FLCLick Noise - Epilogue

[Table of Contents Available Here]

Interviewer: So this interview, across all six episodes and including breaks, lasted for over 5 hours...

Sadamoto: Even after all that, it's still not clear? (laughs)

Interviewer: No no, I think it's been a clarifying experience.

Tsurumaki: Well, there's no point in trying to solve a riddle here.

Interviewer: It's not a story that's explained by solving its riddles, as I see it. Now that you have watched it again for the first time in a while, how do you feel about it?

Sadamoto: Well, it's really interesting. I don't think there's ever been an anime like this. I'd love to see more of this kind of show.

Interviewer: What aspects did you find appealing?

Sadamoto: It feels like there's a logic to it, yet there isn't, but then again, there is. The logic keeps flipping over and over and over; but at the same time, it's a classic coming-of-age story. Depending on the viewer, it can be interpreted in many ways, which is similar to "Evangelion"... At Gainax, with people like Anno or Ikuto Yamashita¹, there are many who love robots, so it's not often that others get to do mecha designs. This was my first time trying my hand at such designs, and I enjoyed the opportunity. I also liked the emphasis on real-life objects in the work, that hobby-niche kind of thing.

Tsurumaki: That aspect is similar to the first season of "Lupin".

Sadamoto: The cars that appear in the show aren't just 'cars', they're Alfa Romeos or Renaults. They're real things with brand identities. We wanted to get those objects right in "FLCL".

Tsurumaki: Whether it gets across or not, I think there's a difference in character between someone who drives an Alfa Romeo and someone who drives a Corolla. Like, any given person would drive one but not the other, you know?

Sadamoto: It couldn't just be any guitar, it had to be a Rickenbacker, and so on.

Tsurumaki: It's like with "Lupin", where Miyazaki probably thought the thief had to drive a poor man's car. That's why Lupin drives a Fiat 500. If he drove a Mercedes, like in the source material, Miyazaki probably wouldn't have been able to love Lupin.

Sadamoto: The idea seems to be that someone who can steal anything would eventually lose interest in money. They wouldn't drive a luxury car, but rather an Italian popular car that anyone could buy — yet one with a convertible roof that feels free. I wonder if "FLCL" was influenced by its era? Maybe it was something that could only be drawn in its time.

Tsurumaki: I think it's clearly the case with characters like Mamimi. If we drew Mamimi now, she might not be understood.

Sadamoto: Right, like even the very term "bullying"²...

Tsurumaki: Yes, there's that, and also the way the very appeal of high school girls' has changed a bit. At the time, Anno was making "Love & Pop"³, but that kind of feeling is absent from the culture now.

Interviewer: If we were to portray these kinds of high school girls today, we would portray them a bit tougher.

Tsurumaki: And it's not exactly a portrayal 'without nationality' either (laughs).

Sadamoto: Actually, for me if someone said this was made last year, I wouldn't find it strange.

Tsurumaki: The animators' skill level was very high, and the sense of color doesn't feel dated even now. That's important, I think. When you look at the screen, it doesn't feel old. Maybe just the cell phones do. And well, there are things like Vespas and three-wheelers, so it's a bit unclear what era it's even from (laughs). Especially with the three-wheelers, it looks almost like retro sci-fi.

Sadamoto: To begin with, it doesn't look like Earth (laughs). So when I asked back then, "What time period is this? Where are we?" I think I was told something like "Mars." That was the first question that came to mind when I started working on it. But then, if that's the case, what happened to Earth?

Tsurumaki: We see the Earth in Naota's mind, but it got flattened with an iron. So people can't live there anymore. This is a story about Mars, and Mars still has its autonomy, struggling to survive in the battle between Medical Mechanica and the Fraternity. I had thought of that as the setting, and I was thinking of depicting that eventually, but in the end gave up and said "Well, never mind" (laughs).

Interviewer: Ah so you gave up on it then? (laughs) Oh, is that why the baseball team's uniform has "Mars" written on it?

