Reviews

FLCL is one of those works that causes a real dichotomy: people either hate it or love it, rarely staying in between. I am glad to say I stand with the latter: this is truly a masterpiece, and the ones that calls it "overrated" or "pretentious" or just "bad" are apparently more angry with the hype and the "complex" reputation it received (when it is even not all that complex) and the said pretentiousness of people that like it. And of course, they just don't know what those words mean, they use it as a means to classify anything that they don't like rather than to REAL overrated and pretentious works.

FLCL is not pretentious, because it is not pretending to be anything. I understand that the sheer randomness of the show might not tingle with everyone, but if that nature itself was a problem, Nichijou wouldn't be so loved. And if everything you use in your criticism is subjective, a matter of taste, you are definitely the kind of person not worth being listened to.

Now let's get that out of the way: FLCL is not pretentious, because it suceeds at what it aspires to do: random hilarity mixed with a story told rather by allusions than a direct approach to it, and if someone doesn't like that kind of work, most times the problem lies more with the critic than the work itself. It's like taking one of those "profesional comic book movies critic" to criticize an Ingmar Bergman movie, or closer to our medium, people that go into Nijigahara Holograph expecting it to be Solanin or Punpun. You can't blame the work for being one thing if you dive into it expecting it to be literally the opposite of that.

And since it suceeds at what it tries to be, it can't be "overrated", for people like it precisely because it does what it does right, whereas its critics comes from the principle that they didn't like the essence of what it did in the first place. I am not saying you can't like it. But you gotta use your words right. Knowing the difference between something that is bad and something that your sole opinion of it is bad is a key to growing up and developing an accurate palate for all artform. I don't like Mass Effect 2, for example, but the fact that I am alone, stranded on an island surrounded by a sea of people giving it praise might mean that the problem lies with me.

About the anime, there's nothing much that can be said about it at this year and age. I enjoyed it as something random, and reading about it for 5 minutes before diving into it was enough for me to get all of its symbols and enjoy the show in a deeper level. I recomend doing that, I rather understand people that don't like it because they didn't read anything about the plot before (I probrably wouldn't like it that much if I hadn't), but it's a rather simple one to grasp.