FLCL Progressive Episode 3: A Review

It's a Beach Episode! Hooray!

Of course this is still FLCL, and when you've only got six episodes to work with even the beach episode isn't going to be just filler fluff. In fact, I like that the production crew basically subvert the typical anime beach episode from square one. These are usually an excuse to show off the female characters in skimpy swimsuits, light fanservice, so what does Progressive do? It has Hidomi wear an oversized shirt over her cute swimsuit for all the fun beach antics. Not only is that a funny subversion, it's also totally in character.

Hidomi doesn't find the beach amusing

While the summer time fun takes up most of the episode's first half, the series' theme seemed to come into greater focus in the second. After some prodding from Haruko, who I've noticed is becoming more overtly villainous in this sequel, Iide and Hidomi's respective powers activate leading to Hidomi summoning a giant trash island (?) from her forehead. What follows doesn't feel too dissimilar to the original FLCL's ending, with Iide being given a guitar by Jinyu to save Hidomi from both Haruko and herself. The interesting thing I noticed here was that both of our protagonists' powers activated when they were in states of heightened arousal, Iide when he saw Hidomi in her bathing suit and Hidomi when she accidentally kissed Iide's bare chest. Along with their progressing relationship, this could be a sign that Progressive has adolescent sexual maturity as a theme. If so, that fits very well with its predecessor.

Yes, lots of shows have themes about growing up but FLCL beneath all its zaniness was very much about that transition from a child into an adult. Zeroing on one aspect of that, coming to grips with your budding sexuality in Progressive's case, is a good way of carrying on that theme without copying it. It's also rare to see these kind of stories from a nominally female perspective, so good on the production there. We can see evidence of this elsewhere in the episode as well. Haruko refers to Hidomi activating her powers as "overflow," which could be metaphorical orgasm, Hidomi always gets a nosebleed when they activate which is a long-time visual innuendo in anime, and later Haruko tries to tempt Iide into removing Hidomi's kitty headphones in a way that is framed very much like him taking her virginity. This is all much more explicit than the original FLCL, even it is still metaphorical.

Jinyu might need some help.

Heck, even the episode's B-plot kind of plays into this theme as well. Mori, one of Ide's friends, has invited his girlfriend to the beach to hang out with them. When she shows up, it's revealed that his girlfriend Aiko is a stereotypical shrinking violet to an exaggerated degree. Her character design even looks like she stepped out of any other cookie-cutter harem show. Turns out though that Aiko is just a pretty girl Mori payed to come and act like his girlfriend, her entire shy girl persona was complete ruse meant to impress his friends. That is hilarious and it plays into both the subversion of typical anime tropes the episode has established so far and the themes I've already outlined. Mori is dealing with his budding sexuality the way many young teenage men do, by overcompensating. He needs his peers to know he's totally great with the ladies so he hired this poor girl to come and act out the part of a stereotypical waifu, the kind many anime fans fawn over, to prove the point. It doesn't work though as his ruse is discovered and Mori has to come to terms with the fact he is a virgin who doesn't really understand his own feelings yet. I'm not sure he gets there, but hey, it's a process.

One last thing of note. The episode opens again with Hidomi having a vision of desolation narrated by her chipper dark side, though this time embodied in Hidomi's own form. It doesn't have much impact on the rest of the episode, but I noticed something intriguing about it all the same. You know who Hidomi's dark side reminds me of? Haruko. They're both dissonantly upbeat about horrible things, they both speak extremely fast, they're both rather callous about anyone who's not them. I might be grasping at straws here, but I can't help but feel this is deliberate. Could Hidomi's dark side turn her into a new Haruko? Is that why Haruko is so interested in stealing Hidomi's power? Blatant speculation on my part, but fascinating nonetheless.

Episode 3 is on par with Episode 2 but we are moving into the back half now. And if Progressive is anything like the first FLCL, things are about to get even crazier.