FLCL is a lot of things. It's hilarious, running the gamut of humour from the opening slapstick of Haruko ramming into Naota with her moped, to the chaotic character-based humour of normal people trapped in absurd situations (Naota) and abnormally perverted people (Naota's dad and granddad) lapsing into gibberish as their overheated brains process the idea of an affair between Naota and and the lovely young woman who's invaded their house, to the constant surreal innuendo of Naota's repressed sexual impulses manifesting as phallic horns from his forehead. FLCL's refusal to conform to either reality or a consistent style allows it to turn into manga, South Park, and a John Woo movie whenever it feels like ramping up the ridiculousness of any given premise.
It's gorgeous, with some of the smoothest animation delivered by the medium before or since, offbeat but beautifully-drawn character designs, a wealth of sci-fi monsters and robots, and an unerring eye for the striking image - see Canti leaping onto the roof of the burned-out school and sending a spire of light into the air as the birds explode out of the building and fly up around him, or Naota silhouetted against the burning horizon, holding his guitar. The team puts in a hundred percent, enlivening the most standard scenes with a fresh approach: see a late-series scene where Naota's dad and grandad are interrogating him on his feelings about Haruko. It could have been drawn side-on from beginning to end, but the camera is an at extreme angle looking up from below them, to enhance how grotesque the perverted adults look as they tower over Naota and question him.
Nobody slacked off on FLCL; while it has its share of semi-still frames with overdubbed conversation as people sit and talk, this isn't done out of laziness, but to emphasise the drowsy summer haze that hangs over the city of Mabase, turning everything golden and shimmering, so that - despite how ridiculous it is - you kind of get why Naota keeps saying "Nothing amazing happens here. Only the ordinary", even as giant robots keep coming out of his head.
Despite how wacky FLCL is, it never loses the atmosphere that makes it feel so nostalgic and true to childhood summer memories, where the days seem to stretch out forever and you - much like Naota - can't wait to grow up, even as there's a sense of melancholy for the innocence you're leaving behind. Using the pillows for the soundtrack was an inspired choice. The songs complement it perfectly, from the threatening buzzsaw guitars of "Stalker" that underscore the sci-fi monsters to the brief moments of pure happiness that could scarcely be better echoed than by "Beautiful morning with you", or the plaintive strains of "One Life" under Naota's sobbing melancholy - and it all comes together with (maybe - who can really pick?) my personal favourite, "Blues Drive Monster", which makes the spectacular giant-robot climax even cooler than it was to begin with.
It is, of course, thrilling. While the action is always on the cartoonish side, being more for the sake of entertainment and allegory than to actually ascertain "who's stronger", it's always brilliantly choreographed, fast-paced, and full of spectacular animation which magnifies the awe-inspiring sense of impact - see the aftermath, almost like a nuclear strike, of episode 4's climax, where Naota has to bat a falling satellite back into space before it levels the city.
On the level of pure entertainment, it's perfect, an unadulterated sugar rush. But if it was no more than that, it would be notable but not a masterpiece. What elevates it is the way all of its special effects bombast is put in the service of developing character and exploring psychology - mostly Naota's, though it applies to Mamimi and Ninamori and even Haruko.
FLCL can come off as pretty opaque when you try to figure it out, because it's really not like almost any other anime. Rather than using conventional methods of exploring a character's feelings and motivations, such as putting them in a pressure-cooker situation till they blurt out confessions of how they feel, or having them pour out their hearts to conveniently-placed friends/relatives/agony aunts who exist to enable emotional exposition, FLCL tends to keep it a lot more subtle (which is an odd thing to say about an anime where giant horns sprouting from a boy's forehead represent his lust, but, wait), and use a lot of symbols and metaphors to clue you in.
(Unless you've seen FLCL, you'll be a little confused by this, and also spoiled on the plot, so read on with caution.)
