 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | TOKYOPOP | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | GAINAX / HAJIME UEDA | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / BW | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 172 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | T | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 03/11/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 03/20/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
From the mind of Hideaki Anno comes this bizarre tale of adolescence in a nonsensical world. Naota's life isn't simple. He lives with his eccentric father and grandfather in a city distinguished marked by a gigantic hand-iron shaped factory perched on a hill. So the last thing he needs is for his brother's ex-girlfriend to make passes at him or for an impish, playful alien to smack him in the head with a bass guitar and then insinuate herself into his family.
But that’s exactly what does happen, even though he claims that nothing interesting or exciting ever happens to him. Noata is a lonely boy in a lonely town living a lonely life amidst utter chaos. His father IS a pervert, and his grandfather IS a complete nutcase. His brother ran off to seek riches in America, and his brother’s dumb ex-girlfriend won’t leave him alone (she’s… crazy… or just disturbed). Now from beyond the stars drops an impish defender sent forth to stop alien robots from destroying the Earth. Where do the alien robots come from? Well, Noata’s forehead for starters. From the twisted mind that brought us Evangelion comes this bizarre tale of adolescence in a world gone mad – FLCL is truly artful and complex beyond what most people can see from one reading of the books, or one viewing of the anime. If you’ve seen the anime, then you know FLCL is twisted, both in story and in art. The art style in the manga is truly unique – very open minded and strange it is. It’s almost “loose” in a sense, like as though it had a personality of its own and it’s trying to tell the reader: “look, sometimes I just don’t care if you understand me - this is me, so like it or whatever.” Sometimes it is very straight-forward and clean, and other times it gets very messy and cool in a scratchy, crazy way. The art style in fewer words is just simply “out of control” – it’s very interesting to look at and pick apart. The visuals themselves, if you can separate them from style for a moment, are really quite unique themselves in the speed and pace that they are presented and the way that they are. Sometimes panels will be very normal, other times they turn into long full page boxes from top to bottom. Sometimes the action isn’t even contained within a box – it must break out. Very visually entertaining – very “out there” in terms of art. The story is just as out there, but the wonderful dark sense of humour that it contains keeps it all together in a way that stays entertaining and worthwhile. This series has so much replay value because you’re never going to understand it the first time through. Every time you read this series or watch the anime, you will see something new and new light will then be shed on what the meanings behind FLCL really are. I think it’s different for everyone, but anyone with an open mind will see something they can relate to. IN SUMMARY:
About as visually unique in presentation as a book gets these days – it’s like punk rock made visual in a subdued manga format. Sometimes it doesn’t care, sometimes it cares a lot, but always it is trying to say something and it takes an inquisitive individual to really take in what FLCL has to offer. Pretty cool.
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