Maybe the best music video from a band with a lot of great videos imo.
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Heās been working on that in bits and pieces for several years. Konami should throw a bunch of money at him so he could do it full time and maybe actually release something.
Incredibly cool regardless. Those bits and pieces would go great as part of a new 2D Metal Gear game.
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Finished Nadia, really loved it. Grandis, Sanson and Hanson often fight their way into the main character slots and itās quite welcome every time, theyāre a hoot and itās great learning more about them.
As we got past the halfway point, we were big fans of the surreal undersea civilizations and hidden ruins they explore:
All which grind to a halt just as it really starts taking off, with the crew becoming stranded on an island on episode 24 and not getting back to anything until ep 34.
Iām glad we read up on the show as we were watching it, because that well prepared us for the fact that the NHK asked for more episodes than theyād planned, resulting in these 10 episodes of excruciating, zero-budget filler right before the final five eps of the series. It is truly mind-boggling the nonsense they burn through on the Island Arc:
When it gets back to the good stuff, it escalates to a pretty wild degree, which I guess is par for the course with an Anno series.
In reading up on the filler I saw that Evangelion was originally written, fully, as a sequel series to Nadia, which makes a whoooooooole lot of shit in Eva suddenly make complete sense. Iām a little surprised itās not in the conversation more when theorizing this or that about Eva, when all the answers for unexplained backstory elements are here at the end of Nadia.
Anyways, the direction it takes is entertaining and cool and all, but I probably wouldnāt have gone this outlandish with it and kept the underwater Captain Nemo adventure aspect. As it is, itās a cool story but itās not reeeeeally all that related to what happens through the majority of the series. This is something Iāve seen in countless anime, where they escalate and expand the scope way too much, losing sight of the original concept. You get the sense Anno wanted to make a space opera rather than the concept he was given. Thankfully, we utimately got three or four good takes on Miyazakiās concept, so, whatever, glad to have this one be its own thing.
Weāre going to skip the movie, because we heard it was just embarrassing. This had a satisfying enough ending that weāre happy to leave it here.
(EDIT: holy fuck just saw the time skip, absolutely insane (bad) decisions being made here, gonna just forget that last bit happened)
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Finally sitting down to catch up on Gorillaz and serendipitously we just watched The Jungle Book last night. Good shit!
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Only now getting around to watching FLCL. I enjoyed the first ep then got really tired of the second.
The abstract way it tells the story is kinda interesting but also really obscures anything to be interested in. Also this show is just noisy af. Constant rock music in the background with multiple characters talking over one another. I can just about follow along but I find thereās not much of a hook other than waiting to see the next really impressive piece of animation. Feels like the reason itās fondly remembered is formal animation excellence but also magical pixie gf stuff? Not sure Iāll continue
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i watched FLCL once and donāt remember it much. spoiled by watching PSG and Dead Leaves first i think.
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i loved flcl as a teen, but i can totally see how it might seem like a kind of tame dry run prototype to stuff that came later like psg, dead leaves, klk, and so on if you saw any of those first. iāve had a bluray of it for a few years, still in shrink wrap, come to think of it.
the manga was the first i ever saw to do the beautiful ādetailed scribblesā style that must have been an influence on tsukumizuās art.
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FLCL hit like an atom bomb if you were watching it on Adult Swim in 2003. Iād chalk it up to:
- In the US at that time anime was harder to get a hold of, so anything new was exciting on that basic level.
- This was a particularly strange one, and it wasnāt being over-localized. It was the kind of thing that normally didnāt get brought over.
- Really good music, largely introduced The Pillows to the US.
- Cool and interesting animation.
- Iconic character designs.
- Intense high school / teen nostalgia vibes.
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FLCL was so good it inspired FOUR sequels which is not all that common for an anime.
It is good music!
have probably mentioned this before, but the first time I saw FLCL was in the middle of the night at a friendās house the night before Matrix Reloaded opened in 2003 with fansubs. 2 of the 6 episodes didnāt have audio tracks at all. it blew my mind way open.
itās so restless and energetic and funny. thereās so much incredible, iconic imagery in it. the pillows soundtrack is gorgeous and evocative.
god bless tsurumaki, but everything heās directed since this has, iām afraid, always felt a little bit like trying to get back here.
before FLCL, Iād thought animation was a neat medium for storytelling with pictures. after FLCL, I came to love animation
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I canāt bring myself to watch any of the FLCL sequel stuff Iām deeply suspicious of it for some reason
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i made it like 2 or 3 episodes into one of the sequel series and it honestly felt so bland and uninspired, i havenāt felt compelled to watch anymore. i fell asleep during the last episode i watched.
i didnāt even realize they made 2 more seasons a few years ago
the story per se of FLCL wasnāt what was compelling about it, and it looks like the sequels just follow Haruko around as she invades other kidsā lives in pursuit of atomsk? that seems really thin. and my memory of what I saw says itās just not a compelling enough hook on its own.
idk, man, part of the joy of FLCL is that it was this audacious labor of love that nearly bankrupted Gainax (as all good Gainax projects did) as it suffered horrible delays in pursuit of its vision. a labor of love that, post-evangelion, was gainaxās big statement of where it could go and what it could do. FLCL was tsurumakiās first project as lead director, and he was in his mid-30s, supported by brilliant scrappy animators like imaishi who was in his 20s. it feels young and hungry and too ambitious for its own good.
four 16-to-23-years-later sequel series that comfortably fit cartoon networkās budget and production schedules, overseen by competent animation veterans in their 50s, just doesnāt seem like it could feel like FLCL (and again, what I saw didnāt feel like FLCL, even with the pillows on the soundtrack and Sadamoto character designs)
maybe someone can make the case to me that theyāre good and worthwhile and Iāll give them another shot. but
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the best i can give what i saw of the flcl sequels was that one series main girl having a psychosexual nightmare where everyone was zombies and they ate her alive but thatās just something relateable out of context of the rest of the series and iām not even sure it was intended to be relateable in the way that it was
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i still tear up at the episode where the i think i can song plays and they hit the baseball. but yea its mostly just me going LOOK AT ALL THESE DIFFERENT STYLES OF ANIMATION PACKED INTO SOMETHIGN THAT ENDS QUICKLY. i will have so much more mercy for cartoons that end quickly
havent cared enough to watch the sequels tho
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I didnāt watch much of the sequels, but what I did see felt like a mediocre FLCL cover band. The fate of so many decades-later revivalsā¦
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yeah i just dont care when people are going for a moment in time 20 years after the moment has passed and the original artists have definitely moved on from the ideas and emotions that made the copied thing in the first place
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can definitely understand being underwhelmed by FLCL- especially at this late date- but comparing it unfavorably to Panty & Stocking- let alone Kill la Kill- is justā¦ EUGH.gif
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I watched fansubs of flcl in 2002 and the music was especially pivotal to my enjoyment
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