Fooly Cooly

Plot Summary

Naota and Mamimi

Naota Nandaba is a cynical teen going through puberty. He lives in Mabase, Japan, with his father, a baker, his senile grandfather, and is constantly harassed by his older brother's absent-minded girlfriend, Samejima. He finds life in Mabase too ordinary, and is very skeptical of the iron-shaped industrial complex, Medical Mechanica, which he deems to be an "omen." On his way to school, he is run over and essentially murdered by Haruhara Haruko and her vespa.

Canti

Terrified, she performs CPR and then smashes him in the head with her electric guitar, which revives him. He soon grows a rectangular bump on his head which episodically spawns a large mech which has to be taken down by Haruko and her assistant robot Canti.

Main Characters

Naota Nandaba

Naota and Eri Ninamori

Haruhara Haruko

Samejima Mamimi

Eri Ninamori

Canti

Production

FLCL was produced by Gainax, the Japanese studio known for creating Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. The story was written by Yoji Enokido and directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, who also worked on Evangelion. It was licensed for Australian television in 2000 by Madman Entertainment, and for Canadian and American television by Funimation Entertainment. It first aired in the U.S. during 2003 on Adult Swim, and had decent rotation for all six episodes.

Reception

The main cast of characters.

The anime received critical acclaim for its unconventional storytelling and cast of characters,
and also garnered a cult following. It was released for home media in Japan and the US on six separate DVDs in 2005 and 2007 respectively, but sales suffered due to a limited print and high pricing. Funimation Entertainment then re-released the complete series in one case on DVD and Blu-Ray in 2011.

Music

Single cover for "Ride On Shooting Star" by The Pillows.

The series uses an extensive amount of songs from the Japanase band The Pillows. The credits song, "Ride On Shooting Star," is the most famous inclusion, and several others are used as background or for a motif, such as their song "Carnival" used to set a moody tone or their song "Little Buster" being used only during fight sequences. Three soundtracks comprised of around thirty songs by The Pillows were created for use in FLCL

Barbara Goodson	Naota Nandaba	4 eps.
Melissa Fahn	Eri Ninamori	4 eps.
Mayumi Shintani	Haruhara Haruko	4 eps.
Kari Wahlgren	Haruhara Haruko	4 eps.
Stephanie Sheh	Samejima Mamimi	4 eps.
Jun Mizuki	Naota Nandaba	4 eps.
Suzuki Matsuo	Kamon Nandaba	4 eps.
Hiroshi Ito	Shigekuni Nandaba	4 eps.
Steve Kramer	Shigekuni Nandaba (English)	1 eps.
Joe Martin	Kamon Nandaba	1 eps.

1	Fooly Cooly	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/05/2003
2	Fire Starter	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/06/2003
3	Marquis de Carabas	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/07/2003
4	Full Swing	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/08/2003
5	Brittle Bullet	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/09/2003
6	FLCLimax	0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5	08/13/2003

Name	Fooly Cooly
Status	Mini-Series
Date of 1st Airing	April 26, 2000
Date of Last Airing	March 16, 2001
Show Type
Original Air Day	Monday
Original Air Time
Show Length	30
Network(s)
Language(s)	Add a new language Japanese English
Genre(s)	Add a new genre Animation Comedy Sci-Fi
Theme(s)	Add a new theme anime robots multiple storylines
Alias(es)	FLCL