Before I get into criticism, I would like to mention what I liked about the show: The audiovisual component, in my opinion, was well-made. The visuals were quite soulful and atmospheric, as was the soundtrack by the Pillows. Overall, the series did have the most important thing I look for in a show: atmosphere. That was the one good thing I took away from watching FLCL. Perhaps this was due to the director and his team really having fun and doing exactly what they wanted to do with their work. In any case, I felt it and I applaud it. Also, hats off to Haruko's seiyuu, Mayumi Shintani for her performance: that was some of the best seiyuu work I have ever heard. Not the absolute best, but extremely professional stuff. Her voice and the Pillows soundtrack are probably the most memorable things from FLCL to me personally.
Now for the bad.
My first problem with FLCL is that for a show that puts so much emphasis on its megadoses of surrealist comedy, it completely failed to entertain me. I remember chuckling maybe once or twice for the duration of the whole series. It's not that I don't appreciate absurdist slapstick humor: never have I laughed harder while watching anime than when I watched Nichijou, for example. Maybe the bar for comedy in anime has been raised somewhat since 2003; I haven't seen enough shows to say for sure. Nevertheless, I saw pretty much all the show's comedic sequences fall completely flat, and since those make up 80% of the viewing experience, I was thoroughly uninspired 80% of the time. The protagonist getting run over by Haruko's bike wasn't particularly funny, and it happened several times after that with little variation in context and presentation. I must admit the first encounter with Haruko on the bridge in the first episode was rather promising, and there were some moments in the dialogue that were almost witty. Haruko's guitar beatings were also not funny, even though they make up a sizable portion of the comedy. The problem is not just that they weren't funny, but also that all those scenes were pretty much exactly the same. There was no nuance to keep the idea fresh for the duration of even such a short series. I would like to contrast this with another comedy series also based on the protagonist receiving beatings from a girl: Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-Chan. It's also a relatively short 5 or 6-episode comedy series about an angel that constantly beats the protagonist with her club. Even though those beatings happen much more often in that series than Haruko's guitar beatings in FLCL, I found them much funnier and less stale, because there was generally more build-up and variation to them.
The rest of the slapstick comedy in FLCL was executed in a similar vein: no situational nuance, just physical violence accompanied by loud shouting, and the occasional simplistic anime "comedy faces" (white circles for eyes and white triangle for mouth agape. Even though every anime does this to some extent, I have seldom seen a series abuse this as much as FLCL) I didn't find the guy with seaweed for eyebrows funny either, nor did I see any comedic value in those eyebrows falling off. Etc. Etc. I didn't find any of it clever or subtle enough to be witty, nor did I find it crazy or innovative enough to be overwhelmingly stimulating.
As for funny dialogue, the funniest thing I saw was the aforementioned scene on the bridge with Haruko, where there were a few interesting twists in conversation, but that was the zenith of the whole thing. The rest was Naota's grandfather and father repeating "furi kuri, furi kura, kuri kuri, kuri kura" for no reason for a full minute for some cringy sexual innuendo, or things of a similar caliber. Again, there was no context to set this up or make it funny, it's just given as is, because the maxim of this show's comedy seems to "lol it's random so let's add it in". In terms of random humor I actually find internet flash animations of the early 2000s such as Arfenhouse and the Demented Cartoon Movie to be both funnier and more random. In fact, a lot of FLCL's craziest moments are rather tame in comparison to a lot of more recent works, like Kill la Kill or the aforementioned Nichijou. Perhaps all those were inspired specifically by FLCL, I don't know, but even if that's the case and FLCL deserves to be paid homage to in a purely historic sense, that still means that it's been made obsolete by its spiritual successors, at least comedy-wise.
There was also a lot of referential stuff, like that South Park scene, but again, there was no build-up or context to make them relevant or fitting to that particular moment, so I didn't find it funny so much as I found it just interesting and cool.
Now for the plot. Granted, I didn't understand the plot the first time-round. My understanding comes from other people's explanations and my second viewing of the show. This time I was able to follow the sub-plots rather clearly, but they're all quite simple premises, so I'll move on to the characters and organisations. The Space Patrol agency or whatever is introduced out of the blue in the middle of the series, along with the seaweed guy who works for it, but there doesn't seem to be any proper interpretation of what this agency is supposed to represent. Medical Mechanica is supposed to be Freudian superego, as I understand it.