Sadamoto: And why the sky is yellow. Actually, when I saw "Diebuster!" [TN: which takes place on Mars] I thought that Tsurumaki wanted to somehow add some meaning this time to the setting being on Mars. Maybe FLCL’s Fraternity would show up again! (laughs)

Tsurumaki: Well, that isn’t something I thought about actually. In regards to FLCL, there's this novel by Chouhei Kanbayashi called "May Peace Be on Your Soul"⁴, and it's set on Mars, but the twist is that it was Earth all along. I also think of it like Haruki Murakami’s works⁵. In Murakami's worlds, something may look like an ordinary Japanese town, but there are little people or two moons; it has that kind of feeling.

Sadamoto: “Hanaotoko”⁶ is like that too, right? It's set in an old, retro-feeling Japan, but there are inexplicably penguins about.

Tsurumaki: And whales flying in the sky. Enokido and I both like that kind of picture book, fairy tale, or fable-like world. If we pursued reality and made it look like, “Oh, this is Shibuya," the fable-like feeling would be lost. I think it’s better if everyone who sees the show thinks "this is my town” whether they are from Nagoya or Akita.

Sadamoto: The feeling of the river is very Nagoya-like, though.

Tsurumaki: That's right. It has the feel of Toyohashi, which is Hiramatsu-san's hometown, and the feel of Niigata, which is my hometown. When I watched "Royal Space Force" [TN: Gainax’s first commercial film], I thought that film’s city felt a lot like Niigata as well.

Sadamoto: Like how the lake is like the Sea of Japan⁷.

Tsurumaki: Yeah, that's one part of it, and also, you know, the feeling of the town. Like when Shiro [the protagonist] and the others walk through what looks like a shopping arcade. The atmosphere there too matches.

Sadamoto: It's like Disneyland.

Tsurumaki: Oh, you think? I thought it looked a lot like Niigata. It's a pretty big shopping district, but it's not as bustling as Shinjuku or Shibuya.

Interviewer: When something is abstract enough, people tend to associate it with familiar landscapes or experiences, right?

Tsurumaki: Though still, we didn't want to make it reach "Anpanman" [TN: A kid’s superhero comic] levels of abstraction or anything (laughs). We wanted a lot of realism in places like convenience stores and bridges, but we also discussed drawing more of the landmark-style locations. For example the embankments of the waterways, those are a combination of ones that can be seen in Niigata, Toyohashi, and Saitama. And things like the big factory of Medical Mechanica. We put quite a bit of thought into how to handle those landmark buildings.

Interviewer: Tsurumaki, how did you feel having rewatched the show?

Tsurumaki: What I wanted to express the most was this atmosphere, you know. It's more about the ambiance, like "this is the kind of anime it is". So, when people start talking about specific themes or character arcs, I think the atmosphere tends to fall by the wayside. It is a core part of what we wanted to express.

Interviewer: It's a certain "feeling" that the whole work has, right?

Tsurumaki: I thought there wasn't really any anime like this, so that's why I wanted to make it. As I mentioned earlier, there weren't many young adult anime that depicted the negativity of youth in a "Young Magazine" style, and even when a serious cut is followed by a sudden gag, the serious feelings are still there. Or, in the case of music for example, there is a theory that using vocal music in an anime is not good because the dialogue is not coordinated with the vocal lines, and the human voices overlap with each other. But in regular TV dramas, they do it quite often, so why not do it here? It's not limited to dramas either; even in "Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow", during the climax scenes, there are vocal songs playing with regular dialogue and prose, and it still stands as a cool scene.

Sadamoto: The use of music was also unique; it's quite uncommon to feature just a single musician.

Tsurumaki: Initially, I thought it would be fine to just have a cool image and cool music paired with action scenes. But along the way, the focus gradually shifted, and we ended up using Pillows' songs that not only portray the negativity of youth, but also everyday life, ones you can see yourself in. The synergy between the lyrics and Mamimi's drama and emotions in the show elevates it all to another level.

Interviewer: What struck me when I watched it again this time is that normal works usually have clear objectives. They have criteria like "if you pass this test, you're good." But with FLCL, there's a feeling that it doesn't have that clarity. So, the excessive parts are extremely excessive, and the parts that speak quietly barely speak at all.

