Well, the problem with talking about this series is the fact it's one of those abstract series, you know, where you gotta derive the meaning through other sources or watching it multiple times to derive the meaning and piecing things together or just to watch what you missed from the theme. So it's incredibly subjective.
If that sounds great for you, I'm glad, you should give this a go and see what you think. However if something abstract doesn't sound like a good idea... let me feed a bit into it being because it's probably not that good of an idea.
You see the most agreed upon meaning for the series is that it's about maturing. The series is short and chaotic because that's how the journey to adulthood or maturity is like, filled with chaos and a sudden outcome. An interesting choice, as a matter of fact, it actually sounds like a promising one.
However, how do you portray that someone has matured?
What is maturity?
Well, maturity is your capacity of responding to the enviroment you're in in an appropriate manner.
Now what's the easiest way to show someone has matured?
Well, show them as being incapable of responding to the enviroment in an acceptable way, give them a way to understand what they did wasn't acceptable or optimal, then conclude with them understanding what was wrong and responding to it correctly when faced with the same situation.
Which isn't what happens here. First of all, there's no way you can consider the main character incapable of responding appropriately (until the final episode) because up until then, the only way to view him is a victim of circumstance that reacts to unpredictable things. There's nothing wrong or right that he does nor does he have anything to reflect upon. Never did he really make a mistake that can be highlighted up until the final episode. So how do you portray him as immature?
Especially since the way he is portrayed is that he is more mature than the people around him but people dismiss him because he's a kid. Maybe a journey to how maturing feels like is what they meant then? Then okay, you sure filled the world with innuendo which perhaps the child might not fully understand which I suppose is part of growing up, as well as with him being ignored and dismissed due to his age despite perhaps having a valid point and other such stuff. But you haven't shown any significant change to people's viewpoint of him as he is now considered mature. Unless you're taking it very literal, then you're right, he matured, he's older by the end of the series. Major spoilers. People age.
And you know why the theme is so easily questionable? It's because it is never clearcut hinted because the story doesn't seem to go anywhere. Most events are chaotic and random and there's no real thread to follow up. The theme could've been only solidified if you excluded some of the slapstick humor and spent less time on worrying and working on how good the actually rather impressive animation the show has, if you instead focused on dialogue and the main character's perspective on things, perhaps the message would've went through without people needing to go through a lot of effort. Give some understandable motivations to everyone as to strengthen the theme, take a little bit of time to explain what things are about, not imply it, directly acknowledge it, to tell us what your intentions were in that moment, rather than need us to second guess everything we've seen. Then conclude it with a good response, however long that would've needed to be to his journey, and that's it.
The same artistical direction, with just some more content and more depth added to it, could be understandable and enjoyable by possibly a bigger number.
Because the story as it is goes like this: Some horn grows in the head of MC, slapstick humor and some focus on being abstract about the message, then a gigantic thing comes out of MC's head and action happens.
There's no tension, there's nothing to expect but randomness and yes, said randomness has meaning if you look into it, but arguably everything has meaning if you think into it a bit. Say think of a random number, close your eyes when you do this. Open your eyes. Kind of a stupid thing to say since you would've needed to open your eyes to read this, but it's only so the following sentence wouldn't have been accidentally read because it was next. You thought of an one digit number. HOW DID I KNOW? I probably didn't. It's probably a coincidence and you just thought of an one digit number because you use those more frequently than not. However, if I was wrong, you probably then were in on the fact by now that I was banking on a coincidence and then the taste of the whole thing washes away.
That's basically the two sides here. The actions that are seemingly random are tied together because people would rather have an explanation for seemingly unrelated somewhat chaotic events, because often in life things will happen and you won't find an optimal explanation that will make you understand why X thing happens. And that's fine. You're neither wrong or right for doing that. But the other side is, the people who don't see it for what it is because they don't feel like an explanation was needed or they simply can't or don't want to tie things together.
Since in reality you adapt yourself to seemingly random events, a conclusion and a pattern which you can observe done by the participants of other seemingly random events done in the same way as you is important. In abstract series, you need to make sense of the reality of what you've seen again, rather than observe the reality of someone else. And some people do not want that from a story.
I have no problem with a show being ambiguous but, at least give some effort into your main theme, man. The series had a lot of potential if you ask me. I did find some enjoyment out of this. And I did find the animation for the series quite good and I liked the voice acting. There's something about different than usual japanese dialects sounding right, you know? Some more insight into the inner world and motivations of the characters is all I needed, and a longer conclusion. And I would've been somewhat okay with the series, really.
In conclusion, if you think you will take this show at face value, you will see a show about random events, accompanied with slapstick humor and overly without any seeming conclusion try and fail to tie together and end up unconcluded. If you enjoy that give it a shot. If you think you can take the show and analyze it and add some more depth to it on your own by piecing some things together and solidifying that explanation in your head, you're likely to find a show about the society perspective on maturity, with the representation of being a kid being chaotic and a short journey, accompanied by a good representation of the plausible immaturity that comes from the side that looks down on those with less years in their age, and how your world view is limited due to not being exposed to the world of those older than you, with it being accompanied by impressive animation to depict the chaos that is the journey to being considered mature. Or any other explanation you could come up with, really. If you find that appealing, give that a shot.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter what FLCL is. It matters only what you think it is. And since experiencing this show is is very subjective... you do you, buddy. I gave you all the information I could.
