Cocona is a middle schooler with a seemingly unexplained past, who is met by the eccentric girl, Papika. Papika brings Cocona through to Pure Illusion, a world with seemingly limitless potential, in order to find fragments said to grant wishes. This leads to the two girls going on a grand adventure with many interesting experiences
This Anime could have very well been a solid 9 for me, however, the later episodes let me down thoroughly, making me hover between a 7 and 8. I'll go over what pushed me to go with 8 later, but let's start with the issues.
If you were unaware, around episode 7, the lead scriptwriter of the show left. Whether they were removed or left of their own accord, I can't say, but what I can say is that this change definitely feels like it comes off in episodes 8 - 13.
It's hard to tell how much of the story was planned out to end the way it did, as there have been reports some episodes being completely different from how they were originally planned. Regardless, in my opinion, the last 4 episodes of this show end up being incredibly disappointing. It's a huge shift from seemingly subtle storytelling and character building to shoving as much dialogue and exposition into every final episode as possible, almost as if they realised they wouldn't have enough time to fit their overly convoluted plot into a 13 episode season.
And it really didn't need to be so complicated. They just as easily could have closed off the series with an equally subdued ending as the rest of the story and it would have been absolutely fine. I'm guessing budget is a big issue, and it definitely shows in the final episodes. However, they still manage to make relatively interesting settings as a backdrop to the underwhelming exposition.
So after all that, why would I consider giving this show an 8? It's somewhat hard to explain. Throughout those first 8 or so episodes, I really felt connected with the characters and the adventure. Travelling through so many interesting settings and slowly understanding the story of each episode was really a fantastic journey. Including the fact that episodes 5 and 6 were up there with my favourite episodes of any anime I've watched.
I honestly wish I could recommend just watching the first 8 episodes of this anime, but the entire lack of closure you get viewing up that point would ruin the experience. However, this is one anime I would be very happy to re-watch, now that I have that closure and I don't even have to worry about the later episodes.
Regardless, if you're willing to go through half of a really good anime and fine through wading through half of a not so great anime, I would highly recommend for you to watch Flip Flappers.
