January 26, 2004
FLCL Episode 1
"Fooly Cooly"
I'll try and write this review from the perspective of someone who knows absolutely nothing about FLCL. (Not too much of a stretch, as all I really know about it is that it has an extremely loyal following, and that I tried to watch it about eight times previously, but never succeeded.)
The reasons for this are twofold. First, just to accenuate how crazy this show is. Its weirdness transcends words, meanings and descriptions. The other reason is that, without a preconceived notion, it's easier (and probably a little more objective) to take this show at face value.
This is a Gainax/Production IG project, so it should go without saying that the animation and art is great. The character designs are great, with the weird ones just off the scale. The music (hard rock all the way!) is pretty off the wall, too, and goes with the frenetic pace of the show.
Technically there's only one thing I don't like in this show, and that's the use of pages from the manga (presumably, though I've never read it) in the middle of the episode. Gainax does this from time to time, and I really don't like it. There's no real reason to do it, other than to emphasize the fact that this is an adaptation. It sort of adds to the insanity of the show, but it could have been just as insane with rapidly scrolling/animating animation.
As far as the plot goes, there's very little in this one. It's refreshing as FLCL uses some different methods of introducing characters. You don't get to see much about what they're thinking, so everything about them comes out through their actions. Naota is dealing with adolescence, troubled by the attention of Mamimi (his brother's beau), who seems to be using Naota as a stopgap solution.
That's about as far as the normal plot elements go. On the other hand, we've got Haruko, the crazy (how many things in this show are crazy, anyways?) alien (?) biker who seems to herald the beginning of seriously odd changes in Naota's life.
So, knowing nothing about this show, there's not much more you can say about it other than it looks good, sounds good, and exudes craziness. Genre? Who knows. Plot? Who knows. Point? Who knows. It says a lot about the show that it more or less gets by the first episode on style alone. That's not to say the substance isn't interesting, it's just not really there (or maybe it's just whizzing by too fast).
Either way, I'm ready for another episode!
Rating: B+
Posted by Kei at January 26, 2004 11:30 PMI'm pretty sure the anime came first for FLCL and that the manga pages were created from scratch for the sake of having animated manga pages..heh.
There is also some manga, but I believe it was created after the anime, and has a different kind of style (very sketchy type linework).
After seeing it a couple of times, the plot is fairly straight-forward actually. The craziness makes it a lot more confusing at first, but most of the stuff does seem to have some reason for going on in the end..
Posted by: Shawn Fumo at February 11, 2004 07:29 AMThe anime actually did come before the manga and the reason he chose to use manga pages was to "spice up" an otherwise boring plot driven dinner conversation. Also I'll admit that there doesn't seem to be a plot the first time you watch it but when you see it again after seeing the whole series alot more stuff makes sense because of character development that you'll now get from the first ep.
Posted by: noneedforaname at May 26, 2004 09:48 AMdoes anyone knoe where i can get the second episode, i whatched the firstr one....didnt know what the fuck was going on so know i want to whatch the second one.
Posted by: at March 1, 2005 10:05 PM