FLCL Progressive

Hidomi Hibajiri is a dissilusioned young girl who never takes off her headphones. Her whole life consists of going to school, helping out at her mother's cafe, and listening to music. And with nothing else to break the crippling monotony, she keeps her headphones on at all times. That is, until she is run over by a mysterious guitar-wielding woman.

That same night, a robot barges into Hidomi’s room along with a boy from her class, Ko Ide, and the kids are chased around town together. They're saved by the guitar-wielding woman from before, but now Hidomi's got a horn growing from her forehead? Who knows where these robots are coming from, what kind of vespa woman this weird guitar woman is warning her about, or what this thing on her forehead is, but it doesn't look like Hidomi is going to be able to ignore all this with headphones!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

FLCL Progressive aired in the United States as a six-episode television series as part of the Toonami line-up on the Adult Swim programming block of Cartoon Network.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Prequel:	FLCL
Sequel:	FLCL Alternative

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Characters & Voice Actors

Haruhara, Haruko

Main

Hayashibara, Megumi
Japanese

Hibajiri, Hidomi

Main

Minase, Inori
Japanese

Jinyu, Julia

Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

Canti

Supporting

Ide, Kou

Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun
Japanese

Aiko

Supporting

Kurosawa, Tomoyo
Japanese

Masurao

Supporting

Ohkura, Kouji
Japanese

Nogata, Marco

Supporting

Nakazawa, Masatomo
Japanese

Misaki

Supporting

Shimizu, Ayaka
Japanese

Yuuya

Supporting

Sugiyama, Riho
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Ibata, Yoshihide

Co-Director

Terashima-Furuta, Maki

Producer

Kawahara, Junichirou

Producer, Production Coordination, Production Assistant

Honda, Fuminori

Producer

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Opening Theme

No opening themes have been added to this title. Help improve our database by adding an opening theme here.

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Ending Theme

"Spiky Seeds" by the pillows

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Reviews

Jul 8, 2018

dontcome

Not Recommended

Nothing amazing ever happens in this sequel. Every second we spend watching it is like a whole lifetime of dying slowly.

Hyperbole aside, I'll just be upfront: I didn't want this to happen. For years I was happy and confident that FLCL was seemingly sequel-proof. It's a perfect little character piece that crystallizes its particular time and place, celebrates all the excess and id-groping of the anime medium, and does it with heart and literacy. Nothing about it needed any elaboration. You can just ignore bad sequels, yeah, but they somehow make the original less "special." I wanted FLCL to stay special. Leave it alone.

Naturally, they ...

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Jul 8, 2018

Karhu

Not Recommended

Matrix 3 was a masterpiece so why won't we give FLCL also a sequel it deserves.
- The team behind nu-FLCL, probably.

Our "sequel" is such an amazing piece that even its main character's personality is in contradiction with the point of the series. Naota wanted to be something somewhere else. He had several hard subject to deal with from love interests to his brother. His story was not only about coming-of-age, but a trip where he learnt to cope with himself and the world. In this nu-FLCL, Girl-whose-name-I-forgot is the epitome of emptiness. Person whose greatest merit is how little she cares about anything that ... is going on and how she never reacts to anything that happens. That's also pretty accurate way of describing myself when watching this anime.

The writing is utter nonsense. Random rent-a-whore girl comes out of nowhere to connect two plotlines because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. Past story used as a mystery element. The character development (or rather, sudden personality changes cast upon the main character) don't seem to have any purpose at all, other than working as plot elements in the narrative. The pacing and screen transitions are awful. Our main girl loses consciousness just so the series won't develop anywhere quite yet. Same thing is used as an excuse to teleport the series from place a to place b. All of this is so very noticeable and amateurish. I am not sure what the opposite of "solid" is in English, but I don't even have to thanks to this anime being the perfect representation of it.

The voice acting is good enough. The OST has the same songs by The Pillows and they are all great. The series sucks for its other merits, the problems don't lie here the least. The art and animation could be praised if they were the production values for any other anime than this one.

