FLCL

FLCL

フリクリ
2000 -2001 Gainax / Production I.G OVA 6 episodes Completed
Action Comedy Sci-Fi Coming-of-Age
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Details & Synopsis
Naota Nandaba is twelve, bored, and trying very hard to act older than he is. Then Haruko Haruhara runs him over with a Vespa, hits him with a blue Rickenbacker bass, moves into his house, and starts treating the portal in his forehead like a normal workplace inconvenience.

FLCL was six OVA episodes released from 2000 to 2001 by Gainax and Production I.G. Six episodes was enough. It is a coming-of-age story buried inside a music video buried inside an animation staff showing off, and every attempt to explain it cleanly makes it sound less precise than it actually is. The robots, the guitars, the manga-panel sequence, the eyebrows, Medical Mechanica, all of it is attached to the same basic problem: being twelve feels enormous while every adult around you acts like it is temporary.

The Pillows soundtrack is inseparable from the show. Adult Swim understood that and aired it repeatedly, which let a six-episode OVA become a generational object for people who found it at one in the morning and had no idea what they had just seen. Then they watched it again. That was usually the correct response.

Later sequels exist. The original still ends exactly where it should.
Alt Title フリクリ
Studio Gainax / Production I.G
Network OVA
Aired 2000 - 2001
Episodes 6
Genre Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Coming-of-Age
Status Completed
Search Go to ep Filters
Arc List (1)
Fooly Cooly (6)
Fooly Cooly 6 eps 6 canon 📷 6
001 Fooly Cooly Aired Apr 26, 2000 canon 📷 119 ►
Naota Nandaba is twelve, bored with Mabase, and trying very hard to act more grown-up than he feels, especially around Mamimi, his older brother's lonely ex-girlfriend. Then Haruko Haruhara runs him over with a Vespa, revives him, and cracks him across the head with a bass guitar, opening an impossible passage inside his skull. When two robots burst out of Naota's forehead and tear through town, Haruko destroys one and leaves the other, Canti, behind as the first permanent piece of chaos in Naota's suddenly very unordinary life.
Lore · 13 Debut: Episode 1 - Fooly Cooly
+12
Haruko's True Goal Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Medical Mechanica & The Iron Atomsk & Medical Mechanica What Does N.O. Actually Do? N.O. Channel Mechanics Naota's N.O. Channel N.O. Channel Mechanics Why Haruko Hits Naota with the Bass N.O. Channel Mechanics Haruko's Rickenbacker 4001 Guitar & Ordnance The Forehead Growths Recurring Images & Ideas Bitter Drinks, Spicy Food & Acting Grown-Up Recurring Images & Ideas Mamimi and the Name "Takkun" Recurring Images & Ideas Naota, Mamimi & Tasuku Growing Up in Mabase Naota & Haruko Growing Up in Mabase Mamimi and the Takkuns Growing Up in Mabase
View all 119 screencaps from this episode →
002 Fire Starter Aired Jun 21, 2000 canon 📷 125 ►
Haruko moves into the Nandaba house as a live-in maid while Canti quietly settles in with the family, but Naota is more worried about Mamimi and the strange fires breaking out around Mabase. Mamimi becomes attached to Canti and calls him the god from her handheld game, tying him to the same 'Fire Starter' fantasy she used to escape into after her old school burned down. Another Medical Mechanica robot pushes through Naota's N.O. channel, and Canti swallows Naota before transforming into a red, Atomsk-marked fighter powerful enough to destroy it.
Lore · 2 Debut: Episode 2 - Fire Starter
+1
Canti's Flying V Guitar & Ordnance
View all 125 screencaps from this episode →
003 Marquis de Carabas Aired Aug 23, 2000 canon 📷 158 ►
Class president Eri Ninamori is trying to keep her composure while her father's political scandal and collapsing marriage become public gossip, even as her class prepares a performance of Puss in Boots. She and Naota end up sharing the same problem in different forms: both are hiding things they desperately do not want anyone else to see, including the cat ears growing from Naota's head. Ninamori's bottled-up anger finally opens an N.O. channel of her own, producing another Medical Mechanica machine and forcing her to stop pretending that none of what is happening at home affects her.
Lore · 4 Debut: Episode 3 - Marquis de Carabas
+3
Ninamori and the Transferred Growth N.O. Channel Mechanics Ninamori and Performing Maturity Growing Up in Mabase The Forehead Growths Recurring Images & Ideas
