Adult Swim Review: Fooly Cooly
Fooly Cooly (aka, FLCL, Furi Kuri)Fooly Cooly (aka, FLCL or Furi Kuri) is a new anime coming to Adult Swim on August 4 at midnight. As a huge anime otaku, I heard great things about Fooly Cooly and I couldn't wait to see it! However, after wasting $90 buying three DVDs containing two episodes apiece, I can't say I wasn't disappointed. This is a perfect example of how not to do an anime. While the animation and music are just barely adequate, the rest of the show falls flat on all counts.
Content: 2/10
Story: 1/10
Animation: 6/10
Sound: 4/10
DVD Extras: 3/10
First of all, I can't believe Cartoon Network would pick this show up. If you can believe it, there are only SIX EPISODES! And not a very good six episodes to boot! To think, with so many great anime shows like Pokémon or Dragon Ball Z that have literally hundreds of episodes, Cartoon Network would waste their money AND Adult Swim's airtime on a show like this. I have a hard time believing that this would even air on Japanese TV, let alone be forced onto Adult Swim. Adult Swim has been having a streak of bad anime with some stinkers like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Inuyasha, but Fooly Cooly is by far the worst thing to air on Adult Swim yet. Whatever happened to the great Adult Swim animes like Reign: The Conqueror (a fantastic sci-fi) or Pilot Candidate (the best action in an anime to date)?
The main problem with Fooly Cooly is that this show just makes no sense. I watched the entire series three times and I still can't figure out what the plot is. And since a show really can't be entertaining without a cohesive plot-line, I found myself getting very bored and not paying attention most of the time. They just try too hard to be weird and unpredictable, but overall it just does nothing but confuse the viewer, and I really have no idea why any show would try to do that. It really seems like the people making it don't even care. Well, if you want to know the story of Fooly Cooly, it's basically all about robots. Puh-leeze! As if we need another anime about fighting robots! Those expecting something original from this show will most definitely want to skip it entirely. The characters are completely flat and uninteresting, but I guess there really is no time for character development in a show that only has six episodes. -_-;; This show shouldn't even be on Adult Swim Action because there's barely any action in it! And it can't be on Adult Swim Comedy because it's not very funny at all! I really don't know what kind of audience this show was made for.
The sound of the show leaves much to be desired. First of all, the dub is quite awful, it makes all the characters sound more annoying and "kiddy" than they actually are, not to mention needlessly filling the entire series with contemporary American references. This is one of the few times that I could bare listening to the Japanese audio just because the English dub was so bad. The music of the show is done by a Japanese pop band called The Pancakes, and while they're apparently pretty famous in Japan, most of their music is quite bothersome and more often than not adds nothing to the show. Their loud heavy-metal really makes one long for the old-fashioned synthesized catchy pop that most animes (luckily) have.
The animation on Fooly Cooly is, while not great, probably the best thing about this otherwise unreedeemable show. Of course it never reaches the animated wonderland that shows like Spirited Away have, the animation on Fooly Cooly frequently relies on using ugly computer animated effects, not to mention that it seems like they can't even stay on one animation style! Sometimes the animation of the show will be watchable, but then two seconds later they'll switch to some ugly South Park-style animation! Ugh!
The Fooly Cooly DVDs are complete rip-offs, at only two episodes per disc at $35!!! Um, hello Pioneer, I can buy any other company's anime DVDs with eight episodes for only $18.99! Whoever would waste their money on that, I haven't a clue. The extras on this DVD include a 28-page booklet insert that is way too long to read. Basically it explains all the "jokes" that were ruined in the English dub of the series. Also, there's the usual extras, director's commentary, animated menus, trailers, etc.
In short, don't fall into Fooly Cooly's hype! I fail to see what so many people find so endearing about something as boring and poorly-done as this! Avoid Fooly Cooly at all costs! It's not even worth watching just to see how bad it is! Believe me, this is even worse than Inuyasha, which until now was Adult Swim's worst show! Bad plot, bad music, and a horrendous dub make this a show to definitely skip!