Naota's life is incredibly dull, even for a twelve year old boy. He hangs around, in a town where nothing much happens, with Mamimi, his brother's seventeen year old girlfriend. Since his brother left for America, to play baseball, Mamimi has inappropriately diverted her attentions to Naota. Life is dull until one day he is run over by Haruhara Haruko, a guitar wielding, vesper driving slice of insanity, at which point Naota’s life takes a walk on the wild side...

FLCL or Fooly Cooly (2000) is a short six episode show. Written by Yoji Enokida and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, the show pretty much defies description.

The opening sequence is pretty much straight forward with Naota and Mamimi under a bridge. The animation has a very filmic feel to it and looks like a quality product. All this changes with the arrival of Haruko, at which point you get the feeling that the creators dropped some acid and decided to record what they saw.

I’m pretty sure that there is a plot in there somewhere, in what must be the most out there anime I have ever seen.  It’s funny, manic, the epitome of crazy combining as it does: aliens, adolescent romance, philosophy, poetry, robot fights, comedy and a rather large phallic looking lump on Naota’s forehead, which turns into a robot.

Loosely speaking the first episode sees Haruko moving in with Naota’s family as house keeper, Mamimi overflow. Don’t ask, I have no idea what it means either. Oh, and Naota’s head explodes. Episode two continues to intrigue without actually explaining anything. Haruko continues to invade Naota’s life, whilst he grows another horn, must be his age, and tries to deal with the robot that now lives at his house.

The show is presented in its original 4:3 format and on the down side the disc only contains two of the six episodes, with either an English or Japanese audio track. On the plus side the show has a director’s commentary (with English subtitles), as well as a music video by The Pillows, character sketches, a Japanese promo (2 min 46 sec) for a flavour of the show. Japanese closing credit are included as is cast profiles and trailers for other shows.

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Charles Packer