"[T]here are very few people who will swing the bat."
July 3, 2017 9:34 AM   Subscribe

In what has to be an announcement coming out of deep left field, Adult Swim and Production I.G. have released a trailer (Japanese version) for not one, but two new sequels to the legendary and surreal anime series FLCL, slated for release in 2018.

And yes, before you ask, the soundtrack will once again be handled by The Pillows.
posted by NoxAeternum (32 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
I really enjoy FLCL, but I am not sure there is a series less in need of a sequel....
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:42 AM on July 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


Although more soundtracks by The Pillows is always nice.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:43 AM on July 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


FLCL gets a sequel?

Jesus Christ who do I have to bribe to get more BECK or more Anno Domini Gundam?
posted by Talez at 9:46 AM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


If they do it right, the sequels could work well, though. The underlying theme of FLCL is one that's timeless, and looking at it through a more modern viewpoint will be interesting.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:48 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


A more modern viewpoint? What do you mean, FLCL is practically brand ne...

*checks Wikipedia, finds that FLCL is actually 17 years old*

Oh god...
posted by Aznable at 9:57 AM on July 3, 2017 [29 favorites]


The scary thing is that the Crystal Pepsi reference in the English dub still makes sense today, as it got re-released recently.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:02 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


What Anzable said. 😇 (and I can't wait to see modern AMVs of this)
posted by trackofalljades at 10:07 AM on July 3, 2017


Dreams do come true and other LSD fantasies.
posted by xtian at 10:08 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


The story that FLCL told in 2000 needs neither expansion nor continuation -- what I'd want to see is more exploration of the themes raised in the original, with a similar sensibility (and, of course, soundtrack) but not trying to shoehorn Naota back in. Judging from the trailer, we may in fact be getting that!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:20 AM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


While I enjoyed watching FCLC when it was new and anime was substantially less easily obtainable (I didn't have broadband until 2001, also right about the time bittorrent was invented), I tried rewatching it a few months ago and found it, uh, not all that engaging. I tend to agree with the sentiment that there's not a lot to do with sequels and, for me, it will be challenging to have it come off as much more then "Here's a bunch or random stuff we drew featuring recurring characters."
posted by glonous keming at 10:33 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


FLCL is lightning in a bottle. A sequel will be really easy to get wrong, and fantastically difficult to get right. But, worst case, if it sucks we can always pretend it never happened.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 10:34 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


> if it sucks we can always pretend it never happened.

Heh, yeah. Like, can you even imagine what it would be like if they tried to make a GitS live action movie in this current age of comic book blockbusters?
posted by glonous keming at 10:38 AM on July 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


Two sequels?



*piece of nori comes unstuck from forehead*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:54 AM on July 3, 2017 [13 favorites]


The nice thing about FLCL beyond its brevity and well wrapped story line (from Gainax no less) is that it mixed in a lot themes beyond the standard 'coming of age' tropes:

* cultural invasion: the rock music and baseball references made it easier for western audiences to digest, but it purveys a sense of loss for cultural identity. There's even a literal giant steam press ironing out the distinguishing features of Japan.
* abandonment: Naota's mother abandoned him, his brother abandoned him, his father's pretty flakey, and even Haruko abandons him at a couple of points. The story can be seen as a sort of grieving process for Naota.
* celebration of creativity: beyond the obvious brain portal as a metaphor for human creativity, the show celebrated various art styles. Manga and South Park come to mind most obviously, but I have forgotten a few to the vagaries of time.

It'll be difficult to live up to that standard without being too derivative, but for now let's just hope for the best!
posted by pwnguin at 10:59 AM on July 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


My relationship with "Anime" is a complicated one, having been born into the TV Cartoon Era (The Mickey Mouse Club and Tom Terrific debuted the Monday after I was born), and raised on Bullwinkle and Yogi Bear. And I was transfixed with the Original Astroboy and other very early Japanimation (I still think Amazing Three was a lost masterpiece ahead of its time), but lost interest as I became more mature and Anime became less (Kimba the White Lion was all 'running across the veldt' filler and the original Speed Racer was all 'racing around the track' filler).

I abandoned the sub-genre until the masterful Japanese production values of Thundercats tempted me to try it again. But nothing could bring me back to Anime Love status - Akira and Ghost in the Shell were too serious, Cowboy Bebop was too Artificially Western - until FLCL. It hit me like an electric guitar across the face and I've been sprouting robots ever since.

