As far as I can tell, there are two camps of people concerning FLCL. People who are confused by it, and elitists who claim to understand it, even though they probably don’t.
Anyway, my point is, FLCL is confusing, but people seem to like it. Paranoia Agent isn’t any more confusing (I don’t think so, anyway), but what’s with all the hate?
I think I’m the only one who’s hating it. 8p I guess it’s because PA portrays itself as a non-episodic, serious anime, and yet it refuses to make any sense. I simply see that as an insult to the viewer, and it’s just not something I enjoy sitting through.
All I understood from Paranoia Agent was that there was a girl who created a dog in her head that became real and hit people in the form of a guy. I could be completely wrong, but that’s what it seemed like to me.
[SPOILER]Little girl’s puppy (Maromi) gets killed. She’s scared and ashamed that she let it die (and didn’t want her dad to be mad at her), so she fabricated a story where somebody with a bat, Li’l Slugger, killed her puppy, while in reality it was run over while she was taking it for a walk. In order to protect herself from the lie she created, she began hiding and confiding in a fictional version of her puppy. Basically, this fictional Maromi protected her from the lie she created, but at the same time, Maromi wouldn’t let her face the truth, so Li’l Slugger kept festering.
Then, time passes, and Li’l Slugger’s still around (but seemingly dormant), while Maromi has become a national icon. But since the problem was never resolved, eventually Li’l Slugger becomes “real” somehow and begins haunting other people who felt the same as the girl did when the real Maromi died (possibly because the same girl felt trapped again, and brought Li’l Slugger back when she hit herself with a pipe and blamed it on him). In other words, Li’l Slugger becomes a way for them to escape when they feel life has become hopeless for them. Of course, their escape tends to involve them getting beaten… but it’s an escape nonetheless (like the one girl whose father taped her nude… she wanted to just forget everything bad, so she got hit and ended up with amnesia). Anyway, Li’l Slugger keeps growing in power, and so does Maromi, and in the end the girl faces up to the truth and fixes everything.[/SPOILER] Or something. I’ve only seen the series once, and I’ve forgotten most of the details, I think.
I don’t think it’s really THAT confusing, other than the fact that Li’l Slugger and Maromi somehow become “real” when they started out just a figment of the girl’s imagination. But shit like that happens all the time in anime and video games, so I never held that against it.
It doesn’t happen in that scale, nor is it ever the entire crux around which a series revolves.
Besides which, that part I did get, but not all the weird fantasy segments towards the end involving the police sergeant and his lieutenant, which were just drug-induced insanity.
Well, it’s not really any less sensical than all the magical alchemy stuff in Full Metal Alchemist, or casting magic in Slayers or anything else that happens in Anime. In either case, it’s just fantasy occuring in a fantasy world.
And the weird fantasy segments are just symbolizing the police sergeant escaping all the hellish crap that was going on. He longed for “the good ol’ days”, so his mind created them for him. While Li’l Slugger was some peoples’ escape, the world the police sergeant created was his escape. Again, it became a case of something in somebody’s mind becoming “real” to some extent (since that girl who created Maromi ended up there too), but I don’t think it’s any more difficult of a concept than Maromi/Li’l Slugger.
I guess the part that bugs me is that PA supposedly takes place in the “real world”, as opposed to Full Metal Alchemist et al, which explicitly take place elsewhere. There isn’t any actual “magic” being used to explain these things, just something akin to “the power of the mind”, which is ridiculous.
I’m not saying I couldn’t understand the concepts, it’s just my mind is rebelling against placing them in a real-world situation.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. But still, lots of stuff takes place in the “real world”, but is full of whimsical like this (Shadow Hearts? I’ve never even played any of those games, but I know they take place in the real world, and I know that in Shadow Hearts 2, Anastasia Romanov of all people joins your party (unless my instruction manual is a horrible liar!!)). But really, I can see why that would bother you.
…But, that doesn’t really make it a confusing anime. It just makes it an anime that requires you to make one little leap of faith in that fabrications of the mind can become reality.
Except that fabrications of the mind, by definition, are less well-defined than the fairly strict rules of magic etc. that usually govern fantasy. Meaning that pretty much anything can happen, and does so psychedelically (if that’s a word). Which just seems like a cop-out to me.
In some series, sure. But many of them make a point of keeping magic sane. FMA in particular is brilliant at this; almost everything that happens has a very specific action/reaction formula which fits into the mythos it creates. Slayers does the same thing; you can’t go ahead and use insanely big spells without a lot of time, energy, and risk. But when you decide that anything I think can be made real, I can think some really warped things.
The thing that really threw me off was the lieutenant (forget his name) who turns into a sort of pseudo-superhero - but only on-and-off. E.g. his armor keeps turning back into silly clothes, his sword turns into a broken bat, then back again, etc. That’s nothing to do with dreams turning into reality, it’s just fantasy sequences designed to confuse you.
I think the reason you liked ,adn understood FMA more than PA. Is because it prevents you from thinking or figuring out on your own how such( things like mental manifestations and alchemy) are possible by out right telling you in the beggining how alchemy is possible in that world.
FMA tends to make people who are more into emotions and SOME action. not the best action ever, but good. That enough is good enough to hold a viewers attention.
PA is very confusing unless you pay close attention every episode ; even abstractly. EX: a part of one episode makes you feel sad/ horrified. Be a little PARANOID, and think why did they want you to fell this way when everyone else on the cartoon is obviously feeling differently. The fact that lil’ slugger appears only when you see him as setting you free aof a responsibility; not as to kill you like the 3 people who wanted to kill themselves. The other worlds may also throw you off, but when you think about it, everything really makes alot of sense.
Can you tell that I think alot? mabie too much. OMG did anyone not notice any of this stuff? plus I only saw the series through one time, and I thought it was great.
Simmer, now you’re not making any sense. O_o
Hiryuu: I’m just articulating why I felt the series crossed the line from interesting to insulting. It isn’t nitpicking, since the entire series is 12 episodes, and the things I mentioned are a big part of the final few episodes (which were the climax).
I know cartoons generally aren’t realistic, but when you claim to be taking place in the “real” world, I don’t like it if you throw in all kinds of crazy things without any sort of justification, just because you want to make a point.