It’s hard for me to write about this show, which is, by all means, a trip. By that I mean, like, if you’ve just had a great cruise vacation or a nice international flight, you might be tired by the end but you’re kind of refreshed. To stretch the analogy, when it comes to Flip Flappers, it’s like traveling first class.
To me, though, as someone who always flies economy, the joys and sorrows of flight as an eventer has more to do with bargain shopping, optimizing travel times, doing the best mileage runs, taking advantage of various loyalty programs and promotions, and the ins and outs of frugal traveling. The parallel here is that if you drop a show like Girlish Number on my lap it’s like dropping a CSR on my lap. I like it and can enjoy the various perks, but it is definitely not for everybody. In fact one of my issues with that show is exactly reading the reactions of people who are not familiar with the ins and outs of the seiota world, which is namely everybody who has bothered to review it that I’ve read. “Yeah you may get 3x points on restaurants but you aren’t getting the travel benefits if you don’t travel!” It’s like that.
Flip Flappers is kind of like flying first class. Sure, it might be weird and you definitely don’t understand what’s going on all the time, but Yayaka holds Cocona’s hand throughout the process, and you’re a little bit assured that at the core of the experience is a story about friendship that we are just a little too familiar with.
Too familiar, because episode 5 properly subvert the notion of their relationship in this house of repeating horror looped by the comfort of same-sex familiarity. The yuri is fun to watch and it’s a point of overlap in which Flip Flapper explains itself to the viewer in as many words. I mean it takes fewer words too, compared to, say, post-apocalyptic sand societies. Or Mad Max.
Visually this episode kind of blown me away. Yeah you can make an Utena joke, but we’ve been doing this since the 90s. Flip Flapper actually does something I thought that was kind of trendy in episode 5, which is pairing it with actual horror, and not just the horrifying thought that your yuri ship can sink at any time by the canons of canon. (Heyo, Kyoto Animation. BTW, if Flip Flappers 5 is a first class flight, then Sound Euphonium 5 is definitely a cruise.) Anyways, the magical girls stuff is a vehicle for the fine animators described here to show us just how there is strength in numbers? How many people worked on this show? The art credit is like, a mile high, let alone the key animators.
As you can see I’m just not equipped to gush over animation, even if at times I feel compelled to do so. The dimensionality inside the clock tower is vertically oriented, which allows for the crazy action scenes we sort of saw in episode 3 take place in a constrained space. It made those fanfare slo-mo during the transformation scenes fit. Inside a closed environment we can think of it in more straightforward terms (versus, say, Brave Witches and the requirement for clouds or the ocean in every single air combat scene).
I just don’t think it’s low cal?
PS. Go vote you American pigs!