I am cautiously optimistic; the announcement included the statement "the original creators that worked on it are getting old and in order to make something equally as good, we needed to do something different." So on a scale of George Lucas' Star Wars Prequels to New Doctor Who, this is promising (and I see One Punch Man among the creatives' previous credits, which is a plus... also something called Flip Flappers which I have decided to investigate and noticed some similarities to FLCL's original setup - but with a flying surfboard instead of a moped, mmmkay... that's enough attempting to make my head explode for today).
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:49 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Flip Flappers is a little less sophisticated than FLCL, but it is absolutely charming nonetheless.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:22 PM on July 3, 2017


Warning: this comment is not that useful or constructive

mmm, I was knee deep in the Golden Era of anime, but I always think FLCL was more made for the aspiring animators to really enjoy due to the sheer amounts of technical virtuosity. TIL the staff of A:TLA "were all ordered to buy FLCL and watch every single episode of it."

I didn't enjoy it that much as a viewer because I...just didn't honestly. I preferred how other anime series handled the feelings of alienation and wildness. /shrugs/ Give me a re-animation of GitS: Stand Alone Complex though...that would be amazing.
posted by yueliang at 2:03 PM on July 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


Like oneswellfoop, I'll stick with cautious optimism too. the original heavily distorted gangly-limbed action seemed to be the signature of the animators who left Gainax to start Studio Trigger, and the trailer for the new FLCL lacks their idiosyncrasies.

But if Trigger is involved, will this mean FLCL is part of the Triggerverse?

*(Triggerverse being how every show Trigger makes contains overt references to every previous show Trigger has made.)
posted by ardgedee at 3:11 PM on July 3, 2017


I've been thinking about the way that I enjoy things lately- I tend to obsess about things, 100% or 100% out.

There was a This American Life episode last Sunday about magic shows, and there was this one quote on how can't half-ass an act because a magic trick is either a complete miracle or absolutely nothing. I think all media has this effect on me- it's like the goal of a TV show, book, movie, or act or whatever is to convince me that this thing is my absolute favorite thing in the world or it's just media.

FLCL is my favorite of my favorite things in the world, on top of every other movie, book, tv show, or video game that has encapsulated my mind. It's a thing I happened to catch during a very impressionable time of my life. It inspired me to play instruments as a kid, get into films in high school, explore graphic design in college, and seek inner peace as a situational hero in my own life. In just about every aspect of my creative world, I can trace a line of influence back to the series.

I know I sound ridiculous, I usually don't freak out about things this much. But goddamn. I am happy. I am so, very happy.
posted by weewooweewoo at 5:23 PM on July 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


I was an animation student when FLCL hit cartoon network and I guess kind of primed for a story about an alienated dope coming of age, and it just kind of spoke my language; all kaiju and cartoons and rock.

It could be every inch as good as the original and it probably won't hit me as hard these days, but I'm it gets to take another swing.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 6:05 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I never really understood the appeal of FLCL. I dunno if I've tried too hard to understand it, or not tried hard enough, but it hit right at the peak of my anime interest and I just bounced off. For what it's worth, I also appreciate Evangelion for what it is but think it's highly overrated.

Cowboy Bebop was too Artificially Western

Also I'm gonna tuck that on my shelf of incomprehensible complaints I've heard about Cowboy Bebop, right next to "Too cool for words." Yes, meant as a complaint.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:19 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'll check it out for the Pillows.

I got into two random conversations with someones about FLCL recently, and neither person knew about the music (and the series kind-of-but-not-really-but-actually-yes being an AMV to showcase the Pillows), and I said to myself, "Self, we haven't listened to Happy Bivouac or Little Busters or RUNNER'S HIGH or GOOD DREAMS or anything in while, let's do that."

Christ, this music.

I got into - really got into - anime music on IRC; #animemp3s on DALnet, specifically (whassup zerolives). There were episodes in other channels, but we'd mostly talk about music. And the series that would get the most chatter were the ones with better music, and we'd download the fansubs and go from there. FLCL kind of snuck in at first and then just took over. I think we had a #jpop or #jrock channel or something as well, and those got a huge flood of folk after we found out about the Pillows (and then a lot of die-off when we couldn't find anyone else like them and we'd already snagged all their albums).

Most of the music in my life has strong emotional attachments, often complex, often a little melancholy. I listen to the Pillows now and it is 100% good feelings. It's not that I don't have bad shit associated with it; I was severely depressed for a very long time, and this was certainly in one of the worse stretches. But it's so freaking optimistic. It's.. I don't know. A lot of it is this strong, driving stuff, and the associations are Naota dealing with his shit and growing.

So, yeah. I don't really see FLCL as a series needing a sequel. I'm kind of interested in.. I guess spiritual sequels, something with an angle and a message, but nothing with the same characters. Or maybe not! Maybe it'd work out.

