Flip Flappers

It's painful to see a show with boundless imagination be constrained by the cold, harsh facts like Flip Flappers. It's a beautifully animated show with an endearing, infectious sort of charm, but BD sales are the lifeblood of seasonal anime, and all the charm in the world won't count for anything if you can't make the grade. Flip Flappers struggled to find an audience, and you could feel the creators; mad-dash scramble to wrap everything by the end of the first and certainly only season.

If given the chance to stretch its legs and take its time, perhaps over two full-length seasons, I think Flip Flappers ... could have developed into something really marvelous. The chance for anything like that now, however, is pure illusion.

Flip Flappers has a great start. The artwork and animation is gorgeous throughout, full of liveliness and energy, capturing everything from fantastical dreamscapes to heated battles to the subtle, little gestures that are so often forgotten. That and the intrigue of the setting and the characters was enough to draw me in. I kept watching for the varied worlds each episode would offer; it reminded me of Space Dandy in that each setting felt like a chance for different artists to go hog wild and really let loose. Papika and Cocona are likable leads to boot, which always helps.

Something I also appreciated was the show's slavish devotion to showing, not telling. There's no narration, no characters explaining every step of their thought process (at first), it's all conveyed through the visuals and the way these characters interact. That can be all too rare in anime and should be applauded.

Unfortunately, the last third of the show starts to cram in plot point after plot point, as if the crew realized that they were running out of time. We stop exploring these distant worlds and instead have to drudge through the tedious, infinitely-less interesting backstory. Characters show up with no purpose (NyuNyu). The characters we already have are pretty thin, with little depth or nuance to really explore. We have yet another "small child with reality warping powers of a god running amok" plot. Then the whole thing ends with so many threads unresolved at best or completely forgotten about at worst; Yayaka, who's friendship with Cocona is the basis for a powerful turning point in Ep 8, is almost entirely redundant by the end and gets no conclusion to her arc. The story doesn't end, it just stops.

It's a shame that a rushed end can damage an otherwise good or even great show, but that's why execution is so, so important.

All that being said, don't take this 6 to mean its bad. I would still heartily recommend Flip Flappers as a whole; it's breathtaking to look at and, at its best, it's a wildly fun and imaginative ride. You just have to take the show warts and all.

What started as a zany romp through intriguing worlds turned into a cliched story. Helicopter parenting is bad and when you try to protect your kid from everything it turns out *you're* the one hurting them! Only in Flip Flappers case the helicopter mom force feeds LSD to everyone to the point where the show turns into Inception and you're not supposed to know what's reality and what's Pure Illusion. It takes a lot of cues from Evangelion and that may be up your alley but it's not my thing.

The animation stays consistent in its style but there is a slight drop off in quality ... as the show progresses. Music is fine, there are a few stand out track but the OP and ED stand out more than music used within the show.

As far as characters go Papika is stagnant, Cocona goes through the standard 'I didn't want to do this/adventure but now because of friends I do!' arc complete with angst in the middle for "conflict", and Yayaka learns the true meaning of friendship. Pretty standard stuff all around. Salt isn't a character until the last 4 episodes, Nyunyu just never is a character, the twins (triplets?) don't amount to much but I suppose they had a slight character arc. The best episode in the show in my opinion was centered around a character whose name I can't remember because she was the focus of only that episode and then disappeared for the rest of the show and was only seen in the end as a nod to the fact that they took the time to design a character, remember?

Overall pretty standard stuff, I was really excited for it in the beginning but it tripped over itself in the end and crossed the finish line in mediocrity.

Why do you shoot yourself in the foot time and time again, anime? Can't you just give me a gorgeous looking anime with stellar animation, two quirky cute main characters, and NOT sexualize it 24/7?

Flip flappers is a work of art at times, with wondrous ideas that gain life by mastefully animating these moments. It is honestly a joy to see so much creativity presented on screen, and the story, alhough predictable and kind of bare bones, is still interesting enough.

But let's go down to the meat of my issue with the show: the constant fan service of the clearly underage girls that just ... makes the enjoyment from the beginning take a swan dive off the roof. It is really not necessary to plague your beautiful show with cameltoes and tentacle fetishes galore. Not kidding when I say there was at least one tentacle scene in each episode to the point you could make a drinking game out of it. They completely take you out of the story and make you just question who in the directing team has such pent up sexual arousal to be cramming all kinds of kinks throughout the duration of the show.

Have I mentioned the fact these girls are very much underage? Still in middle school and no shame in stripping them down to their panties (if that) whenever the writers have an occasion. Kind of revolting man.

