FLCL Progressive Episode 2: A Review

My main criticism of FLCL Progressive's first episode was that it lacked the energy and wackiness of its predecessor. The second episode tackled this issue basically right out of the gate, presenting something very much in the spirit of FLCL while still being its own thing. Haruko seems to be the missing factor in regards to that lacking energy as she moved if not into the spotlight than at least out of the wings this episode.

Hitomi activates her hidden powers.

I want to start off with this opening scene because it has some of the series strongest imagery so far and it looks to be important for our main character Hidomi's struggles. With its washed out color palette and scratchy line work animation, bringing in a style shift I thought was missing last week, this opening scene of a nightmare Hidomi is having depicts a similar devastated cityscape as her visions from the first episode but with an important difference. The cityscape is populated this time, with zombie versions of her classmates and herself. While they get up to their zombie business of gruesomely eating each other, there's some dissonantly upbeat voiceover describing how cute the zombies are. Like they were puppies in a Youtube video or something. It's somewhat implied that this voiceover is Hidomi's inner voice, her repressed dark side if you will. Hidomi herself dismisses the vision when she awakes, but that doesn't stop her from having flashes of it throughout the episode.

It's those flashes and that implication of Hidomi's dark side that I find the most interesting, because it plays into something that happened in Episode 1. The reason Jinyu hit Hidomi with her car was to kill her before she could turn into something terrible, and Jinyu has been warning Hidomi to stay away from Haruko for the same reason. This compounded and confirmed when we found out Haruko engineered the incident with the robot both last episode and again this episode to trigger some kind of change in Hidomi. A change visually signaled by the blue Tron rings on her kitty headphones changing to red. So clearly Hidomi has some secret power she's keeping within, though it seems unknowingly. She didn't get a chance to activate this power last episode, but she does this episode and that activation comes when she gets another flash of that nightmare vision. Perhaps this plays into Hidomi's characterization, her desire to cut herself off from the world. Maybe she fears that if she gets involved with people and show emotions, she's going to let this dark side of hers that loves zombies and destruction out. Maybe she's not even aware of this on a conscious level.

The implications of using what's almost a horror trope like this is fascinating to me, especially when that activated power calls back to another part of Hidomi's visions from episode 1. Because when she activates her power to fight Haruko and her giant robot here, Hidomi transforms into a robot herself, which is something that happened in her vision from Episode 1. Although here she turns into a goofy chibi robot version of herself and not the cool Henshin-esque super robot that she did in Episode 1. What exactly the deeper symbolism of that is, I'm still unsure (if there even is any deeper meaning to it) but it's an interesting callback to be sure. If these transformations continue in future episodes than perhaps we'll get some clarity.

Hitomi visits the poor part of town, where her
friend Ide lives.

Another thing to note is that Hidomi starting to show some stronger emotions (relatively speaking) plays into the other part of this episode. The plot is kicked off when Hidomi has to bring her classmate Ide, the fellow whose forehead Haruko pulled a robot out of last week, his homework because he was absent that day. She finds that Ide lives "on the other side of the tracks", so to speak, and that he spends his time not at school hustling for cash. Seeing Ide's living situation causes Hidomi to open up to him a little, coming out of her shell a bit, before Haruko tosses them into a confrontation between her and Jinyu. The anime makes a real point of emphasizing the poverty of Ide's part of town, though that doesn't have much payoff as yet, and I really liked the blossoming friendship between him and Hidomi. It felt like they were kind of just thrown together in Episode 1 on the whim of Haruko but here the dialogue between the two shows there is a real connection. It's authentically awkward and true to life for teenagers like this. There are definitely signs that this burgeoning relationship will effect things going forward.

Other than that, this was a solid outing. It feels much more like FLCL than Episode 1, with some sudden animation shifts and non-sequiturs there for no reason other than they can be. Haruko is delightful as usual, if a bit more sinister than she was before, and it's good to have her back bringing the wackiness with her. Her and Jinyu's motivations and connection are still unclear but that's fine. If there's one series than doesn't need to (or should) get caught up in its own mythos, it's FLCL. Still, I'm surprised by how my interest is more on Hidomi and what's going on with her than with whatever Haruko is up to. That's not something I could say about Naota from the original. I guess that's a credit to the new creative team.

But yes, same quality as Episode 1 but with minor improvements to fix the feel. Looking forward to Episode 3.