FLCL Shoekaze

It’s been ten years since an event gave Masaki Ofuji the ability to see creatures from another reality.  When an unpredictable girl named Harumi Oraisho drags him to the top of a mysterious tower, Masaki’s life gets a lot more complicated than he wished.  Now Masaki finds himself with an entire worlds power at his fingertips.  One girl wants him to unleash it.  Another with a history with this kind of crazy wants to save the world.  Which destiny will Masaki choose and what new wonders or disasters will it bring?

FLCL Grunge might not have been the prettiest bulb in the FLCL collection nor did it have a complete story by the end.  But its still miles better than the three episode slough I just had to go through called FLCL Shoekaze.  Even if the season does give us a fully fresh new OST from The Pillows and returns the visuals to their proper 2D state, everything else about Shoekaze is boring from the get go, gets irritating the more it goes on and by the end, when the near end of the world apocalypse is on screen, I wont lie, I was looking up videos I’ve watched on YouTube dozens of times to make myself feel better.  This ones bad, even by bad sequel/prequel standards (yes this is another prequel to the first series). 
 
It doesn’t help that this is a direct sequel to the worst (now second worst) FLCL season, FLCL Alternative.  Which means we get the return of the worst protagonist of the entire franchise, Kana Koumoto.  Now ten years old and thinking she can rock a professional pants suit, Kana is still the same girl we had to deal with back in FLCL Alternative, loud, obnoxious and prone to complaining about every little problem.  I’d say the show takes way too much time trying to fill us in on what she’s been up to since the end of Alternative, almost making the show all about her again instead of the leads…but I’ll get to our equally infuriating co leads in time.  We also get the return of Kanada, who I almost forgot was even a character in Alternative, and he’s just gone completely off the rails for a poorly last minute explained reason.  What’s worse, I feel like to understand anything going on with Kana and Kanada I’d have to rewatch Alternative to see where things left off…and that’s something I do not want to do.  Give the other FLCL Seasons a little credit, they are self contained stories.  Shoekaze breaks that trend and I refused to do homework to get caught up.
 
Now, onto the leads.  Masaki is boring and Harumi is a wannabe Haruko.  Yeah in a shocking twist on the formula, our resident Richenbacher bashing gal is totally absent from Shoekaze.  Instead we’re left with the horniest, thirstiest high school student who speaks in riddles, innuendos and non understandable Loony Tunes.  Harumi is so all over the place for the bulk of this season that even when Shoekaze tries to take itself seriously and explore her history, I just didn’t care.  Actually, that could be Shoekaze’s greatest sin: it takes itself way too seriously, maybe even more seriously than FLCL Progressive did (at least the leads were both far better).  Harumi’s zaniness doesn’t even offset Masaki’s dour nihilistic attitude.  The dude is so dry of personality and character its hard to even like him, much less his Co-Co for Co Co Puffs love interest.  The fact that we watch these two climb a tower, with Masaki constantly out of breath while Harumi flashes her panties for him at any given chance, is actually a nice metaphor for the trail that Shoekaze becomes.
 
You’d think that the return to 2D Animation would help things but there’s hardly anything visually fun or amazing in Shoekaze.  Even when the season dials things up in the last episode, it just makes me miss how unpredictable and seamless the animation changes in the first FLCL were.  Even the ghosts that Masaki constantly sees aren’t anything special.  As for The Pillows, well unlike FLCL Grunge, they have a fully original OST here and it’s probably the only thing truly good about Shoekaze.  When things got really boring, it makes you wish there was a Soundtrack Only option so you could just listen to it while tuning out the story that I lost interest in well before the mid point of the second episode.
 
FLCL Shoekaze is the lowest point of a franchise that shouldn’t even be a franchise.  The characters are grating and tiresome and the returning ones from FLCL Alternative have not been missed.  The story is boring, takes way too long to get going and by the time it does, I could care less.  It’s strange that this show shares the same three episode length as FLCL Grunge.  But whereas Grunge felt incomplete bit with actual promise, Shoekaze drags on forever and feels like another 6 episode marathon of the worst that FLCL unfortunately has to offer.  The original FLCL is still my all time favorite Anime despite the attrociaous and disappointing follow ups that have succeeded it.  My advice: watch it and only it.  But if you (God forbid) wanna watch any of the other seasons, do yourself a favor and skip Shoekaze…and Alternative for that matter too.
 
2/10
 
Next week, Summer begins at the Gundam Anime Corner.  The Month of May kicks off with a pretty looking Ufotable offering that has Swordsmen, Demons, timeline hoping and…wait are we sure this isnt an Ufotable production of Fate/Grand Order?   By long time request, Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu starts Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.