Haruko's role in this agency is also nigh unexplored and unexplained; the significance of her being in this agency is also totally unclear. Her relationship with seaweed eyebrows is shown as somewhat significant for the contrast between him and Naota, but again, the details of their shared history are not clear enough for me to be invested in this, or take any lessons away. I guess she was the only character with firmly defined and consistent motives: to find Atomsk and get his power, although the reasons for her wanting this power are also unclear, since she seems more than powerful enough on her own.
We should suppose that Naota's father and grandfather, his immediate family, would hold a key to understanding how Naota came to be the person he is, but here we draw a blank as well, because they are reduced to 1-D clowns for more comedic effect, and all we can do is speculate about his upbringing, which once again conveys no tangible message.
The specifics and causes of Mamimi's arson and her psychological problems are also unexplored, even though this is an incredibly important issue in the context of the show's alleged deeper messages. Mamimi was actually my favorite character of the show, because she actually had (gasp) a multi-dimensional personality and was very promising, but the show did next to nothing to develop her or explain her motivations for anything she does, other than the fact that she likes hanging around Naota as a substitute for his brother.
Eri's character development was promising at first, but was cut short extremely curtly. It started well enough with her family issues and her defense mechanisms in response to that, but ends rather abruptly when Naota exposes her cheating in front of the class, after which some curry and a whack from the guitar sets everything straight. It wasn't enough to make me think or to make me care about her. Her feelings for Naota are understandable, I guess, in the sense that she senses a kindred spirit in him, but beyond this primitive assumption there were no moments to anchor this idea. She doesn't react realistically to Haruko being in the room after she confesses her embarrassing actions and motivations to Naota, which makes her character not believable.
As for the robot, the director himself admitted that the robot has nothing to do with anything, so there you have it. And finally, with regards to Naota himself, I don't believe this was a coming-of-age story for him at all, as I've often seen mentioned, but that's an argument for another time.
For a show that is supposed to contain many important themes, the plot does next to nothing to explore, portray or develop them. In fact, certain narrative choices merely confuse the whole system of inchoate symbolic associations: If the objects that come out of one's head are supposed to be a phallic symbols representing newly emerging sexual and emotional urges, then why does Eri produce a robot out of her head? Surely horns, guitars and robots are male (phallic) symbols? And if they're not just male, then why does Mamimi never shoot them out when she "overflows" and merely falls unconscious? Is it because "overflowing" in Mamimi is something different to Naota and Eri's experiences because she's older? And if only Haruko can awaken a space portal inside one's head with her guitar, then how come Eri never receives a blow from it and yet is able to summon monsters? As for defeating her monster with curry, that's also nonsensical. If curry is supposed to represent an outgoing personality or whatever, then what does that mean? That hanging around outgoing and energetic people cures her emotional issues?
Fans defend all of this by saying the show was too short to explore all these characters and plot points in more detail, but that doesn't really excuse all these things from sucking.
There's supposed to be a lot of symbolism in this anime, but it's all either quite hamfisted like guitars symbolising dicks, or they're all the director's personal associations. The point of using symbolism is that there's supposed to be a reason for choosing a certain symbol to represent a certain idea, something that makes the symbol particularly powerful and fitting within the context of the narrative. What irreplaceable role does curry play in the narrative? What role does soda play in the narrative? Why choose those items to represent maturity instead of others? Sweet soda is supposed to represent immaturity and childhood and sour soda is supposed to represent adulthood, but frankly soda in general is a child's drink. I don't remember preferring sweet candy to sour candy as a child.
