Seen this a while ago, but had no free moment to take upon it:

You could say FLCL depicts that painful transition between late adolescence and young adulthood; a time when you’re too old to do kid things and not old enough to do adult things. Characters, failing to understand or grasp new emotions and burgeoning sexuality, are confused and lost, as if unable to make sense of the reality that surrounds them. They can lash out, or retreat, and yet, back then, life was so colourful, new and exciting too, as if a sudden revelation could unlock a new, brilliant dimension of reality. That is, ultimately, FLCL’s crazy point of view, an unpredictable, wonderful stream of consciousness, so frenetic, surreal and fun, like stepping into a long forgotten, lost dream.

Slick, isn't it? But when I read the passage above, I just feel projected embarrassement. Bateszi is a good writer, yet the simple fact is, he fails to persuade me in the way Jason Miao taught me to enjoy MKM. FLCL, while hyped from all quarters, does nothing for me. It's boring.

Maybe I'm just broken, but here is a post from #9:

Does anyone really understand what’s going on? Because if anyone does could they explain it to me. The problem with shows like FLCL and Lain and Texnolyze is that they get stuck in their own merry-go-round of crazy themes that they really forget simple things like plots. []

And that’s to entertain. And to entertain, I have to at least have a basic grasp of the rules of the world. Even in a show like RahXephon (which I finished watching after being up for 24 hours) I understood what was happening at least on a basic level. All of the other connections and conspiracies were icing on the proverbial cake.

Comparison with Lain is an apt one, although the key of the quote is in the second graf. It's not like Lain and FLCL cannot be retconned, they can. SDB did it for Lain quite well. The problem though, it's an intellectual excercise, like a puzzle. You want to solve that, great. Otherwise, it's a mess. Having seen both, I think FLCL is a greater mess than Lain.

BTW, SDB's Future Series List says about FLCL "braindead". Well, if he said that, the intellectual excercise of determining the meaning of wide eyebrows was unappealing indeed.

In addition, the fanboys of FLCL clustering in Bateszi's comments just make me more embarrassed. Talk about the echo chamber.