FLCL

I watched the entire Anime awhile back, and thought it was a disgrace to all anime. It is my hobby to watch (study) anime, and I am no professional by any means; however, at this point in my life I have watched 150 different anime series from many genre, and believe fooly cooly to be the worst anime that I've experienced. I understand the story, the characters, and the purpose which the anime metaphorically brings to us, but I still found it highly pethetic if not offensive (and I've seen some really offensive anime in the past). The only thing well done with this anime, was the use of analogies to tell the story/point of the author. Other then that, the art was terrible, the music was terrible, the character development was terrible, and the story line (full of well used analogies) was terrible. I cannot rate this anime more than one star, but everyone should still watch it so they know what a terrible anime looks like.

Fooly Cooly (romanized: Furi Kuri) can be watched, re-watched, and re-watched again, but you might never get the "real" meaning. There are thousands of ways one can see representation (i.e robots coming out of Naota's forehead= metaphor for adolescence) but in the 4 times I watched this show, I still don't understand it. But that is precisely what makes it special. It is so off-the-wall insane and beautiful that you shouldn't try to overanalyze it. Just watch, get sucked it, and smile. Well done, Gainax. Congrats on creating an anime that forces you to think beyond the pale.

"To say that Fooly Cooly is completely coherent would be a lie. To say that it's completely incoherent and nonsensical is also a lie. It's a tale about adolescence told through fantastic and metaphorical means, where girls are literally as alien as most boys believe them to be, and preteen sexual tensions are realized through phallic giant robots. But this is no psychoanalytical show by any means. If there are any surreal, dream-like interpretations to be made, then they need to be made with this in mind: dreams don't always make sense. And neither does FLCL. But it's one helluva ride."
The rest of this review can be found at:
http://theanimeguardians.blogspot.com/2011/12/flcl-in-depth-review.html#more

That's what I really think this is. It's art. Sure anime can have really awesomely detailed animation and have a good story with some clever twists and maybe even sometimes some genuine emotion. But FLCL is a step above any anime, or even most film for that matter. It's one of the few things I've seen that attempts to combine animation, and art and music and actually succeeds. And it's completely it's own thing. Nothing like it has ever been done before or since. Like a lot of other people who have commented on this my first exposure to this show was on Adult Swim at 2 AM or some such hour. I was probably 1/2 drunk and it just confused the hell out of me. But that's what hooked me. I LOVED the fact that I couldn't understand it. The next day I sought out the whole series online and watched them all.I was truly moved by it. I feel like it's teen angst just exploding all over the screen. It still doesn't entirely make sense to me but that's the beautiful thing about it. It doesn't have to MEAN SOMETHING. It just evokes emotion and spins out of control with all it's crazy energy. I think it's truly brilliant.