And it is truly a shame because apart from that, flip flappers is a tight show, with most of the episodes showing the main characters going in a fun, little adventure that can range from cute to incredibly creative. As the show winds down to the end, some kind of plot arises and its good enough to mantain interest even though I felt it came out of nowhere and was not properly integrated.

Special shoutout to the ending song because it is absolutely adorable and has a jingle that will stick inside your head for a long time.

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.

Flip Flappers was an anime that got me excited about watching something on a weekly basis for the first time in the longest time. It seemed to be a show that had a lot to offer while putting up a deceivingly generic look. It had a mysterious way of presenting itself that subtly distinguished it from something we've seen too many times already. Sadly, the same can't be said about how things turn out after about half way through.

The show had a lot of quirks that would have you question if they are being subtle or just written poorly but it showed a lot of ... signs that they were self-aware of where it stands that were reassuring. I hate to use the word "mature" but Flip Flappers really seemed to have something more serious with the themes that they were building up. A lot of the conflicts felt like they were leading somewhere important and "mature" to the point where ambiguity felt intentional. Even the aftercredit scenes that mysteriously never really got mentioned in the next episode felt like a narrative device that was going to be explained as an important part of the plot later on. A bit of a stretch, I know, but the show had me anticipate a lot of great things.

The characters, while still within a reasonably generic archetype, felt like something that belonged within the given universe. They were shown in a way that had me accept that they could very well be living people. Believable personality is something that is missed quite often in anime and I think Flip Flappers is proof that decent writing can make generic characters interesting and maybe even seemingly complex. There's something sincere about their overall behavior and makes a few cheesy scenes easily bearable. Though honestly, I'm just glad their personalities aren't dedicated to being simply cute. Though, I would still argue they are cute.

Every episode was a different experience especially with its surprising range of art direction. Overall quality seemed almost too good to be a regular TV show. They're filled with meaningless but cool references done tastefully and a lot of clever composition and dynamic lighting. You may not agree with me when i say Cocona and Papika are interesting characters, but I don't think many can deny that Flip Flappers had some impressive visuals. The change in mood for each episode is handled very well and makes it hard to guess what will happen next. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of impending struggle which made it exciting to see not just the new settings but also how the characters will react within it. They all seemed to work well for a show that sells itself as an episodic adventure.

However, things seem to go a bit shaky mid way and falls apart by the end. A lot of ideas and potential development seem to have dropped completely and everything just became extremely straight forward with a lot of underwhelming expositions that lack the same witty self-awareness it had before. Things that seemed important are either never discussed again or turned completely irrelevant. Characters start to literally explain the analogy behind certain imagery within the show as if it had lost its faith in the viewer's intelligence. Even the visuals are obviously worse than previous episodes for what were supposed to be some of the key moments of the show. As harsh it may sound, it turns into a show that really could have been any other show. Basically, it became something I originally avoided to watch Flip Flappers instead. A straight forward plot and a straight forward dialogue aren't necessarily bad, but it's definitely not what I kept watching Flip Flappers for.

The drop in quality took me by surprise and disappointment. To summarize my experience with Flip Flappers, it went from being more like the ED song to being more like the OP song. There just seems to be a lot of thought put into the aesthetics to the ED while the OP is arguably generic and unfitting with the tone of the show. Ironically, the outro/preview music that comes after the ED is very catchy as well.

I really wanted to like Flip Flappers and I genuinely did up to about episode 7-8. The rest is up for debate. Maybe I was just over hyping and over analyzing things. Despite what I have said, I would still recommend watching Flip Flappers as the first half of the show is worth witnessing regardless of how you may feel about the other half.

Flip Flappers is basically a lighter version of Puella Madoka Magica with a generous pinch of magic mushrooms. It follows the duo, Cocona and Papika, as they flip-flap their way between dimensions, adventuring as magical girls in an LSD-infused world. Each episode is a journey into a different dimension, which comes its own landscapes, physics, and artstyle. The genre-bender nature of this anime is reflected in its storyline, which jumps around as much as the imagination of a child with ADHD as they sample through various TV channels by chewing on the remote. You've got everything: magical girl transformation scenes with loli fanservice, villains practically ... dressed up as the KKK, characters super saiyaning a Gundam, a green bunny with a mouth between its eyes named Uexküll like wtf is this Elon Musk naming scheme (Edit: Apparently it's named after an animal behavioural scientist. Maybe this whole anime was a psychological experiment). This Alice in Wonderland, Spongebob imagination box of a show perfectly captures the feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into insanity - the more I watched, the less I could help but question, "WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING??".

