Hello everyone, I'm Robin.

Lately I've been working on an article related to the infamous Satanic Panic and the lingering affects it has had on society, but I've decided to take a break from that to talk about an anime that has come to mean a lot to me. This anime in question is of course, FLCL, or Fooly-Cooly. FLCL is a an episode that is only six episodes long with each episode being roughly your average thirty-minute runtime. Despite how short the series is, it's stuck with me in ways that no show ever really has and I find that only a few people I know have the same experience. Before you continue reading this, I highly recommend you watch the show in question or the rest of this article won't make any sense at all. It's available on Hulu as far as I know, and someone uploaded all six episodes to YouTube with the English dub. You shouldn't watch that one though, because that's piracy, which is why I don't have it linked here. Though, it is really easy to find, just saying. As far as English dubs go, I actually like this one a lot, and I do recommend you watch that one. Well, right now I feel like I'm stalling, so let's just get on with it.

(Official promo art made for DVD releases.)

So, if you're just coming back to this post after watching the show for the first time, I imagine a lot of things are racing in your mind. A lot of questions as well, such as:

"What did I just watch?"

"What was up with those eyebrows?"

"Why was Naota able to pull robots out of his head?"

"Is this supposed to be some kinda coming of age story?"

"Why the fuck did Naota's dad dress like a Nazi in episode five?"

"What does Never Knows Best mean?"

All of those, at least, are questions I myself asked after watching this show and I imagine I'm certainly not alone. All six episodes of this show hit me really hard, and I knew I just couldn't figure it all out at once- and for some reason, that bothered me. So I watched it again. Then I watched it again. And again. And again. And now it's one of my favorite shows of all time and I'm still not entirely sure why. When I watch this show, I think of a lot of things- relationships, family, friends, growing up, puberty, depression, anxiety, regrets, loneliness, bad times, good times, happiness, fond memories, forgiveness, acceptance, moving on. I think of all of that and more. But two things stick out to me.

The first is the idea of a crush, or feelings of romance. It's littered all throughout the show and it mainly ties back into our favorite pink-haired alien claiming to be a member of a space police force and wielding a 1974 left-handed Azureglo Rickenbacker 4001c64 electric bass guitar as her primary weapon- Haruko Haruhara. To me, Haruko is a lot of things. She's chaotic, she's funny, I'd even say in some scenes she's badass. But she's also cold, calculating, manipulative. Haruko is to me, a really awesome girl that you fall for and do your best to impress only to realize she only flirts with you or pays attention to you to use you, and I don't think seeing her this way is at all unfounded. She even says as much in the final episode, FLCLimax, during her conversation with Commander Amarao. Amarao has spent the entire series trying to warn Naota that she's not trust worthy at all, and he's proven right when she uses Naota to activate the Medical Mechanica factory plant. She knows full well doing this will cause the end of the world- a mass flattening of the world, smoothing out the wrinkles on the brain so you can't think. She just doesn't care. All she cares about is Atomsk, the pirate king.

Commander Amarao says that Haruko is in love with him, but I'm not entirely sure that's true. To me, Haruko seems more interested in his power. After all, Amarao himself says Atomsk has so much N.O. he can steal entire star systems. N.O., explained once again by Amarao in episode four, Full Swing, is a mental process that utilizes the unique functions of the separate left and right brains and combines them to draw objects and energy across light years of time. It's also one of the most subtle penis jokes I've ever seen, given the growing of horns out of the head and the scene where Haruko uses Amarao's N.O. in episode five, Brittle Bullet, but that's beside the point. Actually, speaking of that scene, that brings me to the point of the eyebrows. They're not just pieces of big seaweed paper that Amarao sticks to his face where his eyebrows should be, they're N.O. blockers. That's why he freaks out and looks for them when they fall of in the scene with him and Haruko and why he gives Naota some in FLCLimax. Amarao is someone who has obviously had history with Haruko, calling her by her supposed real name, Raharu. He seems to be someone who was used Haruko in the past, the same way that she's Naota in the show.

Naota is a kid. That point is driven home a lot in this series. But he's not just a kid- he's a kid who's trying to act like an adult. His father and grandfather are immature and childish, his brother's girlfriend doesn't even seem to be all there, and his friends, well, they're kids as well. Naota is bored, living in a countryside town with nothing to do, when Haruko hits him, with her vespa- and then immediately hits him in the head with her guitar. Over the first five episodes, Naota warms up to Haruko, even developing feelings for her. He's jealous of her and his dad's relationship in Full Swing. He lies to himself and tries to convince himself he loves Mamimi in Brittle Bullet. This all culminates with thee events of FLCLimax, where Haruko and Canti have vanished for a month. Haruko randomly shows up back at the house, and after some back and forth between the two, Naota hugs her and cries, asking where she went. On my first viewing, I thought the scene was a little bittersweet, and thought Haruko asking him to run away with her was her making up for lost time. On my second viewing, I saw that scene completely differently. I noticed Haruko's expression when Naota hugged her, sobbing, and I realized she really didn't care. She didn't really console him, she barely even hugged back. She just kind of stared off into the distance, not really reacting at all. It was as if she had done this before, and I don't doubt for a second that she had and likely will continue to do it after the show ends. To add insult to injury, at the end of the episode she asks him to come with her again, only to smugly tell him he's just a kid and fly off, only leaving him her bass guitar.

