For Naota 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 Naota's brother has left for America to play baseball, his girlfriend 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 this point Naota’s life take a walk on the wild side, when he discovers that she is an alien. Worse still, she has moved in with his family...

FLCL or Fooly Cooly (2000) is a short (six episode) show. Written by Yoji Enokida and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki. The show remains a quality product that strives hard to defy description and for the most part succeeds.

Episode three, Marquis de Carabas, and with an alien in the family Naota strives desperately to lead a normal life. Seems like the school is putting on Puss ‘n Boots and poor old Naota has to play the cat. Unfortunately he appear to have sprouted real cat's ears. Nonamori, the class president, is having problems of her own as her father, the Mayor, is involved in a scandal and looks to be leaving her mother.

Episode four, Full Swing, and even though his brother has gone to play in the big leagues Naota fails miserably to match up to his brother's talent. However the local team is in trouble and the aliens have finally arrived, so whose team will Naota finally bat for?

The disc does have some extras in the form of a Poster Art Gallery, and an Australian Trailer, Japanese Closing Sequence, Cast Profiles and trailers of other shows. The show is presented in it original 4:3 aspect ratio, with vibrant colours that your TV will love. On the audio front you get English with signs or a Japanese track with subtitles. There is an excellent bonus in the form of a commentary track, by the director, with subtitles.

What I will take issue with is the paltry number of episodes. Come on. Two half-hour episodes for the best part of sixteen quid?! And they wonder why people download stuff. There was no reason, even with all the supposed extras, that the entire series could not have fitted onto a single disc. Issued like this it makes an excellent show feel like a rip off. If you have a multi-regional machine, I’d get this on import as it’s about twelve dollars, six quid to you sir.

However, this show is so incredibly good that anime fans would be crazy not to buy it. My final mark reflects the high quality of the show - and not the poor presentation.

8

Charles Packer