And yet, I'm not a fan of this anime. For starters, you get thrown into it with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. Cocona is just a random student who was basically conscripted into the mahou shoujo army by some little twerp on her flying surfboard who thinks it's all fun and games. The show might as well be tagged as NTR as Cocona somehow eventually enjoys this thrill of nearly dying all the time. The relationship between Cocona and Papika is about as consistent as teenage drama: at times it feels like that of a mother and a peanut-brained runt, and at other times, it's like watching two of the gayest lesbians known to womankind. Papika also has to be one of the most strangle-able characters in existence because good lord, the number of times they scream each others' names is like a fight scene between Naruto and Sasuke. I swear I will go crazy if I hear 'COCONA' one more time because I've already heard it 238 FUCKING TIMES (proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B-tsxruIcs). Because of how wildly disconnected each episode is, I found it difficult to get invested into the 'story'. I think the producers wanted to provide some mystery by having you figure things out along the way, but because of how random everything was, any possible explanation for anything in this show would just feel entirely unconvincing. There were many occasions where I wished it would just stick to one thing. To its credit, however, I did begin to enjoy the show halfway through, but only when my brain gave up and finally decided to just accept what I'm seeing.

As much as I love stuff that makes me go WTF, the lack of any substantial sense of consistency in the storyline to firmly latch onto means that it's a bit too difficult for me to recommend.

[This review contains minor spoilers.]
I slightly regret watching this.
I definitely wouldn't recommend this to others.
I have watched this once, subtitled.
I won't watch this again.

---- Positives ----

The first part of the series is superb, assuming you enjoy fast-paced fantastical adventures.
During ~most~ of the series [ignoring the final few episodes], the characters go on fantastical adventures that are made even more interesting through the series's great art style. Viewers learn close to the minimal amount possible in order to still be able to follow along, and this is great because by the time you're starting to understand one aspect of the series, clues about other aspects appear, ... keeping the experience exciting and fresh. The character types are played well and consistently, with each being unique enough to have its place in the series. There aren't any monologues - everything is figured out by the viewers and by Cocona along the way. We're never stopped and forcibly pointed at an explanation point - the degree with which things make sense depends on how much effort you put in while watching the series, also meaning that you can chose what to care about and focus on, and simply ignore other aspects of the series, all while still enjoying it overall.

The art is very good in almost all instances.
I liked the drawing style, which stayed consistent through most of the series. Character and camera movement during battles was also well done. In the final few episodes, quality fell a little, but was still good, since the baseline for this series was pretty high.

The ED is great.
The ending song and ending visuals are great. I got worried at first that the scenes depicted hinted at future events, but thankfully they didn't seem to imply what I thought they were implying.

---- Negatives ----

The series shifts for the worse near the end.
The feelings of wonder and superb stated-vs-implied balance that were so well-executed in the first part of the series are lost in the final few episodes. This shift is very abrupt and the problem persists through the end of the series, ending on a bad note. We suddenly get a marathon of previously-seen environments - previously, all environments were new and interesting, only appearing once. We see foes come back and be tossed aside again without any depth being added. Any sense of relative power levels are gotten rid of and replaced with the in-poor-taste model of combat exchanges merely for effect. The viewer, for the first time, is forced to focus on plot aspects that get mundane quickly [and won't be mentioned because spoilers]. The fantastical scenes in the end are suddenly tacky and predictable instead of imaginative and wonderful. There was a hint of something deep at the very end, when they return to the real world, but other than that, the series just trips over itself and ends - even that final gimmick was done too hastily to have any profound effect.
Opportunity for cancel: No. I was surprised and saddened to see this series start off so great and then just fall over at the end. There are multiple ways this series could have ended, and I don't understand why ~that~ way was chosen. In addition to overall story planning falling, visual planning fell too. It was frustrating to experience because this series was close to being one of my favorites. Instead, I'm just left with a mixed, uncomfortable opinion about this series now that it's over.

Flip Flappers is a story which struggles with its own identity. Simply put, it was most enjoyable when it didnt take itself seriously.

The main premise is that 2 girls, Cocona and Papiko are to make multiple trips to an coexisting, yet elusive world called 'Pure Illusion'. The first 8 or so episodes really did a great job at unraveling this interesting world, and had me coming back to learn more. Every episode there was a new idea of Pure Illusion- the haunted time loop house, the neo-city, and the monster filled iceland, were the most memorable for me. Ideas were getting tossed ... around and it was a ton of fun. The interactions between the duo are cute and lighthearted.
The art is also worth mentioning, the way this show handles artistic story telling, with a color palette ranging from vibrant to dull, is incredible. Action sequences are consistently fluid, with the use of flashy sakuga.