View all 158 screencaps from this episode →
004 Full Swing Aired Oct 25, 2000 canon 📷 156 ►
Naota refuses to swing his brother Tasuku's baseball bat, clinging to the idea that not trying is safer than failing while Haruko casually takes over the role his absent brother once filled on the local field and in Mamimi's memories. His jealousy gets worse when he catches Haruko with his father, but there is no time to sulk when Medical Mechanica sends a satellite-sized bomb falling toward Mabase. With the whole town depending on him, Naota finally swings, channels the same impossible power that flows through Canti, and knocks the threat back into the sky instead of watching someone else step up for him.
Lore · 3 Debut: Episode 4 - Full Swing
+2
Haruko Tests Kamon N.O. Channel Mechanics Debut: Naota Finally Swings Growing Up in Mabase
View all 156 screencaps from this episode →
005 Brittle Bullet Aired Dec 21, 2000 canon 📷 142 ►
Naota comes away from saving Mabase with a dangerous new confidence, just as Commander Amarao and Kitsurubami arrive to explain that Haruko is not the harmless space cop she claims to be and that Medical Mechanica is beginning to move. His relationship with Mamimi finally cracks when Naota realizes she has been using him as a replacement for Tasuku, while Mamimi transfers the name Takkun to a strange new creature she finds near the Medical Mechanica plant. When another enormous robot attacks, Haruko and Canti turn Mabase into a battlefield, and Naota is forced to see that all the power around him has never made any of the adults telling him what to do especially trustworthy.
Lore · 7 Debut: Episode 5 - Brittle Bullet
+6
Atomsk's Bass Guitar Atomsk & Medical Mechanica The Crimson Gibson EB-0 Guitar & Ordnance Amarao's Eyebrows Recurring Images & Ideas Mamimi and the Name "Takkun" Recurring Images & Ideas Naota, Mamimi & Tasuku Growing Up in Mabase Mamimi and the Takkuns Growing Up in Mabase
View all 142 screencaps from this episode →
006 FLCLimax Aired Mar 16, 2001 canon 📷 143 ►
Mamimi's new 'Takkun' reveals itself as Medical Mechanica's terminal core and grows into the hand meant to activate the giant iron over Mabase, literally flattening the city into the smooth, thoughtless world the company wants. Amarao finally tells Naota what Haruko has been chasing all along: Atomsk, the Pirate King, and the enormous N.O. power Haruko has been using Naota to reach. Atomsk manifests through Naota instead of Haruko, but Naota gives up that power after confronting her, admits that he loves her, and lets Atomsk escape; Haruko races after him, Mamimi eventually leaves Mabase, and Naota is left behind a little older without pretending he suddenly understands adulthood.
Lore · 14 Debut: Episode 6 - FLCLimax
+13
Who / What is Atomsk? Atomsk & Medical Mechanica The Crimson Bird Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Amarao's Guitar Guitar & Ordnance Debut: Naota, Haruko & Atomsk at the End Growing Up in Mabase Atomsk's Bass Guitar Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Haruko's True Goal Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Medical Mechanica & The Iron Atomsk & Medical Mechanica What Does N.O. Actually Do? N.O. Channel Mechanics Naota's N.O. Channel N.O. Channel Mechanics The Crimson Gibson EB-0 Guitar & Ordnance Naota & Haruko Growing Up in Mabase Naota, Mamimi & Tasuku Growing Up in Mabase Mamimi and the Takkuns Growing Up in Mabase
View all 143 screencaps from this episode →
ⓘ Legend
canon Episode adapts events from the source manga.
mixed Adapts source material but adds anime-original scenes.
good-filler Anime-original episode generally well-received by fans.
filler Anime-original episode not based on the source manga.
📷 Number of user-uploaded screencaps available for this episode.
NN

Naota Nandaba

Protagonist / N.O. Channel

Naota Nandaba is twelve years old and already trying very hard to be finished with childhood. He insists that Mabase is ordinary, acts unimpressed by almost everything around him, and treats caring too openly as something embarrassing.

A lot of that performance comes from his older brother Tasuku. Tasuku was the baseball star who left for America, the person Mamimi loved, and the standard Naota quietly measures himself against. Naota even carries Tasuku's bat while refusing to swing it. Not trying lets him avoid discovering whether he can live up to the person he has built his brother into.

