The GHZ Forum

...I can safely say it's gay. Pretty damn gay. I saw, like, 3 episodes, and all these robots came out of this guy's head where this chick on a Vespa hit him with a bass guitar or something. It turned into a moving manga at one point. I think it's best watched stoned, and I'm alarmingly sober, hence the diagnosis: gay. Gay as all Hell.

Someone help me. One of you infernal geeks must be able to assist me in finding some sort of meaning in this acid trip of an anime. It'd help, because I have a strange need to watch it again but I'd like it to make sense, even in a Japanese way.

Watch it all. Then watch it again. It may not seem it, but it really is one of those things you need to see the whole of to fully understand.

It's easy to understand... The whole show represents the need to express freedom and rebel against the "machine", which is shown as Canti... But by doing so you really play into the hands of what you rebel against since it is expected for atleast someone to rebel and as such prove the need of said "machine"... But about everything else, it's just a bunch of homages and the affects of anti-depression medicine...

It's easy to understand. The whole show is a giant acid trip.

It actually kind of struck me as a coming of age sort of thing...


Definitely watch the whole thing, then yeah, watch it again. There's no earthly way to take it all in after just one sitting. (The fourth episode especially is pretty confusing because the events don't seem to be happening in chronological order.) The drug-addled weirdness isn't the substance, it's only the icing. There's some world class storytelling going on under there with multifaceted characters and some genuine conflicts, and obviously, loads of clever symbolism. Make it through to the last episode and things will make more sense, then watch it again and you'll be enlightened.

If I can beat up my girlfriend and steal the DVD off her, I'll plough through the entire series, just for you guys.

Would you recommend being stoned before undertaking this task?

Dude, you don't need to be, it does it for you.

I thought the show was one big metaphor for puberty and sex.

I really liked the little touches of continuity, like the comment they make about doing the manga a second time looking cheap.

The South Park homage was pretty dope.

It's... unique. But only in the way that ukelele-bearing-alien-slapstick can be.

Would you recommend being stoned before undertaking this task?

Having seen it in its entirety both ways, I would say that it really doesn't matter. Get as tweaked as you like if it makes the first go-through a bit smoother, but it's not one of those stoner movies that you have to watch high to enjoy.

You've been stoned?

He's mentioned it before...

I watched it and was completely and utterly befuddled.

Seriously, it makes my head hurt just talking about it. It's like a bad dream with nothing makes any God damned sense and is all whirling past you at 90 MPH.

Delphine wrote:He's mentioned it before...

You would know, wouldn't you?

I watched it twice, I kind of liked it the first time. The second time, I was just bored shitless. It just seems to me that the trippy aspects aren't there to enhance the show, but are it's sole gimmick.

But watch the rest of it anyway and make up your own mind about it. There's only six episodes, if I recall correctly.

Read the manga. There's even less sense in that. I felt the story was better though.

The thing I liked about FLCL the first time I saw was that it was on at about one in the morning, and when you're tired everything is about 10 times funnier for some reason.

Y'know, I found out that furi kuri is something like fondling a girl's breasts, or something. I slightly understand the main guy's dad's bizarre manga ranting session now. The TV head robot guy was pretty boss, too.

I'll take your advice GG!. As soon as I pick up my next eighth of phat colombian sensimilla, I'll make sure to borrow the FLCL DVD ay-sap. I do think it would help the medicine go down, somewhat. I'll see if it'll top Half Baked as my stoner viewing choice, but then again absolutely anything is entertaining when you're blazed, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

Don't let the misguided opinions of these blatantly uncultured, halfwit children give you the wrong impression. FLCL is smart comedy with some genuine human drama mixed in (one could argue it's a smart drama cleverly hidden under symbolic comedy), but you have to be able to put two and two together. It's really not just shallow, meaningless nonsense, although that was my first impression as well. The way it's put together and the panache with which it is done are nothing short of brilliant. It's lightyears beyond anything else that's out right now in the realm of contemporary animation. I mean, if you have an attention span that allows you the luxury of lateral thought.

There are like four layers of meaning there. You have the symbolism for puberty and becomong a man. You have the human drama of a boy feeling trapped in a small town and abandoned by his older brother. You have the complicated science fiction story. You have the comedy. You have the romantic plots. It's everything!

But you have to watch it at least twice to understand it all. Since the first time you'll watch it for the jokes. Then for the scifi plot. Then for the symbolism.

Delphine wrote:He's mentioned it before...

He has? I seem to remember him saying he's never been stoned in my, uh, funghi thread.

I've only seen FLCL once through and I really liked it based solely on its gloriously-animated nonsense. If nothing else, it's a visual spectacle and a half, but I never got a hold of any of this "world-class storytelling". Can't someone just post a summary or something?

I seem to remember him saying he's never been stoned in my, uh, funghi thread.

Depends on what you mean by "stoned", I guess. I've desperately attempted to achieve the state many, many times, but I only ever end up feeling a little lightheaded and extremely cranky (and hungry). Thus far I have been mostly unimpressed.

You should definitely hit FLCL a second time, you'll pick up on alot that you originally missed. The story itself is really simple, but well thought-out and extremely well executed in a manner that is, to say the least, not conventional. If it were nothing more than "gloriously-animated nonsense", there would be no difference between it and Excel Saga or Freakazoid.

What the hell did you take?