FLCL Themes - other than "don't give LSD-25 to children"

[heart havok]

i want to know what you all believe the main themes of FLCL to be. surely, like many of the greatest Anime series out there, there are countless possibilities for themes or relations. in Lain, we have: the internet geek, she who is a loner, christ, a young girl not accepted in her family, humanity, existance, 'true' memory, etcetera... in Eva, we have: maturing and growing, biblical revelations, the hedgehog's dillhema, to save the world you must first save yourself, etcetera... in BeBop, we have: do you have a comrade, you'll carry that weight, what is it to be alive, etcetera...

but FLCL... FLCL... FLCL...

this series, FLCL, seems to be about the usual young boy growing up, but i believe it also touches the ideas of repression of imagination and belief in imagination {or, 'true self'}.

i found millions of different symbolic possibilities, but the largest one that i feel to believe most in is the idea that the series is mostly symbolic for imagination and belief. thru the entire series, we have an insanely CRACKED OUT humour and beautiful animation shooting across the screen at crack speEd. we have oddball things happening in and about, and revolving around our main protagonist. yet all the while, the antagonist could be one of many things. two of these being either.. he who is trying to stop that which creates all this imaginative madness. or - the imaginative madness that the previous possibility downtalks and makes out to be such an evil thing. all the while, i relate to this series as today's society represses the human imagination and creativity. the creative kids are the oddballs, the creative kids are the weirdos and the losers. in society, you are demanded to live a boring, "normal" life, in society, you are demanded to be a rigid, "normal" being.

in FoolyCooly, Naota struggles to deny this.







what do you fell the main theme is to FoolyCooly?

[The cruel angel's thesis]

FLCL has many themes, but in my opinion the most apparent one is to "act your age". You see throughout the series that Naota and Ninamori often try to act older than they really are, and I read in an interview with FLCL's director that Haruko is meant to symbolize childhood/immaturity and Haruko hitting Nao with her guitar is a way to try to get him to realize that he should act his age. ....or something like that. The interview was on ex.org if I remember correctly...

[heart havok]

well of course there are alot of themes... i was just hoping people could post about a theme that they related to personally or that they simply felt the series was strongly suggesting {in some odd or strange way/shape/form/idea/manipulation/mutation or simply some CRACKED OUT sense.}

[Liuokin]

Life goes on... no matter what happends...

thats probably what I've sucked up as most from the series.

[heart havok]

ahh, definitely see how it touches that one.

what'd you think? =)

[Nulani]

I think most animes got more then one theme, and we'll all see different themes anyways.
Personally I've viewed FLCL as an anime that says; Act like yourself - I'm not sure why I think that, I just's just something that've popped into my head *blinks*.

[JadeFire]

I feel like each character is surrounded by a different theme and idea. With Mamimi you have the general idea that loneliness leads to desperation and anger at times (her revenge method *cough*) and that just because some people do weird, and even bad things doesn't necessarily make them bad. She shows moments of being kind of disturbed, with the cigs in a circle, her pyromania, and her acts of revenge. She isn't cruel though, just hurting and neglected. She has no real friends, not even in Naoto, who passes her by when he has someone he feels is better, and even once stares at her oddly when she's in the lake with the rest of his friends without ever defending her.

Around her life, is this general feeling. We see alot of the worst of the characters when the revolve around Mamimi. We don't know jack about Naoto's brother, except from the beginning what we do know is in a way he ditched her for someone else. Then Naoto kind of ditched her himself when he was more comfortable with Haruko. I get the general sense that like Gainax's Kare Kano, they want to show that people are capable of evil but still do not lack goodness. We see that with Arima and his 'darker side' but although at times he comes off as being a not so nice person, he can't easily be interpretted as evil or mean for that matter, just human.

While with FLCL the basic feeling I get is humanity. We see sides of humanity and mainly the strong feeling that although some people may seem to be something on the outside, they're kind of all the same inside. All of the characters have this potential to be something extraordinary, and each have moments (especially Naoto) when they are extraordinary. I think that's the point that hit me the strongest, that lurking potential. Naoto shows how jealousy can even lead to murder (he almost did kill his dad, if it was his dad lol) yet he saves the town twice (basically). With Naoto Mamimi seems carefree alot of the time and happy, yet alot of the times there is a much darker side to her personality. Haruko shows alot of kindness towards Naoto at times, but at the end she pretty much gets down to the idea that she was using him all along, so its kind of confusing.

So, to cut it to an end (I always have such long posts bleh) it seems like Gainax once again explored what they left off with Kare Kano, but much more subtley, that most people are capable of bad and good, and everyone to some extent is somewhat two-faced, but most aren't bad, just human.

[Pen2]

Well I've just sat down and watched the series again, and I have to say the theme that seems to post the most interest to me is Sweet vs Bitter.

I'll expound on this tommorrow, but I thought I'd open it up to see what someone else thought of it.

[JadeFire]

Well.... with Gainax they do alot of... 'teens growing up' type shows ^.^; and FLCL is no exception really.....

The sweet vs. bitter is about adulthood and reaching it. Older guys... mature one's tend to drink the bitter/sour drinks, and even though Naoto dislikes bitter/sour drinks... he succumbs to the pressure of being an adult even if he dislikes it and takes a drink.... later on at the end of the show he goes back to non-sour stuff, soooooo I think its safe to assume he learned to just be himself and not rush life.