Then Haruko Haruhara arrives and makes detachment impossible. She opens an N.O. channel through Naota, uses him as a passage for machines and weapons, moves into his house, and becomes another person whose attention he wants even when he knows he should not trust her.

Naota's growth is not that he suddenly becomes mature. It is that he gradually stops using indifference as protection. By the end he can swing the bat, admit what he feels, confront Haruko, and let both her and Atomsk go without pretending none of it mattered.
+18 LORE
Naota, Mamimi & Tasuku Growing Up in Mabase Naota & Haruko Growing Up in Mabase Naota Finally Swings Growing Up in Mabase Naota, Haruko & Atomsk at the End Growing Up in Mabase What Does N.O. Actually Do? N.O. Channel Mechanics Naota's N.O. Channel N.O. Channel Mechanics Why Haruko Hits Naota with the Bass N.O. Channel Mechanics The Forehead Growths Recurring Images & Ideas Bitter Drinks, Spicy Food & Acting Grown-Up Recurring Images & Ideas The Crimson Bird Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Atomsk's Bass Guitar Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Haruko's True Goal Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Ninamori and Performing Maturity Growing Up in Mabase Mamimi and the Takkuns Growing Up in Mabase The Crimson Gibson EB-0 Guitar & Ordnance Canti's Flying V Guitar & Ordnance Ninamori and the Transferred Growth N.O. Channel Mechanics Mamimi and the Name "Takkun" Recurring Images & Ideas
HH

Haruko Haruhara

SPOILER!

Alien Instigator / Atomsk Hunter

Haruko Haruhara arrives in Mabase like somebody changing the channel in the middle of Naota's life. She runs him down with her Vespa, revives him, hits him with a bass guitar, opens his N.O. channel and then moves into his house as though none of this requires an explanation.

Haruko presents herself as connected to the Galactic Space Patrol Brotherhood, but the original OVA gives Naota very good reasons not to take anything she says at face value. Her real obsession is Atomsk, the Pirate King whose power she wants for herself. Naota matters to her because his N.O. channel gives her a way to reach him.

That does not make every interaction between Haruko and Naota fake. FLCL deliberately makes her harder to sort than that. She manipulates him, endangers him and plays with his feelings, but she also becomes attached enough that their final separation is not emotionally empty.

Haruko is funny because she refuses normal boundaries. She is dangerous for exactly the same reason. Whatever role she claims to be playing, she ultimately follows Atomsk.
+8 LORE
Haruko's True Goal Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Haruko's Rickenbacker 4001 Guitar & Ordnance Naota & Haruko Growing Up in Mabase Naota, Haruko & Atomsk at the End Growing Up in Mabase What Does N.O. Actually Do? N.O. Channel Mechanics Haruko Tests Kamon N.O. Channel Mechanics Naota's N.O. Channel N.O. Channel Mechanics Why Haruko Hits Naota with the Bass N.O. Channel Mechanics
MS

Mamimi Samejima

SPOILER!

Tasuku's Former Girlfriend / Naota's Confidante

Mamimi Samejima is a seventeen-year-old high school student who spends much of her time away from school, smoking beneath the bridge and carrying a camera through Mabase. She was Tasuku Nandaba's girlfriend before he left for America, and his absence leaves a hole she keeps trying to fill.

Naota becomes part of that pattern. Mamimi calls him Takkun, the same nickname associated with Tasuku, and leans on him for comfort even though the relationship means something different to Naota than it does to her.

Her attachment shifts again when Canti appears. Mamimi recognizes the robot through the religious imagery of her Fire Starter game and treats him as the Lord of Black Flames she has been waiting for. Later she gives the name Takkun to yet another creature, revealing how easily affection, dependence and replacement blur together for her.

Mamimi is troubled, lonely and capable of destructive behavior, but FLCL does not leave her frozen under the bridge. By the end she leaves Mabase and begins moving toward photography as something that belongs to her rather than to Tasuku, Naota or another Takkun.
+4 LORE
Mamimi and the Takkuns Growing Up in Mabase Mamimi and the Name "Takkun" Recurring Images & Ideas Naota, Mamimi & Tasuku Growing Up in Mabase Bitter Drinks, Spicy Food & Acting Grown-Up Recurring Images & Ideas
CA

Canti

Medical Mechanica Robot / Atomsk Vessel

Canti is the blue, television-headed robot that emerges through Naota's N.O. channel and somehow becomes part of the Nandaba household almost immediately afterward.

