Fooly Cooly (review)

F L C L

Have you suffered injury as the result of an automobile accident? Alien girls on yellow Vespas constantly running you down? Concerned over the number of giant robots sprouting from your forehead like mechanical tumors? Constantly afflicted by random acts of sex, violence, and ubiquitous, unpredictable plot twists? If you answered yes to any of the previous inquiries, then you can probably sympathize with Naota, the protagonist of Studio Gainax and Production I.G.'s spasmodic and stylish experimental anime series- Fooly Cooly.

What is Fooly Cooly? Not your typical anime, that's what. In fact, it's not your typical anything. Released on three volumes, each featuring two half-hour episodes, Fooly Cooly is a visual tone poem, an ode to multiple genres of anime, and a fucking good time. Fooly Cooly is both a satire and a celebration of all of the stereotypical qualities of anime that turn so many people away from it. Ironic and self-aware, yet revelling in it's nonsensical exaggeratedness and tricked out gonzo style. We're talking about an anime that knows it's an anime, and the results are equal mecha parts ridiculous, retarded, and revolutionary.

Over the top doesn't begin to describe this series, and yet through all crack-smoke cartoon mayhem the show really manages to charm with it's odd assortment of characters, and it's sweet portrayal of the awkardness of adolescence in the face of a mundane reality. What happens from scene to scene is frenzied, random, and rather insignificant in terms of the general plot of the series. Yet underneath all of the madness, is a lesson in accepting change and enjoying life to the fullest- even if a bass-playing alien girl who rides a flying Vespa is driving you crazy.

Fooly Cooly- your eyes will be spinning in your sockets, your mind barely able to keep pace with the plot, and the only sound you'll hear for days will be your own laughter ping-ponging between your ears. Just run with it.

-Christian