Flip Flappers (First Episode Impressions)

Flip Flappers

First Episode Impressions

The following is my 'first impression' review on Crunchyroll:

Flip Flappers seems to fit in the same kind of niche of "headtrip" anime that FLCL does or did, even down to that same kind of bright, deceptively simple art style. Underneath of that apparent simplicity is a strong focus on action and movement over detailed still shots, which lends the whole thing a very 'living', visceral, 'alive' sort of a feeling. Actually, it felt to me like that's part of the whole larger underlying theme... Episode one opens up to a near-silent classroom during an exam. The silence itself is almost shocking, and the show only leads us out of that space very slowly. When Papika is introduced (multiple times), she's like a distillation of pure 'livingness', in sharp contrast to the quiet, maybe suffocatingly mundane existence we're shown Cocona existing in.

It plays out like someone captured a particularly coherent daydream, and it seems to be freely borrowing symbolism from and throwing shout-outs to all kinds of stuff: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Hansel and Gretel, Alice in Wonderland, Super Mario, FLCL, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Paprika, and Ghibli movies, among others... (One of the characters is even named 'Papika' -- notably the redhead associated with the dream world.) There's also an undercurrent of darkness intermingled with everything that seems to be poised to take the show to interesting places.

A featured article on Crunchyroll's newsfeed calls Flip Flappers "Sensory Storytelling", and I'd have to agree. As of the end of episode one, literally nothing was explained at all... but I'm wondering if it really needs to be? That actually seems to be the point of it: A relief from the everyday world where everything has to make sense, and where we're so focused on words, both written and spoken, that we almost forget about movement, living, and being. There's a lot of focus in this anime on nonverbal communication. (Action and reaction shots are delightfully smoothly animated, and despite the huge eyes, the characters' faces are anything but static...) Actions really are speaking much louder than words here.

This could get interesting very fast. Or very slow. Or maybe just drag us along like dreams do, and leave us wondering what the heck it all meant, in the end... if anything.

As for the yuri element, it doesn't seem overly servicey* or cloying at this point, and has just about the right amount of sweetness, but it's hard to say anything about it at this point, with only the first episode to go on.

* Minus the magical crotch jewel and the somewhat gropey robot.

So... Some other thoughts (peppered with dubiously related screencaps):



Wow, I feel as if this show's already been out for a year. I was surprised when I saw that the first episode had broadcast... It felt like it'd already run a full season while low on my radar. I actually felt the same way about Re:Zero, because it was (and still is) being so heavily covered in the news on anime sites. Flip Flappers may be functionally a really niche, bizarre sleeper hit, but it looks like it's been promoted pretty well by fans. It looks like I can't say the same for more mainstream outlets, though...

Whoa, creepy...

I felt as if Papika was extremely well executed as a foil for Cocona. Better yet, a classic sort of a foil -- it's as if she's some element of Cocona's repressed subconscious come out to rescue her from the suffocatingly mundane, grey existence she's superficially thriving (or even overachieving) in. I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop that relationship.

Cocona's journey from her successful but monotonous mundane existence into the dream world I felt was expertly handled. It's especially hard to put into words because of the nature of the show itself... Almost everything of interest that happens is all nonverbal. There's no "Oh! Look at that girl on the hoverboard!" There's just response. So quiet it's almost not noticeable. I've actually been waiting for a show like this, hoping someone would try an experiment like this, for quite a long while...

I feel like the storytelling in the first episode is actually excellent, but since it's made out of deeply nonverbal, dreamlike things and cues, it's something very difficult to follow unless a person's still in touch with that weird unspoken realm inside. Nothing is spelled out in the first episode, and that's likely going to continue in the second. (And if it follows the typical pattern of anime, we're going to get some horrible verbal infodump at the end that completely deflates it all.) This is a very different sort of a thing than the stories that make you think. Actually, what it reminds me of -- and this will probably sound very weird to other people -- is Berserk. Except that somehow Berserk succeeds completely in unifying those two things. It's magical in that it somehow makes a person both feel, deeply, and think. (And without forcing anyone to think, so it can be enjoyed at various levels.) Berserk probably stands alone as the only manga, anime, or comic I've ever read or watched in which the subconscious and conscious are in such unison. Which brings me back to this show. In order to make the show, there has to be a lot of planning and talking - verbal stuff, 'thinking'. Uniting these factors in action, and producing the show is extremely difficult. There's good reason why animation is so expensive, and why so often anything animated defaults to limited animation, or reusing the same stock facial expressions and plot devices. It's hard. But the first episode of Flip Flappers looks really promising...

I'm confused by what I should really think of this show. It's like it's 'here' and 'there' at the same time, appropriately enough. Is it empty, shiny, servicey junk putting little girls on display as sexy things and pushing the idolization of 'purity'? Or is it touching on things that, despite the nonsensey tropes of anime it's using, are actually... deep? Deep and touching? Is it just pure randomness, or is it something deeply planned, but in a language most people aren't used to anymore? (That is, the wordless language in dreams, the nonverbal mind.) The real answer here is that it's doing both, and in pretty much completely the opposite way as shows like Kill La Kill. So I guess I'm stuck with both sets of feelings about it. It's not a matter of decision. And time will tell how the real meat of the whole series unfolds. I guess.

 

Not so fast, feral yuri child.

I find dreamlike things like this really refreshing, so I'm looking forward to following this this season.

Into another world through a pipe! It's the Super Cocona Sisters!!