Going into this short (6 episodes) anime series I had absolutely no idea what to expect. After finishing it I'm really unable to say if this was a good or bad idea! The basic premise of the show is almost too offbeat to describe. It features a young lad, his maid/intergalactic asskicker, guitars as weapons, a TV-faced robot that has a tendency to swallow the boy and save the day and perhaps most strangely - weird robots growing out of the boy's head.

As the first show begins you don't really get much of an indication of the hyperactive oddity it will later become. I guess this is a kind of deliberate "lull the viewer into a false sense" tactic but it did leave me slightly irked when the madness kicked in a few minutes into the show. And when it does happen it jolts into gear at a sudden and furious pace of random craziness. It took me at least the entire 1st show and a bit to get used to this as I've only really watched the more serious side of anime (with the exception of SD Gundam). However once you do get onto the same level as the show (if that's even entirely possible) it's quite a rewarding little mad thing. In the six episodes you become quite attached to the characters and their varying odd traits.

The animation is pretty good stuff, though they use a variety of weird changes in style to emphasise the off-the-wall goings on. At least twice the show turns into a shaking, slightly animated manga where the viewer is whizzed around the varying panes. In the subtitled version things get rather hard to keep up with during these parts but they're an interesting idea nonetheless. There's also a good coherent visual style to FLCL, so everything looks like it fits, with little nor no exceptions. The enemy "robots" are suitably offbeat designs with a good feel of character to them, as is the protagonist TV-faced robot.

It's hard to rate FLCL and say if it's bad or good. At the end of it I was so utterly blitzed by it that I couldn't say. I certainly didn't hate it and I don't think I dislike it either. I guess if I didn't dislike or hate it then I must have liked it. I'd definitely recommend it as an offbeat experience, probably best watched in one session like I did. I think it's one where you have to make up your mind, I don't see it as being the same for each person that watches it.

Written to Sepultura - Dusted