The opening, Serendipity by ZAQ, embodies the whole mood of the show pretty straight on, with upbeat electronic music, beautiful fight scenes and with the beginning lines "into the sky"embodying the sense of adventure I truly felt when watching the first 9 or so episodes. But after that point, the opening just serves to remind us that the show has truly strayed away from what made it great in the first place.

The story at some point, takes itself way too seriously. There is a hilarious lack of build up for the tension that arrives. The drama crashes in like a toddler who was testing the limits of a bike. It is rushed: the reveals, the explanations, the revelations, the resolutions. It never feels right. At some point, I was thinking "what if they used their animation budget to make more episodes instead". Everything good about the show I've said before, besides the art, just gets thrown out the window at some point. It leaves the viewer unsatisfied. Nothing feels complete, or established. The show becomes over ambitious- attempting a plot to wow the audience but leaves its former identity in the gutter and its viewers scratching their heads.

Flipflappers is the guy in elementary school who is working on a perfectly fine art piece, peeks at someone else's, and ultimately ruins his own in an attempt to copy the piece he peeked at (aka me). Complicated plots are cool but there's no reason to fix anything that's not broken. I can't bring myself to give this show that low of a mark, because I truly enjoy a big portion of the show. But it is because I enjoyed it so much at first, it is more the disappointing that it turned out the way it did.

What's to say?

Aloof schoolgirl gets kidnapped by a bats### crazy magical lesbian girl on a hoverboard who REALLY likes her to explore nightmare parallel universes/dream worlds at great threat to their own safety, sanity, and mental health.

There's imagery of nightmares, ruined childhoods, pet rabbits who go all rage mode, Mad Max, fountain orgies... wait what? Anyway they're to go to these worlds for some reason, collect their crystallized essence, try not to die or irreparably harm the psyche of their friends in the process, and fight the Klan.

Yes, the Klan.

As in Ku Klux, those guys with the hoods who have their own magical guy/girls. ... I wasn't really sure what the Klan was up to lately--seems they've branched out.

This is supposed to somehow make sense but comes across as if Kill la Kill and FLCL had a baby that didn't get enough oxygen. Oh, and you'll be singing the closing theme whether you want to or not, that thing is an ear worm.

Yes, I'm sure there's meaning to all that imagery and the pop culture references can be maddening at times, but honestly they're trying too hard to be everything at once (magical girl deconstruction, concept anime, coming of age, an exploration of the mind/madness) and have managed to out Gainax Gainax in the end.

overall:
Flip Flappers has a very gorgeous, bright, and fun animation style, which is why it is ranked a six. it truly was a pleasure to watch, plus a stellar op and ed which i really enjoyed. but it does fall flat in terms of the story. the majority of points given are for how cute papika and cocona are, plus the visuals.

characters:
the 13 episodes focused mainly on papika and cocona, and they do have a very lovely relationship that i enjoyed watching grow, but the side characters also piqued my interest, so it was disappointing that they weren't fleshed out more.
yayaka's character ... development seemed to be going somewhere when she was reconciling her choices and her relationship with cocona, but she didn't have a major part in the final battle or an opportunity for her to "prove her love" in the way that cocona and paprika did in the final battle. yayaka could have been more than a side character, given how much love she has for cocona and how intertwined their lives are.
i appreciated mimi's character and how she represents the line between a loving, protective mother, and a controlling, violent mother. however, i would really have loved to see how she got to that point, and to have seen her "descent into madness"; it seemed like a missed opportunity. the same goes for salt, who in his earlier years is portrayed as a curious, kind researcher who turns cold and domineering.
i think that what really carries it for me is this soft spot that i have for this “type a meets type b” trope, with one character being the charismatic extrovert (papika) and the other being a hesitant introvert (cocona) but having two wonderful main characters seemed to have left the side characters neglected.

story:
as far as pacing, i enjoyed how the earlier episodes were focused on just the fun adventures the girls were having but they definitely could have added more information pertaining to the larger plot in the beginning to tie in the beginning of the show with the end, instead of having such a harsh division of "fun beginning" and "serious final boss end" (but, having all the information at once was a similar experience to how cocona found things out, so maybe it was intentional?)
there were many things that were left underdeveloped, such as the origin of the organizations, how pure illusion came to be, how the wishes work, or each person's wish, and the side story with the older art student. this story truly could have been something spectacular, which is why its a bummer that its not.
this could have potentially been solved by making the series into a movie (as my brother suggested) or by adding another 12 episodes, to hopefully spend more time fleshing out the world, while still having time for papika and cocona's fun adventures.