#fooley cooley

The show's funny, the music is great, story's confusing nonsense, and the animation is, to this day, still the best of the best. Richly kinetic movement, lots of fun fiddling with perspective. Oh the many shows that could've benefited from such a caliber.

I used to stay up late and watch MXC until it came on (to the point where MXC and FLCL have a strange association between them). It was lots of fun, but given the out-of-order reruns Adult Swim did, it was a LONG time before I was able to actually see its entirety.

I won't lie, this is not the place where I do my lying, I cannot deny it: Haruko was my big fictional crush.

Look, I dunno man. She was cool and funny, I watched the show purely for her awful antics. Yes, the technical/animation/music side of the show was what really elevated it.. but man. It was bad. Not even sexual, I just thought she was the best.

Which is a shame, going back to watch the series nowadays.

Because she is basically a sexual predator.

Yes, it's a ruse to provoke the main character into having emotional outbursts to manifest the Space Pirate King so she can eat him and gain his strength (I guess, from what I gathered, I don't fuckin know), but looking back on the show with fresh eyes, she is a real creeper. Everything she does is a devious ploy to provoke this kid. It is also implied he is not her first victim.

It's a relentlessly confusing coming-of-age story that makes very little sense, and I certainly couldn't work it out at the time, but I wasn't paying much attention. I was enjoying this maniac with whom I was smitten.

I can't really watch FLCL now (certainly haven't seen the sequels) because I was watching it in conjunction with several very traumatic life events. Educational disabilities manifesting, depression and anxiety too, parental separation. It brings up tough memories of what was going on at that time.

Fictional crushes pass, as they always do, but did FLCL implant my lifelong enjoyment of sadistic maniac women? Almost certainly.

FLCL Progressive:

FLCL Alternative: