LeaderTGW

To be honest Flip Flappers should-be more popular. I felt that it had all the material needed to engage with audiences regardless of their preferences, and most importantly sell great merchandise. The only thing that stopped me from giving the incredible piece of art a solid 10 was the strange and often times confusing story; which I'll get into in a moment so please keep sitting in your chair, or levitating above, you wizards. So what is Flip Flappers about? Why should you be watching it? Can you eat it? Only two of the three questions above will be answered. Flip Flappers’ story is interesting in manyways. We follow the lives two cute girls, there’s intense action, amazing visuals, a yuri undertone lurking. What more could you want— other than nudity, perv. The Story can be hit or miss depending on your preferences. If you’re into simple story-telling and plot developments then Flip flappers most likely won’t be on your watch list. The plot, the real plot, not fan-service is very confusing at times. It is so bad to the point where I found myself questioning “what the hell going on?” in certain episodes. You see, Flip Flappers method of storytelling is hard to follow… There are often times too many distractions, mostly imagery, that if you miss a single detail then you will be momentarily confused as to what is happening in the story. This is extremely prevalent when there are scenes filled to the brim with dialogue and monologues. Personally, I found myself getting lost in the vibrant imagery or special effects while characters were talking. Now as far as the story telling goes, the “direction” I have to say that I strongly believe that both the narrative was straight forward as to be expected. Flip Flappers method of storytelling is “the hero’s journey.” For example, think of movies like Harry potter or Lord of the rings. For those who are unfamiliar with the scenario, something bad or out of the ordinary happens. This causes the girls to go on an adventure to solve the problem; they receive supernatural aid, and get just a bit of character development. As their adventure progresses, they run into the antagonist whom they proceed to do battle with. At this point, “death & rebirth” kicks in. The girls lose, but suddenly realize that this battle is important, plot armor kicks in, and they both gain some sort of supernatural ability that helps them defeat the antagonist. After the grueling battle rests, a predictable outcome, the heroes succeed and head back home where everything is nice and happy. Now with “the journey “that the girls go on. It is not incredible but it sure is unique. During the span of the entire series Papika and Cocnoa are involved in some type of journey that teaches them both lessons. For example they both need each other. They’re friends! Most of the problems the two have to fix during the series, I perceived them as stepping blocks for the two to continue building their budding relationship. There’s never a dull moment in the Flip Flappers’ story I feel like it provided more than enough entertainment. At first glance, depending on if you have a good eye or are just really experienced with watching anime. One would assume Gainax worked this title with its unique choices in art. However, they didn’t (as far as my knowledge goes) do much in the animation department. The credits in episode 11 say that they were used for outsourcing. This is common in the anime industry. Personally I believe that their unique art style was used as inspiration for 3hz. Backgrounds are beautiful despite lacking detail and high quality at times. Character designs are unique, cute which is most important. On the other hand, the animation wasn’t as impressive. I felt like there could’ve been improvements to the aesthetics and quality to make the show look more modern. HOWEVER! And Honestly, I think everything worked out. I enjoyed the beauty the show had to offer. It has a sort of “dreamscape” fantasy design to it. This choice fits with the theme of the show. Lastly, the colors are rich and the special effects are fluid. The soundtrack does an excellent job setting the mood for certain situations. I felt that the composer did a wonderful job of creating songs that fit theme of the show. Happy, jaunty, tunes, the bells are of course the most important part. Voice acting was good to say the least. I didn't feel like the actors were anything special. The opening and ending song... Scratch the opening song. The ending song perfectly describes what the show is about! the sound director deserves to be acknowledge for their contributions to the show. Enjoyment & Overall: Flip flappers deserves some notoriety for its great efforts and contributions to the fall 2016 season. I felt that this title was incredibly fun to watch! The characters, art, soundtrack and story. There was so many things that I liked in the show that made it enjoyable. I had to give Flip Flappers a solid 9/10 because of how great I felt watching everything unfold.