Some symbols don't really make sense to me, whereas others the show didn't make me care for, for example the baseball symbolism. We see Naota carrying his brother's bat around, and yet being unable to swing it. I was told that this shows that he admires his brother for being an adult, yet is unable to act or take responsibility like one. But the show doesn't do anything to make me care for this fact. We don't see Naota's attachment or love for his brother expressed in any emotional scenes, we don't see his attitude or feelings towards his brother affect any major decisions. His decision to swing the bat was encouraged by Haruko, not his brother. It's just an idea that's there and is left to rest on the narrative like a dead manta ray. The same goes for other symbols: Canti, the robot, and how it symbolises a protector figure to Mamimi, is another. There was no set-up to this relationship, nor is the robot a satisfying representation of Naota's brother, because we have no idea what his brother is like. People also say that an airplane flying overhead represents Naota's brother, but I counted only two instances of a plane flying overhead, and his brother was mentioned only during one of those sequences, so I don't see why I should care. There's also the iron representing the crushing, flattening influence of society on personal creativity, but we never see the iron in action to anchor this visual metaphor: all we have is a comment by Seaweed Eyebrow's partner who supposes that is the case, which is a wasted opportunity, and quite frankly, lazy exposition.
There is nothing in the show's narrative or cinematography that would make me care or empathise with any of the characters or develop any particular attitude to the symbols that are supposed to be important and meaningful to them. All the screen-time that should have been dedicated to this was spent on animated still manga panels of Haruko eating ramen and other such trite.
There are more examples of symbolism and narrative not making sense and lacking any emotional weight, but I think those are enough to illustrate the problem. Apologists and fans of the show defend this by saying that it's a surrealist anime and it's not supposed to make logical sense, but the problem is that it has nothing to offer other than its deeper layer of symbolism. I can forgive the plot making no logical sense (even though it's presented clearly enough and in enough detail to warrant consistency), but that's supposed to be a sacrifice for the sake of bringing symbolism to the fore and making it shine. And yet the symbolism is also messed up and has neither weight nor consistency. The surrealism was supposed to remove the constraints of reality from the narrative in order to explore the themes with more visual clarity and flair, but instead it turns it into a train wreck.
So you see the paradox that emerges here: fans of the show say that if you don't like the show, then you just don't understand the deeper layers of the show, and yet when you try to analyse the deeper layers of the show and they don't make sense, they tell you it's not supposed to make sense because it's surrealist comedy and they tell you to just enjoy it as it is.
To me, all these aforementioned problems stem from the fact that the creators tried to make it too many things at once. I've read that FLCL was made to showcase Gainax's new animation technology, so they wanted to add lots of dynamic visuals. FLCL was also made after Evangelion, which was also a show intended as a profound message, so they wanted to add some of that too. But they also wanted something funny. The director also wanted to add a whole bunch of stuff he personally liked, but has no relevance to anything else. They also wanted to make it short. Like that song by Lenka in Microsoft's Windows 8 ad, except the problem is it's very difficult to have "Everything at once" crammed into 6 episodes. If they wanted to convey a message about growing up, they should have made it longer, dropped the useless comedy and told the director to cull his quirky caprices. Perhaps they would have created something like Lain, but more melodramatic. If they wanted a comedy, they should have used stuff that was.. more funny, I guess. If they wanted surrealism, they should have either dropped the comedy, or the pretense of deeper meaning. In any case, a lot of things just didn't work for me here. During my first viewing, I was confused and kind of bored. During my second viewing, I was just bored.
Overall, FLCL left me quite disappointed, especially because of all the praise I read about it. My impression of the show leaves me to quote Naota's famous line: "Nothing amazing ever happens here; everything is ordinary". Well, Naota, I'm inclined to agree. I didn't think anything that happened in FLCL was that amazing, and in terms of an overall appraisal I would rank it as quite ordinary indeed.
The plot of FLCL and its deeper themes are quite famously elusive and require multiple viewings to grasp. What does this say about people who claim to like FLCL for its plot and themes? It says that those are all people who rewatched FLCL multiple times after their first viewing, presumably by choice. And what does that say? That means that people who watched FLCL multiple times thoroughly enjoyed their first viewing of FLCL. In other words, these are all people who enjoyed the surface elements that make up 80% of it: the dumb humour and the lolsorandom visual craziness. My conclusion is that people who are impressed by the deeper elements of FLCL are people who were also impressed by the surface elements.
Basically, if you didn't find it funny the first time, you probably won't find it deep or complex the tenth.
