[Review] FLCL Alternative - Wow! An Actual Decent Season of FLCL

Written by: Andarew August 15, 2019

I’ve probably just pissed off a lot of fans of the FLCL franchise just by the title alone, but hear me out. If you like the first season of FLCL, that’s fine. Everyone has their own opinions about this anime. I just like to display mine on the title. Now, time to piss off a lot of fans with my unpopular opinion.

Story/Execution: 6/10

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The story of this anime, there really isn’t one. The same can be said for the previous two seasons. It sort of plays out like a slice of life anime where each episode has a simple plot or event to it. Alternative still likes to do that weird thing where robots come out of people’s head during dramatic moments of intense emotion for the characters. I get that it’s supposed to represent the drama of growing up and being a teenager and stuff, but it’s such a weird way of conveying that point in a symbolic way it just comes off weird to me rather than relatable. Each episode’s plot tends to get more dramatic the closer to the end it gets where in the last episode, it just sort of blows up in your face with that teenage drama emotion your supposed to relate to. I can relate somewhat, but the anime just over does this aspect to where I just think it’s ridiculous. There isn’t too much to say about the plot, other than it does a better job of having one than the other two previous seasons.

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FLCL Alternative executes it’s message the best out of all the seasons of FLCL. It explains it clearly, we can see it clearly, and it actually makes sense. And best of all, it doesn’t go batshizz crazy like the first season. Each of the main characters deals with a different struggle that teenagers may typically face within their teen years. Hijiri with her boyfriend issues, Motoyama working to fulfill her dreams, the protagonist Kanna with her crush for one of the guy characters I forgot the name of, and Tomomi who is moving away. It even wraps up the message by combining all of these situations in which these girls try to help one another with when our protagonist gets criticized by her own best friend when she is only trying to help others. This goes to show the message to teens that you just can’t please everybody and get everyone to like you. It takes this message in a dramatic moment at the end and wraps up the anime with that. The fact that I am able to explain this message shows that it did a good job of communicating its message to the viewer. FLCL Progressive was kind of understandable but a little unclear with it. It was probably dealing more of the struggles of hooking up with a BF/GF sort of thing whereas the first season made no sense whatsoever. They should’ve named the anime ,”What someone on LSD sees while high” instead of FLCL based on just the first season.

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Now after mentioning all the good stuff about Alternative’s execution, why did I give it a 6 you may be wondering? Even though I think the message was communicated pretty well compared to its two predecessors, I personally just didn’t resonate with it as much. As mentioned before, they still have the robots coming out of people’s heads, which I thought was weird. That aspect even though I know it’s supposed to be symbolic, doesn’t necessarily make the show more enjoyable to watch. And that’s the main reason why I only gave this aspect of the show a 6; it’s because I just didn’t find it that enjoyable. I don’t judge a show’s enjoyability by how artistically effective it can resonate a relatable message within the show’s plot. No, I judge a show’s enjoyability by how good the characters are, how shocking the plot twist may be, probably the action, horror or comedy, and especially if it has the ability to inspire. Alternative just failed to inspire me simply because I am not inspired with its final message of everyone not liking you no matter what you may try to do. It’s just not an issue to me even as a teenager myself. I did find this show a little enjoyable, since I somewhat liked the characters and there were some moments that made me laugh, but nothing spectacular or anything.

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One last note about the FLCL’s plot. Now this issue can be said for every single season of FLCL. The plot fails to answer questions the viewer has. In every season, it is hinted that Haruko, the crazy pink-haired chick, is not human, but an alien, and has come to earth to do something hinted as being bad or suspicious. But why? All she’s been doing is fighting robots that pop out of emo teenagers’ heads, and helping said emo teenagers getting over their emo-ness. This is completely unnecessary to the main plot and message of the anime. There is no reason to have this other than to generate plot holes and questions that never get answered. Also, why is there a random giant iron in each of these towns? Why are there random giant pins stuck onto the world? Are they supposed to be symbolic or something, because I do not understand whatsoever what’s the point of these, no pin intended.

Characters: 7/10

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The characters were actually the best part about this anime. They were each unique in their own way and were sometimes quite funny to watch them. First, you have Kanna our main protagonist which I can confidently say must be Ochaco Uraraka’s lost twin sister or something like that. She likes to help people and expresses her value for her friends. You also have her best friend Tomomi which is probably the most non-existent out of the bunch and who I honestly don’t care for that much. Next is this fat chick named Motoyama. The other characters subtly make fun of her because of that as well. Lastly, there is Hijiri, the hot one dating a college student. They aren’t really that great on their own, but watching them as a group together makes the show more enjoyable to watch because they each have their own character traits to them.

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Haruko is still in this season (big surprise, I know). Thankfully, the writers seemed to tone done her insanely crazy personality before, to only a spazzy crazy personality now. I never really liked Haruko that much because although she can be funny at times, she lacks depth and meaning to her. She often interacts with this older guy who puts too much spice in his ramen. I bet this character could maybe be Naota older. I don’t really know, but he just looks like he could be. There are a few more minor characters such as Hijiri’s college boyfriend, the dude that Kanna liked, and the Ramen shop owner, but they are quite minor and not really worth mentioning.

Sound: 6/10

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Not much to say here. The ending song of this season is probably my favorite out of the series. I also liked the animation of the ending song. It consists of a chibi styled Kanna with a constantly changing background. The thing is, the backgrounds are actually photographs of real life places and it looks like that the photographers had to take a picture of each frame of Kanna’s motion within the background. As for the soundtrack, it’s fairly standard and forgettable. Like before, not much to say.

Animation: 5/10

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The artstyle is better than the first season, but not as good as the second season in my opinion. Animation is pretty standard. The best piece of animation is the ending animation, which I already talked about.

Overall: 6/10

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For my FLCL standards, this was a good watch. However, I’ve seen a lot of anime way better than this. The characters were good, but not good enough to be memorable. A well communicated message, but the enjoyability of the execution and plot was only slightly better than average. Maybe if you’re bored on the weekends and can’t find anything to do, maybe it’s worth a watch if you can’t find anything better, but it’s not worth paying money for in my opinion. Hopefully, if another season comes out, it can answer some questions I had mentioned before, but it is highly unlikely to be honest.

Andarew

Jersie's amazing brother, can be found jamming out to his epic music for hours while drawing. Tries to balance his life out by going to Planet Fitness and making fun of politics.