Flip Flappers

Cocona is an average middle schooler living with her grandmother. And she who has yet to decide a goal to strive for, soon met a strange girl named Papika who invites her to an organization called Flip Flap.

Dragged along by the energetic stranger, Cocona finds herself in the world of Pure Illusion—a bizarre alternate dimension—helping Papika look for crystal shards. Upon completing their mission, Papika and Cocona are sent to yet another world in Pure Illusion. As a dangerous creature besets them, the girls use their crystals to transform into magical girls: Cocona into Pure Blade, and Papika into Pure Barrier. But as they try to defeat the creature before them, three others with powers from a rival organization enter the fray and slay the creature, taking with them a fragment left behind from its body. Afterward, the girls realize that to stand a chance against their rivals and the creatures in Pure Illusion, they must learn to work together and synchronize their feelings in order to transform more effectively.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters & Voice Actors

Papika

Main

Ichimichi, Mao
Japanese

Cocomine, Cocona

Main

Takahashi, Minami
Japanese

Yayaka

Supporting

Ohashi, Ayaka
Japanese

Uexküll

Supporting

Murase, Michiyo
Japanese

Yuyu

Supporting

Toshinou, Airi
Japanese

Hidaka

Supporting

Fukushima, Jun
Japanese

TT-392

Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki
Japanese

Sayuri

Supporting

Hikasa, Youko
Japanese

Mimi

Supporting

Kayano, Ai
Japanese

Welwitschia

Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nagatani, Takayuki

Producer

Kaneko, Hirotaka

Producer

Isogai, Noritomo

Producer

Yoshie, Terushige

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Serendipity" by ZAQ

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Ending Theme

	"FLIP FLAP FLIP FLAP" by TO-MAS feat.Chima
	2: "Find the Wind" by ZAQ (eps 11)

Reviews

Mar 19, 2023

ShotgunHelmet

Recommended

Flip Flappers wears its influences on its sleeve as a love poem to classic Gainax anime like FLCL and Neon Genesis Evangelion, but with a unique style that makes it more than worth watching for its own sake. With that said, heed my word: this is a yuri anime, even if it pretends not to be. If you are put off by the male-gazey sexualization and objectification of women and girls, or you hate lesbians, you might want to pass.

This anime is absolutely gorge. It serves cunt. It is extremely stylish, beautifully animated, and the characters are cute, though some of the outfits are a ...

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Jun 24, 2023

Myrmiderp

Mixed Feelings

Flip Flappers is a strange anime that I bailed on when I first gave it a shot in 2017. I thought it was a mildly interesting anime with great art but completely insufferable dialogue—you will surely notice that the two main characters scream each others’ names back and forth over and over again for large portions of the show.

I came back six years later, and I’m not entirely sure why. Did I feel bad that I didn’t give it a real shot? Did I want it to be better than it was? Well, unfortunately for 2017 me, I stopped on the episode *just before* it ... started getting interesting. I’ll give you this piece of advice: make sure you give it 3 or 4 episodes just to be safe. It’s not that the show *fundamentally changes* or anything, but they really rush you into the premise during the first two episodes, and it takes a while to build up to the meaty bits.

So, what’s good about Flip Flappers? The art is fantastic. The character designs can be a little odd, but it doesn’t take long to get used to. Papika and Cocona explore some *wildly different* environments over the course of the show, and all in all they do a great job keeping everything looking fresh and interesting. The animation is fun, and they really flex their cartooning muscles throughout the series.

In addition, I’d say they do a good job with their mostly episodic plot. Some individual episodes I found to be special and impactful, and they do make a reasonable attempt to tie things together through foreshadowing and metaphor and these intangible themes that carry between episodes. The symbolism and meaning is easily confused for pure irreverence because of how well they’re able to do both at the same time. When it works, it’s great.

I don’t *love* the plot, though. My main criticism is that I wish they did a more consistent job tying the surreal mind-bending themes and environments to tangible truths in their “real world”. They do often, but other times they kind of phone it in and just let it be crazy for crazy’s sake. And this is totally personal preference; if you don’t mind that, then you’ll probably love it. But to me, some things need to be earned, and Flip Flappers takes a lot of narrative elements for granted that I wanted to see them build with honest work. Because of that, I didn’t come away completely satisfied. Also, if you’re watching in English, I’ve never loved Sentai Filmworks’ dubs. They have some good actors, but the direction clotheslines them.

Lastly, hate to bring it up, but I really wish the show didn’t push the sexualization of kids. Look, there are times where the adolescents are sexualized and I *got it*. It felt deserved, like these girls were learning things about themselves, exploring aspects of their personalities that they really hadn’t until now. But then the character designers get kind of greedy and really push it. From there, it rides in that typical anime “these girls are probably too young for this” zone… until the little girl shows up in the high-waisted spaghetti strap v-cut thong with a generous inch of fabric covering her genitals between her otherwise completely exposed midsection and upper thighs. There’s just no need for that, seriously. The show has adults, the show has young teenagers, and then there’s this kid—there is no question as to what’s going on here. It’s not good.

But hey, if you can ignore that last part, it’s a 13 episode series with unique art, and some good themes that they touch on here and there. It’s also a magic girl show so it has that going for it, I suppose.

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Jan 1, 2017

Animorphimagi

Not Recommended

This show is amazing...if you liked Madoka or any generic anime that has an organization that won't tell the main character what they are doing or why they should be doing it until the last 2 episodes of the show.
The show's atmosphere drips with the depressing normalcy of Cocona's life. She's a realistic shy high school/middle school girl who just wants to live her life in peace. UNFORTUNATELY, a random girl shows up named Papika, who is one of the most unrealistically cheerful and positive plot driving characters ever. If you like that type of character then this is definitely a fun ride, if you ... would prefer something more realistic, again Madoka like, then this show falls short. Papika might as well be immortal, or at least an inhuman freak who believes she is immune to death. Papika and Cocona are two of the lucky few who get to go to bizarre and amazingly inventive worlds the likes of which no one has seen since the Witch Labyrinths from MM...
Although the worlds are more thought out and unique than MM, they lack a sense of purpose towards the greater plot and are just a showcase for whatever random thing popped into the animator's head that week. The two girls go to these worlds, which may be quite deadly, for no reason beyond curiosity and a prize that neither seems to care about. They desire the greater goal of getting "a wish" but they barely care about the 10 or so pieces they need in order to actually get the wish. Once they learn the organization's overall goal, it becomes even more questionable why they would help out the organization beyond the fact that the story must happen or there will be no show.
Character designs are very unique and purposefully cartoonish, allowing radical changes to their designs when going to different worlds. Unfortunately, the designs are easily the most interesting part of the characters. The art style of their shaded eyes reveal their lack of complexity and failures compared to MM. You might believe there's depth beyond their standard girlish antics, but in reality the character's emotions range from super excited to depressingly sad with nothing but boredom in-between.
The story obviously is just going to string the audience along until the story becomes darker and darker where the leader of the organization reveals his wish that he wants to achieve and the girls must use the power of their love for each other to overcome whatever the "adults" have chosen to believe is the superior ideology. There is an evil organization. They are barely explored and are basically just the villains from the anime Evangelion and Darling in the Franxx.(hooded figures who want to rule/warp the planet into their own ideal world bla bla bla)
It is above the traditional, generic magical girl series, but only just barely and I pity anyone who has much higher hopes than a 6/10 for the show's run.
To be fair, this is probably more like a 5/10, but my standards for stories right now are to at least break previous ideas of the genre and go in a direction that might be better than the ones before it. For that reason I dropped it to a 3/10. You need more than a unique art style to push the boundaries of what's expected in new anime.

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