Outside combat he is strangely gentle and domestic. He wears an apron, runs errands, helps around the house and communicates mostly through body language and whatever appears on his screen.

The dangerous part is what happens when Naota and Atomsk become involved. When Canti absorbs Naota, his body changes, the Atomsk mark appears and he becomes capable of fighting Medical Mechanica machines on an entirely different level.

Mamimi sees something else in him. His winged, halo-like appearance reminds her of Cantido, the Lord of Black Flames from her Fire Starter game, and she begins treating Canti as the god she has been looking for.

Canti sits right in the middle of FLCL's collision between domestic life and cosmic machinery. One minute he is washing dishes. The next he is glowing red and fighting something that came out of a child's forehead.
LORE
CA

Commander Amarao

Interstellar Immigration Commander

Commander Amarao works for the Bureau of Interstellar Immigration and understands more about Haruko, Medical Mechanica and N.O. than almost anyone willing to explain things to Naota.

That does not make him a reassuring adult.

Amarao has encountered Haruko before and knows how dangerous it is to mistake her attention for affection. His warnings to Naota therefore come from experience, but they also reveal how much of that experience he is still carrying around with him.

His enormous false eyebrows are the perfect FLCL detail: Amarao is desperately trying to present himself as controlled, authoritative and prepared while looking ridiculous enough to undermine the performance every time he enters the scene.

He is useful because many of his warnings are correct. He is funny because being correct has not made him particularly secure, mature or capable of controlling Haruko.
+3 LORE
Medical Mechanica & The Iron Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Amarao's Guitar Guitar & Ordnance Amarao's Eyebrows Recurring Images & Ideas
KN

Kamon Nandaba

Naota's Father / Writer

Kamon Nandaba is Naota's father, a freelance writer and former pop-culture journalist whose idea of adulthood is not remotely the one Naota is trying to imitate.

He runs Kamon-Mabase from the family home, fills conversations with pop-culture references and immediately becomes infatuated with Haruko after she moves in. For Naota, who is desperately trying to behave like the mature person in the room, having Kamon as a father is almost professionally embarrassing.

Kamon is not useless, though FLCL rarely allows him dignity for very long. His immaturity is part of the larger problem Naota keeps running into: the adults around him have not unlocked some secret state where embarrassment, jealousy and bad decisions disappear.

Haruko eventually tests Kamon as a possible N.O. route, rejects him and replaces him with a mechanical duplicate. Even surviving that experience does remarkably little to reduce his enthusiasm for her.
LORE
EN

Eri Ninamori

SPOILER!

Class President / Naota's Classmate

Eri Ninamori is Naota's class president and one of the few children in FLCL who appears, at first, to have being composed completely figured out.

She does not.

Ninamori's father is the mayor of Mabase, and when his affair and the possibility of her parents' divorce become public gossip, she responds by trying even harder to control how other people see her. She hides the fact that she needs corrective lenses by wearing contacts and even rigs the class vote so she can take the role she wants in the school play opposite Naota.

The pressure finally becomes impossible to keep separate from everything else happening around her. After contact with Naota transfers the strange growth associated with his N.O. channel to her, a Medical Mechanica machine begins emerging through Ninamori instead.

What makes her episode work is that the robot is almost secondary to what Naota discovers first: Ninamori is not naturally calm or mature. She is another twelve-year-old who has simply become very good at hiding when things hurt.
+3 LORE
Ninamori and Performing Maturity Growing Up in Mabase Ninamori and the Transferred Growth N.O. Channel Mechanics The Forehead Growths Recurring Images & Ideas
LK

Lieutenant Kitsurubami

Interstellar Immigration Lieutenant

Lieutenant Kitsurubami is Amarao's second-in-command in the Bureau of Interstellar Immigration and generally the person who has to turn his warnings about Haruko and Medical Mechanica into actual field work.

She handles surveillance, weapons and mission information with considerably less drama than her commander. That makes her seem like one of the more functional adults in Mabase, although FLCL still refuses to let her remain completely outside the absurdity.

Kitsurubami initially treats Canti as a target and fires on him, then finds herself disarmed by how unexpectedly polite and gentle the robot can be. She also suffers spectacular nosebleeds around Naota's stranger N.O. manifestations.

