation.
It's a showcase of insane creativity and talent
from some of the greatest animators in the world going hogwild just because they can.
All set to a soundtrack from The Pillows that is also, above all else, awesome.
And full of lyrics that seem like a whole lot of stupid nonsense.
As we grow up and our tastes develop, it can be easy to forget,
especially for those of us who become professional critics,
what got us interested in movies or games or anime or TV shows in the first place.
Because it probably wasn't the way those things provoked our minds
and got us thinking about the nature of our existence,
it was probably some combination of sound and motion that spoke to us on a primal level,
making us feel moved or excited with no clear explanation as to why.
I can still pinpoint what that thing was for me in regards to anime.
It's the sweeping shot of the flock of birds that comes in right as the theme song picks up
in the first opening of Inuyasha,
followed by the shot of Inuyasha walking through those falling cherry blossoms.
I had no idea why, but those images combined struck young me as profoundly beautiful
and convinced me that I needed to watch more of the series.
Likewise, I still have vivid memories of the image of the Huns charging down the mountainside in Mulan,
even though six-year-old me had zero idea what he was looking at when that movie came out.
There was no intellectual component there,
those were just filmic images that blew me away,
that STILL blow me away,
and there is inherent value in media that can do that.
There's value in media that can leave our jaws on the floor with a stunning action setpiece,
and there's value in
media that can get us to laugh really, really hard at a well-executed dick joke,
even if there's nothing more behind it than that.
To bring this back to anime,
yeah, Erased has a lot of story problems toward the end.
But it's also got this shot,
and this shot,
and so many more beyond that.
That's just in the first three episodes,
and those stunning moments alone are worth watching the entire series for.
The same goes for Lu Over The Wall, a newish Masaaki Yuasa film that I've only seen this last week
(and that I'd be happy to talk about at greater length if you guys are interested).
Anyway, as a story, it doesn't entirely hold up to scrutiny and its pacing is a little wonky.
But as an audiovisual experience, the combination of animation and music fills me with joy
and leaves me grinning when I walk out of the theater every time,
and for that alone, it's become one of my new favorite movies almost instantly.
It's important to appreciate works like Ghost In The Shell, Evangelion, Rakugo and Steins;Gate
that exists to really make us think,
but it's equally important to appreciate shows like HOTD, TTGL, NGNL, and FLCL
whose primary purpose is to help us stop thinking and just... feel.
Things that have thought put into them, that don't insult our intelligence,
and that CAN be overthought if we feel like it,
but that exists primarily so that we can just have a good time watching them.
There is more that you can take away from FLCL, a lot more,
and with two new seasons airing this year,
I'll probably be returning to the series in the next few months to break down some of that myself,
as well as to discuss the artistry behind its dumb fun.
But if you just walk away from the show the same way that I did when I watched it when I was 13,
with no idea what the hell you just watched but with a strong conviction that you enjoyed it anyway,
that's fantastic.
Because it's okay to feel stupid.
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And I am Geoff Thu, professional shitbag,
signing out from my mother's basement.