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Japanese title
フリクリ
Manga-ka/Author
ウエダハジメ Hajime Ueda
Genre
sci-fi, action, shounen
Volumes: 2
Distributor: Tokyopop
Classification: 12
Rating
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FLCL is set in the small Japanese town of Mabase, the type of place where nothing
interesting ever happens. Our protagonist, teenager Naota is alone in a world
full of irony, where his father is a pervert, his grandfather a nut and his
older brother a baseball player gone to seek his fortune in America, leaving
behind his ex-girlfriend Mamimi to dote on Naota.
Not particularly remarkable in any way, Naota is a poor replacement for his
all-star brother. Life is pretty boring, that is, until the arrival of a mad
guitar-wielding girl on the back of a Vespa.
Soon afterwards more problems arise, the most notable of which are the alien
robots which emerge out of Naota's forehead, bent on destroying the world. The
only person standing in their way is Haruko, the Vespa girl (or rather, alien),
who moves in with Naota's family and proceeds to deal with the robots by any means
necessary.
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FLCL is without a
doubt one of the weirdest manga I've ever seen, and I must admit it, the least
favourite of the series in my collection. The artwork is grungy and rough,
rendering a good number of the panels difficult to decipher (especially the
fight scenes). If you started reading this series without knowing anything about
the story you'd probably get very confused, very quickly.
Though to be fair, this manga looks like it is aimed at teenage boys rather than
20-something women, and I've never liked this genre - even some of the more
mainstream offerings such as Naruto. Those things aside, this manga is
totally bizarre - think about 14 year old boys making up the weirdest story they
can think of with themselves in it and you're not far off (that's probably why
this series seems to be so popular). This series however seems to be very different
to anything else out there, so while it's not my cup of tea, it will be someone else's.
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Manga
The manga series of FLCL is
actually an adaptation from the successful OVA series.
FLCL is being distributed in Europe and the US by Tokyopop, and thus it's easy to get
hold of in most countries. I've put a 12 classification on this series because there's a bit of
strong language and questionable content, but nothing that you wouldn't expect from its target
audience (i.e. teenagers).
Anime
I haven't seen much about the OVA
series, but I would guess that it is slightly less questionable in content than
the manga and perfect fodder for mainstream anime release in the West, which is
why I wasn't surprised to discover it was shown on Adult Swim.
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