Her role is small but useful: when Amarao's personal history with Haruko starts taking over the conversation, Kitsurubami is usually the one still trying to deal with what is physically happening in front of them.
SN

Shigeki Nandaba

Naota's Grandfather / Baseball Coach

Shigeki Nandaba is Naota's grandfather, Kamon's father and coach of the Mabase Martians baseball team.

Baseball is the clearest way Shigeki connects to Naota's larger problem with Tasuku. Tasuku was the gifted player everyone remembers, while Naota carries his brother's bat and refuses to swing it. Shigeki's obvious pride in Tasuku keeps that comparison alive even after Tasuku has left Japan.

At home, Shigeki accepts Canti and Haruko with approximately the same baffling speed as everyone else in the Nandaba household. He is not a source of hidden wisdom waiting to guide Naota through adolescence. He is simply another strange adult in a family where normality was already questionable before aliens arrived.
AT

Atomsk

SPOILER!

The Pirate King

Atomsk is the legendary Pirate King whose enormous N.O. power sits behind most of the conflict in FLCL.

Medical Mechanica has contained him. Haruko wants him badly enough to manipulate everyone around her for a chance to reach him. Amarao speaks about him with the nervousness of someone who understands that neither Haruko nor Medical Mechanica should be allowed to control that much power.

For most of the OVA Atomsk is less a conventional character than a presence moving behind Canti, Haruko and Naota. His mark appears when Canti draws on his power, and the full scale of what everyone has been chasing is not revealed until the climax.

When Atomsk finally manifests through Naota, Haruko's plan fails at the moment she seems closest to succeeding. Naota briefly becomes the vessel for the power she wanted, then releases Atomsk instead of handing that power to her.

The OVA never needs Atomsk to explain himself. Everyone else's reaction to him tells us why he matters.
+6 LORE
Who / What is Atomsk? Atomsk & Medical Mechanica The Crimson Bird Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Atomsk's Bass Guitar Atomsk & Medical Mechanica The Crimson Gibson EB-0 Guitar & Ordnance Haruko's True Goal Atomsk & Medical Mechanica Naota, Haruko & Atomsk at the End Growing Up in Mabase
GM

Gaku Manabe

Naota's Classmate

Gaku Manabe is one of Naota's closest school friends and the loudest source of playground expertise nobody asked for.

He is fascinated by kissing, sex, rumors and whatever piece of supposed adult knowledge is circulating among the class that day. His confidence routinely exceeds his understanding, which makes him a good fit for a series full of children trying to interpret adulthood from fragments.

Gaku is usually paired with Masashi along the riverbank or at school, commenting on Naota's increasingly impossible life without ever receiving enough information to understand what is actually happening.

He does not need a larger arc. Gaku helps establish the ordinary twelve-year-old world Naota keeps insisting he has already outgrown.
MM

Masashi Masamune

Naota's Classmate

Masashi Masamune is one of Naota's school friends and usually the calmer counterweight to Gaku.

He hangs around with Naota, Gaku and Ninamori, works helping with his father's delivery truck, and reacts to most of Mabase's strangeness with the subdued acceptance that seems normal for children living beneath a building shaped like a giant iron.

Masashi rarely drives the story, but he helps make Naota's school life feel like an actual social world instead of a waiting room between Haruko attacks.

By the time Medical Mechanica's terminal core starts consuming vehicles around town, even Masashi's family truck gets dragged into the chaos.
MI

Miyu-Miyu

Nandaba Family Cat / Haruko's Contact

Miyu-Miyu is the Nandaba family's large calico cat and one of FLCL's best examples of everyone accepting something impossible without stopping long enough to explain it.

Most of the time Miyu-Miyu behaves exactly like a cat. Haruko, however, uses the animal as some kind of communications link, talking into Miyu-Miyu as though she is reporting to somebody through an interstellar telephone.

The OVA never turns this into an elaborate piece of technology or explains why the cat works this way.

Miyu-Miyu is simply there, tolerating Haruko and the Nandabas with the exhausted patience of the only resident of the house who may actually understand how ridiculous everyone else is.
JM

Junko Miyaji

Naota's Teacher / Miya-Jun

Junko Miyaji, usually called Miya-Jun by her students, is Naota's sixth-grade teacher.

She spends much of the OVA trying to conduct ordinary school life while Mabase repeatedly refuses to cooperate. Her lessons are interrupted, her car becomes collateral damage more than once, and even an attempt to teach proper chopstick use exposes that she cannot demonstrate it particularly well herself.