HaXXspetten

Flip Flappers is the textbook definition of a hidden gem. A short, artistic original anime by a relatively unknown studio, and also an anime which is quite difficult to explain. This is partially because of its symbolic themes, but also because the execution itself is very unorthodox. It is like the anime equivalent of an LSD trip; something I can only describe as a crossover of FLCL and Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita. But somehow, Studio 3Hz actually made it work, resulting in what I would probably have to consider my favorite anime of Fall 2016. The story follows two girls who meet each other by coincidence:the extremely energetic and cheerful Papika, and the much more level-headed and all-round normal Cocona. The somewhat futuristic world which Flip Flappers plays out in does not only contain hoverboards and advanced robotics, but also a fair amount of less explainable things. Supposedly there exists a second, overlapping dimension called Pure Illusion which Papika and Cocona end up stumbling upon by literally falling down a hole into it. This other world is largely responsible for what makes Flip Flappers so different, because in Pure Illusion pretty much anything seems possible. It reminds me of Fantasia a bit with its magical, colourful landscapes, mythical beasts and other strange creatures, doors functioning as teleports, and just a ton of magic in general. Sometimes however it can be sci-fi-esque rather than fantasy-esque, with digital Tron-like cyberspace environments, mechas and more. Papika and Cocona work for the Flip Flap organization, which tasks them with searching for so-called "amorphous" fragments within the world of Pure Illusion, which are supposedly capable of granting wishes. These fragments can be found in different kinds of environments within Pure Illusion, which is largely what causes them to end up in such blatantly different surroundings in almost every episode. In their adventures however they end up finding out that Flip Flap is not the only organization on the hunt for amorphous fragments, as they encounter a second group who seemingly wants them for their own ulterior motives. And thus we end up with a lot of fighting in-between the two sides throughout the anime as they keep trying to beat each other to the punch for every fragment. Flip Flappers utilizes the strange world of Pure Illusion in order to tell unusual stories on a mostly episodic basis out of chronological order, and on top of providing interesting adventures it also has a plethora of symbolism underneath the surface. Pretty much everything in this show has a meaning. However, not the entire anime is on an episodic basis. Towards the end, everything starts to connect, and an overarching storyline you might not have even realized was ever there suddenly starts to become visible. Ultimately, it all culminates into a quite grandiose and conclusive ending. But what really makes Flip Flappers a success to me is that it manages to deliver its deeper messages without it really hampering the fun factor of the anime itself. A common problem I have with more philosophical anime is that they often end up feeling like nothing more than lectures and either turn out to be quite boring (like Mushishi) or just plain cringey (like Yuri Kuma Arashi). But Flip Flappers is actually a ton of sheer light-hearted fun on top of its subtle themes, like a child's imagination come to life with its execution, and even though there is generally way more to each scene than meets the eye, it is still very entertaining to watch. And as a result it actually made me interested enough in the show as a whole to motivate me to pay attention to the details as well, so in a way the fun factor actually made the deeper themes better too. It is the same reason you usually learn more from a class you actually enjoy than one that makes you literally fall asleep. The characters are overall quite likable but also very symbolic. Papika's bubbly personality is like a representation of childhood innocence, whereas another girl called Yayaka rather seems to symbolize adulthood, with Cocona stuck somewhere in-between the two extremes, unsure what she really wants to do. It's a nice way of combining character diversity with contrasting deeper themes. The production value is also quite surprising. Studio 3Hz do not have much in their repertoire other than Dimension W and Sora no Method prior to this, but even so they still definitely delivered here. The art style looks incredibly hand-drawn, like something you would normally see in a Studio Ghibli film rather than something you would expect to see airing on TV. But it fits really well with the Fantasia-like setting of Pure Illusion, further enhancing the experience of magic and wonder of it all. And on top of that, Flip Flappers boasts with not just having one of the best opening themes of the entire season, but also quite frankly one of the best ending themes I've ever heard in anime. Overall, what you have is an anime which honestly does not feel like it has any clear weaknesses in my eyes. The unorthodox setting and story, the way all the dots suddenly connect towards the end, the diverse and symbolic characters, the gorgeous art and the enjoyable theme songs, it is all really good. Just... not utterly amazing either. I guess the biggest downside would be that at times the story will undoubtedly come across as rather confusing, even if you really try to pay attention. Granted, this is all intentional, but that does not really help much in practicality. However, as mentioned earlier, even if you will not understand literally every message that Flip Flappers is trying to convey, I think you should still be able to enjoy it quite a lot. When it all comes down to it, that is probably its greatest strength.