FLCL Grunge

In the town of Okura, a sea of trash drowns the hopes of tomorrow for the youth of today.  For three friends, hope is a distant illusion.  Until one day when a beautiful wild girl named Haruko Haruhara bursts into their lives.  Suddenly, chaos envelops their lives and one by one, Shin, Shonari and Orinoko begin to discover hope amongst the ruins.  Here’s hoping their newfound happiness isnt trampled in Haruko’s neverending quest to attain the power of the being known as Atamusk.

Do we need a sequel to FLCL?  No.  No we do not.  I knew this the moment the original series ended and I have never once wanted to know what came next, what came before or anything in between.  To me, FLCL is perfect.  It’s everything Anime does best and then some and has long been my all time favorite Anime.  So, does it need a sequel?  No.  Sadly, we’ve gotten a few haven’t we.  And despite my more generous reviews of them back in 2018, I hated FLCL Progressive and FLCL Alternative, maybe the latter more than the former.  Neither had any of the spontaneity, soul or whimsical magic of the original, instead opting for more serious character studies that didn’t work or came up short.  That was the concenus amongst many fans of the original but it looks like Adult Swim cant just leave well enough alone.  Hence we in 2023 we got not only one but TWO back to back prequels (I think), which we’ll be looking at over the next two weeks here at the Anime Corner.  First up is FLCL Grunge. 
 
At first glance, Grunge looks like everything FLCL would normally parody and I’m talking about the visuals.  Part of what makes FLCL such a gem is how incredible the hand drawn Anime style is and how far it can be taken.  Yes there’s CG here and there but regular 2D drawing skills can get the job done just fine.  The CG stylings of Grunge don’t make the best first impression.  They lack the spontaneity of the original and most movements come off pretty stiff at best.  When the 2D does slip through the cracks, I dare say it looks superior by a mile.  My gripes with the animation not withstanding, I must admit, much like Motoko Kusinagi in the CG Anime, Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045, CG Haruko still looks hot as hell.  But yeah, trying to take a CG approach to FLCL seems like a betrayal.
 
The story is actually told through three separate yet interconnected tales with all three of the main protagonists, with Haruko being the glue that brings everything together…sort of.  I’ll be honest, I like the lead trio.  Shin, Shonari and Orinoko all surpass the leads of previous FLCL continuations in likeability and all three do find their own strength to grow out of their situations and forge their own paths.  There is, however, a balancing issue between these three interwoven tales.  There’s the amount of storytime dedication, with Oriniko getting arguably the shortest story.  There’s also the amount of impact Haruko has on each character individually, she and Shonari hardly share any screentime together in Shonari’s episode.  In a way, I can see Grunge as an attempt at an anthology style of FLCL, which could work.  Here, it’s very rough even if the characters do shine in their own way. 
 
A lot of that aforementioned balancing issue comes from the fact that FLCL Grunge clocks in at only 3 episodes, half of the length of the first three seasons. By the time we get to the midpoint of Orinoko’s story, we’re high tailing it to the finale and it left me feeling a bit shortchanged.  I guess it goes hand in hand with Haruko, it is all about her and her wants and needs in the end (and yet she’s actually pretty kind to the trio in her own way at points).  But that also leaves a lot of loose ends up in the air and a lot of other plot points unexplained.  Is Haruko really stirring up all of this trouble in the hopes of drawing out Atamusk?  Why start a gang war?  How does any of this set the stage for her first meeting with Naota down the line.  Also, why is Amarao even here?  The fan favorite agent with “Those Eyebrows” gets nothing to do here and is entirely wasted but the same could be said of FLCL’s normally reliable greatest weapon.  Point is, in such a short length, FLCL Grunge is too overstuffed and leaves too many questions unanswered to feel like a fully satisfying watch. 
 
Once again, The Pillows return to deliver their usual brand of excellence that made even FLCL 2 & 3 have something positive to say about them.  With Grunge, it’s…different.  The season is littered with needless callbacks and easter eggs to the original that don’t serve much of a purpose, like Amurao’s presence.  But with The Pillows OST, a lot of it is updated music from the first season (God I still cant believe I have to say FLCL has a Season One).  There are nice new songs here and there and they sound good, I mean it is The Pillows, they’ve become JROCK legends for a reason.  But even here if feels like they want to fall back on some of their greatest hits from the first FLCL but the tracks are remastered and rerecorded with varying results.  Idk, what we get is fine but I feel like even The Pillows are sick of Adult Swim thinking theyre the only reason why people like FLCL and keep bringing them back.  It’s the same kind of groan I gave listening to Yoko Kanno’s classic tunes being used in shuffle mode on the Netflix Cowboy Bebop series.
 
Does FLCL Grunge at least deserve a better score than Progressive or Alternative?  Well the story is too short and kind of disjointed.  The animation can be an eyesore at times.  And save for a couple of nice new tunes, The Pillows just recycle a lot of their best tracks from the original series for this one.  The only saving grace is Shin, Shonari and Orinoko and their incredibly likeable personalities and stories.  Theyre a far cry from the more cynical Naota and way better people than Alternative’s incredibly selfish leading lady.  But at only three episodes, FLCL Grunge only scratches the surface of a possibly decent story in favor of jetting towards a confusing conclusion for the sake of not outstaying its welcome I guess?  Honestly, I need to re rate FLCL 2 & 3 and if I were to give them a 7 and 5 respectively, I guess I’d give FLCL Grunge a 6/10.  The characters do a lot of the saving when everything else wants to underwhelm or lean heavy on nostalgia for what we’ve all known for a long time…there is only ONE FLCL and it isnt this one.
 
So, can yet another prequel win that challenge?  Well apparently it features the return of FLCL Alternative’s protagonist so…I’m not getting my hopes up on this one.  See you next week for my look at the 5^th (and Dear God hopefully last) season of FLCL with FLCL Shoekaze right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.