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
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The Pillows Soundtrack

About this archive

Archival note

No FLCL page is complete without The Pillows. Studio Gainax edited animation frame-by-frame to match the tempo and guitar riffs of Yoshiaki Manabe's tracks - the music is not background noise, it is the cut list. Episode map below for the original six.

Episode Song Map

Episode 1 - Fooly Cooly

Ride on Shooting Star

Opening detonation. The track rides the Vespa hit, the first portal, and the promise that Mabase will never be quiet again.

Debut: Ep 001 - Fooly Cooly

Episode 2 - Fire Starter

Little Busters

Baseball, jealousy, and combustion. Little Busters locks to the episode's swings - literal and emotional.

Debut: Ep 002 - Fire Starter

Episode 3 - Marquis de Carabas

Hybrid Rainbow

Mamimi, cats, and the fairy-tale rot underneath. Hybrid Rainbow scores the softest cruelty in the run.

Debut: Ep 003 - Marquis de Carabas

Episode 4 - Full Swing

Carnival

Atomsk pressure rises; the town tilts. Carnival matches the episode's lurch from suburban boredom into open war.

Debut: Ep 004 - Full Swing

Episode 5 - Brittle Bullet

Advice

Everything fractures. Advice rides the brittle pace of alliances cracking and N.O. channels overloading.

Debut: Ep 005 - Brittle Bullet

Episode 6 - FLCLimax

LAST DINOSAUR

The finale anthem. LAST DINOSAUR is edited into the climax like a second script - Gainax cutting picture to Manabe's guitar until Atomsk leaves the building.

Debut: Ep 006 - FLCLimax