(The fight between Haruko and Amarao and his Interstellar Immigration Department agents from Brittle Bullet.)

The other thing I think about when I watch this show is the phrase Mamimi always has written on her cigarettes- "Never Knows Best." It's a phrase that has stuck with me since I first watched the show in January of 2020. It's a phrase that at one point was the thing I constantly thought about. Mamimi Samejima is an interesting character, and her connection to this phrase is just as interesting to me. Mamimi is the supposed girlfriend of Naota's older brother, Tasuku, who she affectionately calls Tao-kun. After he left to go to the states, she began using Naota as a replacement of him. Mamimi calls anyone she can have some kind of loving control over Tao-kun. She calls Naota Tao-kun. She calls the cat she rescued Tao-kun. She even calls the Terminal Core, a dog-like robot that works as the key to the Medical Mechanica factory's activation, Tao-kun, even feeding it motor bikes of people who have wronged her.

Mamimi is poor. Her parents are implied to be separated, or at least don't like each other. She washes herself in the river. She has bags under her eyes and smokes cigarettes despite being in highschool. She's lonely, she's depressed, but more importantly, she's a delusional person. She's lost in this fantasy of her and Tasuku being together despite learning he has an American girlfriend at the end of the first episode. She's deluded herself into thinking the robot that came out of Naota's head is a god from a video game she plays, giving him the name "Lord Canti." Lord Canti is a character from the game she played in episode two, Firestarter, the game in question sharing the same name. It's an endless game in which you burn down parts of a city to prevent demons from taking over. There is not winning. The goal is to burn enough to get the blessing of Lord Cantido, god of the black flame. In that same episode, mysterious acts of arson have been happening all over town, and Naota realizes Mamimi is the arsonist in question. He finds her in front of a burned down elementary school, rumored to have been intentionally burnt down, though that was never proven. He remembers his brother went to school there- alongside Mamimi, who he rescued from the burning school.

I don't think that Mamimi and Tasuku were ever really in a relationship, at least not a real one. Tasuku never calls or responds to any of her messages ever and while Naota's grandpa hates her for dating Tasuku, they never really explain why that's the case. While I don't exactly have evidence for this idea, I think he hates her because he knows Tasuku only dated her out of pity and never actually wanted to be in a relationship with her. Mamimi, in my eyes, looked up to Tasuku as more than just someone to love, but as someone to idolize and worship, and maybe subconsciously as someone to coddle and protect. Not at all a healthy relationship. One thing Mamimi said has stuck with me ever since I first watched the show. It's what she says to Naota about the burned down school in Firestarter when he finds her, and it's something that I think shows why she has some sort of desire for control:

"I hated this place. And so... I wanted it to go away. But it's useless. Even if it burns down, the ash and dust still remain."

This is great and all, but what does "Never Knows Best" mean? Honestly, I'm not too sure of that myself. Maybe it's short for "Mamimi Never Knows Best." I think given the context of everything I said just now, it would make sense. Though, to me it's a phrase that just kind of resonates with me. It hits a cord somewhere with me where I feel like I understand it, but at the same time feel like I don't get it. Maybe it's my general cynicism or depression. Maybe Robin never knows best. I certainly feel that way a lot, and especially thought that all throughout 2020. NKB has sort of felt like a motto of mine. Sort of, but not quite. Howe can it be a motto if I don't really know what it means? I'm honestly not sure. All I know is something about that quote just... hits me. I resonate with it and don't resonate with it at all. I feel like I understand it and feel like I don't understand it. I don't know how to explain it, and I doubt it makes any sense at all what I'm saying right now. I just know that Never Knows Best, and yet I don't even know that.

(Mamimi in episode one, Fooly Cooly.)

FLCL is a show that I wish I had scene much sooner. I think about it a lot, and I love it. The seemingly random shift in art styles from time to time, the incredible soundtrack made by Japanese rock ban The Pillows, the various aspects of all the characters I relate to, the incredibly animated action scenes and expressions, the humor... and of course, Never Knows Best. I'm well aware that there are two new series, FLCL Progressive and FLCL Alternative, and while I appreciate the names being references to two genres of rock music, I must admit that the most interaction I've had with those series is the trailers and the soundtracks that were also done by The Pillows. I guess part of me is scared they'll somehow ruin the original show for me, and I want to avoid that. I know it's silly to think that way, but you never know.

Thank you for reading this. I'm sorry if it comes off as a mess, it's kind of a collection of thoughts more than anything else. If you ignored me at the beginning and haven't watched the show, please do. To quote the original Toonami Adult Swim ad for the show:

"Stop cramming your pie hole with bons bons, and pay attention. This show will change your life. Or, if this is the life you've chosen, you'll love this show."

I don't know if those words hold true for my dad or some of the friends I've show this show to, but I think it does hold true for me. Thanks for reading.

I'll see you all later.

-Robin.

P.S. I genuinely have no fucking idea why Naota's dad was dressed like a Nazi in Brittle Bullet.