Here are a few loosely-connected symbols and concepts which, in the impressionistic dream-logic of FLCL, explain what Naota's all about: his brother, Tasuku, who plays baseball; 'Tasukete', which means 'help me' or 'save me'; baseball bats; guitars; wanting to be an adult; adults who don't grow up; Mamimi, Tasuku's girlfriend; Naota's perverted dad; Haruko; and the Oedipus complex.
The first thing Naota says about Haruko is that she's "a stupid adult that's not mature enough to grow up". In episode three, he dismisses performing in a school play, because "school plays are for kids"; "You ARE a kid!", Ninamori retorts. Naota's dad is a grotesquely immature man-child who barely even attempts to take care of him. In episode 6, Naota's teacher visits the house and asks if his dad is worried that Naota's been abducted by their housekeeper. His dad doesn't care. But there was an older presence in his life that Naota looked up to to: his brother, Tasuku, who is gone now, leaving him all alone. Tasuku played baseball. Naota carries around a baseball bat and glove because he wants to be like his brother, but when push comes to shove, he won't swing it. Mamimi misses Tasuku, so she plays around unseriously with Naota, hugging and cuddling him; he knows she's using him as a substitute for his brother, and he resents it, but he has a crush on her, so it's painful but it still makes him a little happy.
Speaking of crushes, he has a major one on Haruko. Who does Haruko remind him of? When she swings the guitar into Canti in episode 1, he thinks to himself, shocked out of his affected adolescent detachment, that she looked like his brother - the only person he seems to respect and miss. What does Haruko do? She tries to make him swing the bat. Just carrying it around because it reminds him of Tasuku, wanting to be Tasuku, but being too afraid to swing the bat, is to be a child. Naota won't swing the bat. He's living in the amber haze of Mabase, trapped in childhood, desperately wanting to grow up, too scared of embarrassment and love and risk to do anything except sullenly tolerate Mamimi's caresses, run away from Ninamori's play, distance himself from Haruko, and refuse to swing the bat.
But Haruko said it. "Nothing can happen until you swing the bat."
Naota swings the bat - or at least, the guitar (which is rock and roll; it's even cooler than baseball; it's a penis; it's his self-worth; it's a whole bunch of things in one symbol) - and saves his town. In episode 2, he gets into trouble with the robots and says "Tasuk..." and you can't tell if he's saying "tasukete" ("save me") or calling for his brother. A symbol lights up Canti's face. It's a corrupted version of the Japanese symbol for - you guessed it, "Adult". But Tasuku's gone and Naota - just Takkun to Mamimi, who uses him as a substitute for his brother but treats him like a kid, and rejects him when he tries to ask her on a date - needs to be the adult himself.
So he grows up. "Never call me Takkun again. My name is Naota", he tells her (though only after being rejected makes the most explosive robot-penis yet come out of his head and turn into a city-destroying nightmare; because being rejected by your crush is the worst thing that can happen to you when you're a kid). Naota blatantly crushed on Haruko the whole time, but he'd just get embarrassed and mad about it when she teased him, or pretend not to care. When she turns up after going missing in episode 6, he cries for the first time, hugging her, asking where she went. Part of growing up is being honest with yourself.
Did I mention the Oedipus complex? Strictly speaking, Naota's mom isn't around (and he's even lonelier for it, poor kid), but the stand-in here is Haruko, who both Naota and his dad are obviously into. Naota resents it when Haruko gets close to his dad. Things come to a head in episode 5 when it looks like they're having sex at one point. His dad taunts Naota about it. Naota's holding a baseball bat - the symbol of Tasuku, adulthood, masculine power, and an extension of his dick (and its frustrated desires) all in one. What does he do? He smashes a TV (representing Canti, who has a TV for a head, gets kissed by Mamimi at one point - which Naota doesn't like - and is the portal for Atomsk, and thus Haruko's true goal the whole time), and a clock (representing time) flies off it and hits his dad in the head, killing him. So Naota kills his dad, the immature adult, with 1. a symbol of his penis and 2. a symbol of time over, 3. the girl they're sexually competing with each other for.