Miya-Jun is not secretly important to the science-fiction plot. Her usefulness is simpler. Naota is obsessed with the idea that adults are supposed to know what they are doing, and his teacher gives him another perfectly ordinary example of an adult who clearly does not.

In FLCL, that is enough.
← All lore

Atomsk & Medical Mechanica

About this archive

Archival note

This page covers only the original six-episode FLCL OVA from 2000–2001.

Atomsk is deliberately kept mysterious. The OVA gives us enough to understand why Haruko and Medical Mechanica are fighting over him, but not enough to turn him into a complete cosmic rulebook. Later FLCL continuations are outside this page.

The Pirate King

Who / What is Atomsk?

The Pirate King · The Power Everyone Wants

Atomsk is the Pirate King, an enormously powerful being held by Medical Mechanica and pursued obsessively by Haruko.

For most of FLCL he exists through other characters rather than through explanation. His mark appears when Canti draws on extraordinary power. Amarao warns Naota about Haruko's pursuit of him. Haruko keeps forcing open N.O. routes because she believes they can lead her to him.

By the time Atomsk finally manifests, Naota has spent most of the series standing in the middle of a struggle he barely understood.
Why it matters
Atomsk does not need a detailed biography to drive FLCL. What matters is that Haruko wants his power, Medical Mechanica wants control of him, and Naota eventually becomes the person through whom neither side gets exactly what it wanted.
Atomsk

Physical Manifestations

The Crimson Bird

Atomsk's Final Manifestation

When Atomsk finally appears openly in the climax, FLCL represents him as an enormous glowing red bird-like presence erupting through Naota.

The image connects back to the red power associated with Canti whenever Naota is absorbed into him, but the OVA does not stop to provide a biological or technical explanation for Atomsk's form.
How you can tell
The important visual language is consistent: red, wings, the Atomsk mark and a sudden jump in power. By episode 6 those scattered signs finally resolve into the being Haruko has been chasing from the beginning.
Atomsk Naota Nandaba

Atomsk's Bass Guitar

Crimson Gibson EB-0 · Pulled Through Naota

A red Gibson EB-0 emerges through Naota during one of the clearest moments when the N.O. phenomenon stops producing only Medical Mechanica machinery and begins drawing something connected directly to Atomsk.

The bass eventually becomes part of the final confrontation between Naota and Haruko.
Why it matters
FLCL keeps collapsing the difference between instrument, weapon and impossible object. Atomsk's bass is not important because the OVA gives it a technical classification. It matters because its appearance tells us Haruko is getting closer to what she has been trying to pull through Naota.
Atomsk Naota Nandaba

Haruko Haruhara

Haruko's True Goal

SPOILER!

Naota Is the Route · Atomsk Is the Target

Haruko arrives claiming an official role and spends much of the OVA behaving as though the chaos around Naota is just another mission.

It is not.

What she actually wants is Atomsk. Naota matters because his N.O. ability gives her an unusually powerful route through which objects, Medical Mechanica machines and eventually Atomsk himself can cross into Mabase.

That makes Haruko's relationship with Naota uncomfortable by design. She enjoys him, provokes him and becomes part of his life, but she is also using his body and his feelings to pursue something she wanted before she ever met him.
Why it matters
The reveal does not mean every moment between Haruko and Naota was fake. It means Naota finally has to understand that wanting somebody does not make their motives safe, simple or centered on him.
Haruko Haruhara Naota Nandaba Atomsk

Medical Mechanica

Medical Mechanica & The Iron

The Factory Hanging Over Mabase

Medical Mechanica's enormous iron-shaped factory sits above Mabase long before Naota understands why it matters. The building is so large and so permanent that the town has learned to treat something obviously impossible as ordinary scenery.

Amarao eventually explains the threat through the image of ironing: Medical Mechanica intends to smooth out the wrinkles in people's brains. In the finale, the Terminal Core moves to activate the Iron and turn that explanation into something physically dangerous.

The OVA leaves much of Medical Mechanica itself deliberately remote. We see its machines, its factory and the consequences of its actions more clearly than we ever see a conventional organization behind them.
Why it matters
The Iron is FLCL's best version of Mabase itself. Something enormous is wrong, everybody can see it, and daily life continues underneath it anyway.
Commander Amarao
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