Rewatched parts of FLCL recently. FLCL is a 6 episode OVA and it's really really offbeat. The first time you watch it you'll just go "huh" and be totally confused but it's really just... layered thick with symbolism and recurring themes. There's the whole theme with talking about swinging the bat and playing the guitar which quite clearly points towards, uhm, having sex. Really, the whole show is about Naota's sexual awakening. There's the whole recurring theme about Naota rejecting sour drinks, spicy food : supposedly "grown up" foods according to Mamimi, as he's rejecting and repressing his inevitable sexual maturity.
Ok. EVEN if you never got any of this veiled referenced dialogue the first time round, like me, FLCL was an incredibly enjoyable show taken at face value. I really liked the emotive content in Naota's relationship with Mamimi and Haruko. The music tracks are awesome rocking Jpop beats, and the action scenes are really good. I guess that even if you never got any of the references and allegory, enough of the emotive content seeps through the story to give to a hint as to what's going on.
The first scene was amazing. (which is the screenshot I put up here). Mamimi is molesting Naota, haha. The dynamics of Naota's relationships are intriguing : Mamimi wants a toy, a replacement for her previous love (Naota's older brother, who's left for overseas) : and when Naota takes steps to make the relationship more equal, she pulls back. Haruko seems bent on teaching "things" to Naota, which he initially rejects, but slowly develops very real feelings towards her towards the end.
Much of this is accomplished through side on language and play with guitars and baseball bats. In fact I think FLCL has my favourite dialogue of any show I've ever seen before : favourite scene is when Haruko returns after a short disappearance and asks if Naota is willing to throw everything away and come with her : he's obviously not ready, and he breaks down sobbing and buries his head in her chest, and goes, "where did you go? you didn't even say anything". And how she responds : she's always been trying (metaphorically) to get him to sleep with her, but here she just responds with tenderness and comfort, which is exactly right I feel. And in the foreground you see their two guitars lying on the floor, crossed over each other.
Ahaha, now it all makes sense, that scene where Haruko is teaching Naota how to swing a bat. And why Haruko is so good at baseball =p
Ok enough raving : go watch this if you can =p Or, if you were blur like me, rewatch it.
2 comments:
OMG. FLCL is the single most fucking amazing thing I've ever seen to grace television.
It's perfect. It's just so absolutely perfect. The ending broke my heart, really.
And yes, I 'got' it the first time I saw it :P. I didn't get all the references, but that wasn't important. When Haruko revealed that she wasn't all that interested in Naota after all, I could feel my heart breaking with Naota's.
It was really fascinating to read the interview with the guy who directed the show...forgot his name. F something. Also helped Anno out in Evangelion. Everything he said out of FLCL, I had already guessed. In a way, it's just so beautiful, seeing someone whose mental wavelengths are running along the same lines with yours, especially when you feel so out-of-place among people, that you perceive the world so differently from others; and here is someone who sees the world the way you do, with just about the same sense of humour, almost.
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CatR
Ok....i didn't get it the 1s time round despite knowing it had sexual innuendos everywhere and when things grew out of his head, he was "actually" having an errection and then ejaculating. :P
Time for rewatch.
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