When the three powerhouse creators of Eden of the East, Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion bumped heads, they spawned the series that broke all the rules - then broke the mold.
Naota is a detached sixth-grader afflicted by the pangs of puberty. He's fooling around with his brother's ex-girlfriend when a crazed girl on a motor scooter runs him over, brains him with a bass guitar, and moves into his house. This pink-haired girl, Haruko - who claims she's an alien - hurls Naota into the middle of a mega-corporation's secret agenda. Oh, and now giant battling robots shoot from his skull. Mix in mind-bending animation and tunes that echo through your cerebellum to top off the trip that will have you falling hard for FLCL.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2713 in DVD
• Brand: Funimation
• Released on: 2011-02-22
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Animated, Color, Widescreen, Subtitled
• Original language: Japanese, English
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 150 minutes

Amazon.com
An outrageous mixture of science-fiction action, mecha misadventures, sinister coporate plots, and broad slapstick comedy, FLCL ("Fooly Cooly") has been a fan favorite since the six-part OAV debuted in 2000. Things have been going badly for sixth-grader Naota since his older brother Tasuku left to play pro baseball in America. At the opening of the series, he complains, "Nothing amazing happens here. Only the ordinary." Then Haruko, a girl from outer space, charges in on her motor scooter and clobbers him with an electric guitar. Her arrival upsets Tasuku's old girlfriend Mamimi, who regards bugging Naota as her prerogative. The fragmentary plot quickly dissolves into a string of chaotic events involving the main characters, Naota's lecherous father and grandfather, and various mecha (which grow from horns on Naota's head). Looming over the town is the mysterious Medical Mechanica factory, which looks like a giant iron--and is part of a sinister plot "to smooth whole worlds." The freewheeling nuttiness of FLCL helped set the pattern for Dokkoida?!, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, and other self-reflexive comedies. The episodes feature references to everything from Doraemon and Gundam to South Park. The bold graphic style of the animation shifts radically from scene to scene (including two sequences done as manga pages) and anticipates the look of Gurren Lagnann. FLCL is an off- the-wall series that will delight otaku who value comedy and action over coherency. (Unrated, suitable for ages 14 and older: violence, risqué humor, brief nudity. tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

(1. Fooly Cooly, 2. Fire Starter, 3. Marquis de Carabas, 4. Full Swing, 5. Brittle Ballet, 6. FLCLimax)

Most helpful customer reviews

86 of 93 people found the following review helpful.
A Review of the Blu-ray Disc Presentation
By Deviation
FLCL, or Fooly Cooly is standard definition digital animation. As such, you'll never see a true HD presentation for this wonderful show. This Blu-ray Disc is an upscale of the SD material.

What's the benefit then to owning this show on BD instead of DVD? Artifacts. I own the original SyncPoint DVDs. Despite only having two episodes per disc and being derived from a digital master, those DVDs are ridden with very visible and distracting macroblocking and mosquito noise. It's a matter of how old the discs are and how inefficient the MPEG-2 codec is.

This BD presentation of FLCL is not perfect. It's been sharpened a bit, so the line work stands out a bit more than I think it's supposed to. The colors are also more saturated than they were on the DVDs and I found it a bit distracting. Aliasing is present, but that's unavoidable with SD material. The aliasing is far worse on the DVDs.

Despite being an imperfect upscale of SD source material, the BD for Fooly Cooly is by far the best available presentation we have stateside thanks to the elimination of artifacts and the reduction in aliasing. And at the friendly pricing (the whole series for the same price as what a single one of the three DVDs used to cost) here on Amazon, there's no reason at all to avoid this release.

Oh, and the lossless stereo track is wonderful. Anyone who watches this show will fall in love with The Pillows.

106 of 123 people found the following review helpful.
Your head is empty!
By E. A Solinas
Anime can be pretty weird -- just look at series like "Paranoia Agent" and "Boogiepop Phantom." Really weird, sometimes impossible to totally understand.

But for sheer strangeness and kookiness, the winner has got to be "Fooly Cooly (FLCL)." Even as it pokes fun at typical anime, it tells the surrealist story of a very odd coming-of-age, complete with strange plots, oddball characters, and robots sprouting out of a young boy's head.

Naota is a young boy living what he sees as an oppressively dull existance, in a quiet city dominated by the Medical Mechanica building. The closest thing to excitement is fending off the advances of his brother's troubled girlfriend Mamimi.

Then sudenly a girl on a Vespa runs him over, resuscitates him with a smooch, and then bashes him over the head with a bass guitar. That evening, Naota finds that instead of a bump, he has a horn growing out of his head, and no idea what it is or how to get rid of it.

Despite his efforts to avoid her, Naoto's kooky father has hired the crazy Vespa girl, Haruko, as a housekeeper. To make matters worse, his "horn" turns out to be a robot and a giant mechanical hand -- springing out of a channel in his head. And you thought YOU had problems.

The five episodes that follow don't get any more normal, as Naota must deal with the Mayor's daughter getting his strange power, cat ears, more robots, baseball, bombs, the Pirate King Atomsk, seaweed eyebrows, and the interplanetary Medical Mechanica which may or may not be intent on galactic domination. It all clashes in the final episode.

For newbies, "FLCL" is probably the WORST anime to start with. It's a parodic mishmash of anime in-jokes -- giant robots, fanservice, boy falls for kooky abusive alien girl -- and a storyline that is bizarre to the point where you may not be able to understand what's going on. But oh, is it a fun ride.

As if the plot weren't hyperactive enough, the animation is exaggerated and crazy, full of distorted faces and wild robot battles. Lots of action and overdramatic dialogue ("OH NO.... OOOOOOOOO... an American GIRLFRIEND!"). As if it weren't funny enough, the director sprinkles in homages to other shows, ranging from other anime to "South Park."

And the characters are as bizarre as the story itself. Naoto starts off as a typical bored preteen, but slowly gains confidence and guts as he gets immersed in the weirdness. Haruko is a completely off-the-wall kook who is apparently an alien. And there's a bunch of other weird characters -- troubled pyromaniacs, wistful robots, preteen pervs, and a guy from Interstellar Immigration.

"FLCL" is perhaps the strangest anime in existance. It's also enough to blow the top off of your head, with the strange characters and wildly surrealist plot. Fooly Cooly!

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
The Blu Ray is a GOOD UPSCALE
By Rover
I own the new Blu ver. Its sitting in front of me. I also own the US DVD from the first time it was put out on shelves on this side of the pacific. The difference is minimal but on some of the area shots or even the background shots, like the first scene of the bridge or building shots, things look a lot better, which I can't really figure out, but everything else is just a slight improvement as one would think it should be since it is an upscale. The new cover art though is what really makes it for me though. The packaging is amazing and it looks like some one in funi's graphic arts department had been working on this for a while, one might even think before they had it. I am such a huge fan of the series that all the before mentioned was enough for me to re-buy.

If you already own the series though and it didn't change your life as a teenager or lead to you finding your unified theory on life, then its debatable if the $20-30 for the Blu is worth it. Its good but I would only go for it if you can't shut up about the show if someone mentions it.

If you don't own it though.... BUY!!! NOW!!! and buy the Blu since the DVD isn't that much cheaper and the Blu is an improvement.