Is FLCL crass and sex-obsessed? Sure, but so are 14 year-old boys. It's not all that subtle about its symbolism and its networks of meaning - Tasuku/Tasukete is hilariously blatant - but it doesn't need to be. The anime may seem like it was written by throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, but it's a tight and coherent narrative of one kid growing up, expressed both through the haphazard and entertaining plot, and through the potent symbols that keep cropping up - baseball bats, guitars, adulthood, and young love.
And while a lot of it goes on inside Naota's head, it's by no means solipsistic. Mamimi and Ninamori each get a whole episode full of their own symbolic (and literal) narratives, which colour them in and make them equally interesting characters. We find out that Mamimi is alone, bullied, and uncared-for even as we also find out she might be an arsonist, but it's all because she misses the one person she really cared about - Tasuku - who saved her from their burning elementary school. The sequence in which Naota realises this in a furious connecting-the-dots cascade is FLCL at its best - it might be a whole minute of nothing but furiously flashing images and symbols, connecting Mamimi's lighter and cigarettes to her Firestarter video game, to the arson, to the burned elementary school, to Tasuku, to Canti, to Cantido-sama, and back.
Mamimi is very weird because she's very lonely, and avenging herself upon the town that doesn't give a shit about her using her new robot dog to eat everyone's cars isn't very satisfying even before it turns into a giant monster. Note that she calls her new pet Naota, replacing the old Takkun, whom she always treated like a pet in the first place. Mamimi's development is about making peace with Naota, not treating people selfishly because you want something from them, and embracing her own talents - as a photographer.
Ninamori doesn't get quite as neat an arc, but her little story of adolescent embarrassment and anger at her cheating dad and fear of a divorce, as well as her resentment of the secretary her dad has been cheating with, combine poignantly with her need to perform the story of the Marquis of Carabas so her parents can come watch and be happy. Revealingly, it's a story about a lie that becomes the truth - a cat, Puss in Boots, makes its owner into a nobleman by successfully pretending to be one before they switch places. And she wants Naota to play the cat; she wants him to be the one to save her.
Eventually, it works out for Ninamori's family situation. and she gets a moment in the sixth episode which beautifully illustrates FLCL's ability to depict complex, contradictory emotions. She finds Haruko and Naota asleep, together, on a bench in the street, covered by a sleeping bag and some cardboard. The older women who command Naota's affection have always inspired Ninamori's resentment, but here, she's no longer really angry or jealous. Her face reflects a complicated mixture of pity and disappointment, before she walks away, letting them be at peace.
Haruko's development is of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature, because we don't really understand her. Her enigmatic nature, by turns teasingly flirtatious and menacingly scary, is how a boy like Naota might see an intimidating older woman, only dialed up to 11 like everything else in FLCL. But it comes out like this: although she seems to have a certain fondness for Naota, everything Haruko does for him - mainly forcing him to grow up by making him swing the bat - is for her own selfish purposes, to develop his N.O. channel till it can summon Atomsk, whose power she wants to steal.
When Naota climbs out of Canti, claiming the power of Atomsk for himself and asserting his own individuality as a young man, she reveals the ferocious greed that's always been hidden by her whimsical facade, and attacks him - he could kill her, but he doesn't. He kisses her, and admits he's in love with her. And while it doesn't work out, and she does leave, she finally acknowledges that he's not just someone she can exploit and hurt for her own ends and drag around throughout space. He's still a kid. There's a fondness to her final farewell which suggests Naota managed to melt her cold heart a little.
That's FLCL; a phantasmagorical lightshow of fighting giant robots and ridiculous sexual innuendo hiding complex characterisation, strong development, some of the most credit-worthy use of "show, don't tell" as a narrative strategy, and a weirdly wonderful evocation of childhood. It's an anime that uses the near-infinite flexibility of the medium as it should be used, to tell a story in a way that nothing but an anime could.
