English Dub Review: FLCL: Grunge “Shinpachi”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Shinpachi is a disillusioned sushi delivery kid living in Okura, a town that has given up after too much destruction, with even the schools barely functioning. One day, the diminutive mayor comes by with a pretty date, Haruhara Haruko, who brings out strange things in Shin. Like literally, something starts poking out of his head. He also sometimes delivers to the Yakuza, among whom are a couple rock aliens, one of whom is his friend. Later, the mayor comes by again with a robot as well, but Haruko seemingly feeds it a virus through the sushi and chaos ensues, with Shin helping Haruko escape from both the mayor and Yakuza.

OUR TAKE

Once again, FLCL returns to our screens for the third time since the second season Progressive and third season Alternative in 2018. Both attempted to evoke the nearly indescribable spirit of the original 1999 series, but, in my opinion, fell short in several ways. However, they were apparently successful enough that Jason Demarco, executive producer of Toonami, felt it was worth it to come up with at least two more, this season called Grunge, and another, Shoegaze, coming sometime later. And while we only have one episode of Grunge to go on so far, I can at least say that I like that it’s setting itself apart from all of the other seasons through its art style, going with stylized CGI instead of 2D like in previous ones. Going over Progressive and Alternative again prior to this, I got the distinct feeling that the IDEA of the first season was being aped a lot across the other two to just reference it without much comprehension of what made it stand out (aside from the robots and weird aesthetic). I could go into all of that (and probably will as we go through this new season), but for now I can say that Grunge deciding to take this approach to set itself apart seems a lot more promising at the moment.

Still, it seems to have plenty of similarities that could push it forward as much as hold it back for now. We do get Haruhara Haruko back, again voiced by Kari Wahlgren naturally, who is basically the only big mainstay of the show (as much as I think that maybe she shouldn’t be), but we also have plenty of other returning elements. Medical Mechanica, the creators of the dastardly robotic antagonists and other recurring element, also returns and seem to be jumping the gun a bit and turning immediately by turning on their trademark giant iron right in the first episode, which has gotta be a record. Perhaps this is a sign that we’re getting the “traditional” bit of a FLCL story out of the way early. We also once again have a male protagonist in Shin, the first since Naota in Season 1, which certainly provides a similar but more reactive dynamic with Haruko than the female ones, Hidomi or Kana, did, and I can get into a possible reason why that is another time. Also should probably get into why Marvel’s The Thing is here…next week!