Tsurumaki: Yes, as a staff member, I think that's the only way we could have done it. I remember that Masahiko Otsuka⁸, who directed some episodes, asked me, "What do you want to do with FLCL? How far should we take it?” Something like "Evangelion" is playing a straightforward game; they're throwing a blazing fastball right down the middle of the plate that no one can hit, and that's what "Evangelion" is, or what Anno was trying to do. But with FLCL I thought, "It's okay if the pitch is slow, but I want to throw the ball right into the corner. It has to be low and outside!" If you can throw a 170 km/h fastball, you can score a strikeout even if it's right down the middle, like Evangelion does. For me though with FLCL I wanted to change it up, just graze that low, outside spot. If I could do that, I would still win (laughs).

Interviewer: Ah, I see. I get it now.

Tsurumaki: So, whether it's 150 km/h or 90 km/h, it doesn't matter to me. Even if it's a slow pitch, if I can throw the ball into that corner, the batter can't touch it. That's what "FLCL" was. I think that's my way of making anime (laughs).

Sadamoto: Oh, so it was all about the atmosphere, not the story or theme?

Tsurumaki: Yeah, it really was about the atmosphere. As long as we could capture that atmosphere, it could have been a more serious show, or it could have been even more slapstick instead. The colors, in some cases, could have been different too. As long as when we put it all together, that atmosphere was there.

Sadamoto: How would you describe that atmosphere in one word?

Tsurumaki: I can't describe it in one word, that's why it turned out like this (laughs).

Sadamoto: That's a tough one (laughs).

Interviewer: If you had a chance to make the show all over again, would you do it the same way?

Tsurumaki: I think even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to do it anymore. When I think about how aware I was back then about how inexplicable the show was, I feel like who I am now would try to address that as a problem. As a result, there's a possibility it might become a more conventional anime.

Sadamoto: You might be more concerned about the audience a bit more?

Tsurumaki: Yeah, and in trying to make it more understandable, it might end up with its edges rounded off, you know? "FLCL" was somewhat unique in that it didn't care about making itself smooth; it kind of pushed the boundaries, I think. We were trying to express something that couldn't be put into words; it is something not easily conveyed.

1. Manga artist and designer born in 1965. He is known for his mecha designs in "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water". In 2005, he also worked on the OVA "Yukikaze", handling mechanical design, direction, and scriptwriting.

2. TN: This is only an educated guess but this book is around the time when cyber-pulling and social media’s impact on youth was becoming a widespread topic in Japan, a few years ahead of its rise in the US. That is the likely nature of the change being referenced.

3. A novel by author Ryu Murakami, published in 1996. It dealt with the social issue of ‘compensated dating’, a form of teenage sex work at the time, portraying the real-life problems of high school girls. It was made into a live-action film in 1998, directed by Hideaki Anno.

4. Published in 1983, “May Peace Be On Your Soul” is Chouhei Kambayashi's debut full-length novel. It tells the story of humans on Mars who were trapped underground due to radioactive contamination following a nuclear war. Meanwhile, on the surface, androids had built a glamorous city. However, among the androids, there are mysterious legends passed down... This work is a representative piece of Kanbayashi, who thoroughly investigates the question "What am I?"

5. A novelist born in Kyoto Prefecture in 1949. He made his debut in 1979 with "Hear the Wind Sing," which won the Gunzo Magazine New Writers' Award. His writing style is heavily influenced by American literature, and he was considered one of the representative authors of the new generation, alongside his contemporary Ryu Murakami. In 1987, his novel "Norwegian Wood" became a bestseller, and he has continued to garner attention with each new work.

6. A manga work by Daiyo Matsumoto, published in 1991 [TN: original book has a typo here, saying 2001]. It revolves around a 30-year-old baseball enthusiast who admires Shigeo Nagashima. The story depicts the unique bond between Hanada Hanataro and his son, Shigeo, who are complete opposites.

7. TN: In RSF the main country is landlocked, bordering a vast lake, so if its like Niigata - which is on the Sea of Japan in real life - the lake is said sea’s equivalent

8. An anime director. After graduating from Osaka University of Arts, he built his career in live-action films and later joined Studio Ghibli. He served as an assistant director on films like "Pom Poko" (1994) and "Whisper of the Heart" (1995). Afterwards, he worked on "Neon Genesis Evangelion" as an assistant director, and continued to work primarily with Gainax. In "FLCL," he was in charge of directing episodes 1, 4, and 6.