As a conclusion: I would call this series a masterpiece if I had hated the original and wanted to give it the best and most disrespectful insult imaginable. This is nothing but an artistic remaster by some self-proclaimed nu-auteur who clearly thought the fans of FLCL would let it slide because the content is supposedly 2deep5anyone to understand. It isn't and it wasn't in the original either. There was nothing -outside few obscure references- in the original FLCL for the viewer to get past what was directly told and shown. Whoever made this, obviously thought the original just "fooled" people into thinking the series is amazing. Regardless whether it did or didn't, this sequel surely didn't fool anyone. Take a trip to /a/ and witness not a single shitpost about nu-FLCL because the series is not even worth of that.

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Jul 8, 2018

thesmore

Recommended

Have you ever had that moment when you are in utter awe with how animation flows past your eyes with an interesting story? That's what I got in this wacky adventure. There has been a lot of complaints, but I will only address one of them right away. Its animation is creative and imaginative and it has the pacing like Gainax shows in the past. Where it falls, however, is that this animation is not consistent. What I mean by consistency is that at the start of every episode there is a dream sequence done by a new animator. SO I DO NOT SEE ANIMATION ... BEING A COMPLAINT IF IT'S DIFFERENT BECAUSE THERE IS A DISTINCTION BETWEEN A REALITY AND A DREAM. Ok now that's out of the way I need to explain why FLCL Progressive is worth checking out.

Story:
FLCL Progressive piggybacks the story from its prequel. If you haven't watched the prequel, then I will say that it is about teenagers growing up. Some grow up too fast, while others grow too slow. Our main protagonist, Hibajiri, is a girl who seems to have grown up too quickly. What I find interesting is how the story is a journey for her to become both younger and older. She becomes more emotional like a kid and she also becomes more mature like an adult. The story is also filled with a plot behind the scenes that make up for the climax in episodes 5-6. WIthout giving too many spoilers to a short 6 episodes, I think everyone would come out with a joy ride. As for its originality, it is not really anything new for people who have watched the prequel, but otherwise from that it is noteworthy considering how the rest of the 2018 Spring and Summer are made of sequels and isekai shows. If you want a breath of fresh air then this is your best bet. (8)

Art:
As a show with a Gainax feel, things seem to flow in an imaginative way. The creative powerhouse of Gainax may have left their work with Production I.G., but I think FLCL Progressive shows that the Gainax spirit has recovered by at least a considerable amount since then. I especially liked the dream sequences in which the animation and art style was drastically different from how the show usually presents itself. In each of these moments they are not only visually appealing but also thought provoking. This combination did not fail me at all, and from beginning to end I was pleased by the presentation. (9)

Character:
I cannot say the characters are that strong because they seem mostly flat. It was hard to cheer for Hibajiri because she is a very aloof character and our other main character, Iide, doesn't seem very consistent. I will say that Haruko, the eccentric adult, carries the show until she eats someone she shouldn't have. Haruko and Hibajiri act as total opposites of one another and help make the show more coherent, yet the downside is that I'm never too sure what side these two are on all the time. Are they against each other, going toward a common goal, or does it even matter? Sometimes they are enemies, teacher-student, love rival, I will let someone figure that part for me. It's not average by any means though. Have you seen an anime with characters experiencing a multitude of relationships? So it is just fine. (6)

I do not put enjoyment as a part of the score, but I can promise you that FLCL Progressive is not a waste of time. It is a breath of much needed fresh air from generic shows.

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Poll: FLCL Progressive Episode 1 Discussion matheoo41 - Sep 25, 2018	6 replies	by MxS7HGS »» May 16, 10:49 AM
Why did the VA for Haruko change? mechian - Jun 14, 2022	2 replies	by TerraPlayer1 »» Feb 24, 1:07 PM
Are season 2 and 3 worth seeing at all? WildCardBevin - Nov 8, 2021	9 replies	by fatbastard69 »» Jun 11, 2022 3:15 PM
Why's this a movie now? haydenluvsanime - Oct 14, 2018	15 replies	by -Names »» Apr 21, 2022 6:52 AM
FLCL ripped off Yuumei's headphone design TinyPear - Jul 3, 2017	18 replies	by usiao4738 »» Mar 19, 2022 11:21 AM

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FLCL Progressive

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Ide, Kou

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FLCL Progressive

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Synopsis

Background

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