But you can't listen to Blues Drive Monsters and not immediately get a little teary-eyed, steel yourself, grab your guitar and then go and be a goddamned hero.
posted by curious nu at 7:38 PM on July 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Also I'm gonna tuck that on my shelf of incomprehensible complaints I've heard about Cowboy Bebop, right next to "Too cool for words." Yes, meant as a complaint.

The only memorable thing about Cowboy Bebop was the music by Yoko Kanno. That said, I think the producers of Killjoys missed out in not giving it a big band jazz soundtrack.

As for FLCL, I'll give it a try at least, because I am SO GODDAMN TIRED of the Moe shit, the Kikkomori indulgence, and the half-assed renditions of light novels. Really, with only a few exceptions, the anime scene right now is the worst I've seen it in 30 years.
posted by happyroach at 8:31 PM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


gosh, why exactly is the anime scene so bad now? Aside from a few gems, it's such a wasteland.
posted by yueliang at 1:35 AM on July 4, 2017


At least in part, it’s bad because that’s where the money is.

Sometimes I fell like there is a finite and erratic supply of good stuff (speaking more generally), and when a field becomes commercially successful the supply can’t keep up, and so the folks that have been touched by the good parts see it being drowned out by the inrush of money-seeking Minimum Viable Content and spin off into this bummed out “why is everything so crap” state.

The good stuff is still there, I think, in anime as much as anywhere else. It’s just that it never came along all that often, and now there is a ton of other content so your idea of what is a reasonable rate is distorted. And perhaps some of the ideas are being spread out rather than all winding up in one place.
posted by nonlocal at 12:06 PM on July 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") applies, along with My Personal Corollary: "As the popularity of a category increases, the Sturgeon Constant increases from 90% to 99% to 99.9% to 'there has to be SOMETHING non-crap in here somewhere'".
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:20 PM on July 4, 2017


It's probably not that there's less good stuff these days, but that late night anime aka 'the terrible stuff' has basically exploded. In 1997, the year Bebop aired, there were like 33 shows total. In 2001, the year FLCL finished its 6 episode run, there were that many in the prime time slot alone, and 71 total.

In 2016, the peak shifted from 6-7pm to 11pm-2am, and more than doubled, up to 161 shows. Anichart documents 37 shows for the summer season, and doesn't even bother to mention long running series like Boruto.

So yea, between the shift to late night showings followed by blu-ray sales, and the general increase in volume, it's pretty easy to miss the good shows for all the "My little sister can't be this potato" might-as-well-be-porn crap. Previously, you had advertisers stepping in to restrain the worst impulses, but late night airings now act as a promo for blu-ray sales. I'm not even sure what they advertise in late night showings, but if it's anything like the US Adult Swim 2nd lap I doubt those advertisers care.
posted by pwnguin at 4:39 PM on July 4, 2017


A big party of the problem is that profits in anime are marginal. Profts actually lie in merchandise; DVDs, drama disks, soft plastic models, full body pillows, etc.. So the industry caters to those fans who are willing to spend money that way. There's been a positive feedback cycle of catering to the more and more extreme otaku fandom.
posted by happyroach at 4:55 PM on July 4, 2017


But come on, who among us wouldn't buy an Official FLCL Forehead Horn?
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:58 PM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Production I.G. is still a great studio, highly capable, and the original FLCL chief director (Kazuya Tsurumaki) is "supervising" the project. None of the episode directors seem to be returning, and Hiroyuki Imaishi, who storyboarded and did key animation for quite a lot of the original, probably isn't involved, since he's off running his own studio, Trigger.

Still, it seems there is some strong talent engaged. The chief director of the sequels will be Katsuyuki Motohiro, whose notable effort has been Psycho Pass, a series I've not seen but is held in some regard. Scanning through the individual directors I see people who haven't headed many or any shows, but have been Key Animation or Animation Directors on some interesting ones.

I'm usually not keen on regurgitating old IP--just never seems to work out too well. But I'm encouraged that Adult Swim is fronting some cash for the production. Anything that drives cooperation from business interests on both sides of the Pacific is likely to improve the quality of animated television.
posted by Room 101 at 6:37 PM on July 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


and Hiroyuki Imaishi, who storyboarded and did key animation for quite a lot of the original, probably isn't involved, since he's off running his own studio, Trigger.

Studio Trigger actually had a big reveal recently of their three new projects. The one that has all the buzz is Promare, since that's got the people behind Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill behind it. The Gridman remake also looks interesting as well, especially given that it was one of the few Tatsunoko toku productions that actually made it to the US.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:21 AM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Bah. If you can't find enough good anime to watch, it's completely on you.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:28 AM on July 8, 2017


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