As part of my Patreon rewards, once a season I let my patrons vote on a classic series for me to watch and write about. This time, our winner was <\/span>FLCL<\/span><\/i>, which, interestingly enough, I had never seen before. Coming out of it, I am genuinely impressed. It has that over-the-top aspect and unbridled imagination that continue into later Gainax works like <\/span>Gurren Lagann<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt<\/span><\/i> (and more recently in studio Trigger\u2019s <\/span>Kill la Kill<\/span><\/i>). <\/span><\/p>\n But while I enjoyed all the surreal fighting, silly wordplay, and slapstick humor, what really blew me away was the layered storytelling that was going on. Sure, <\/span>FLCL<\/span><\/i> has weird robots popping out of a boy\u2019s head and an alien girl on a moped beating said robots with a guitar, but that\u2019s not what <\/span>FLCL<\/span><\/i>‘s really about.<\/span><\/p>\n What it\u2019s really about is the lies we tell to ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Nearly every character we see in the show is lying to themselves (and others) about a key aspect of their lives. Each episode, one of these lies is brought out into the light and confronted with the truth. It is at this moment that the episode\u2019s robotic monster appears to battle our heroes. <\/span><\/p>\n While even the more minor characters are deceiving themselves with convenient lies–be that Naota\u2019s father thinking his fan-made magazine will be popular or Commander Amarao thinking his fake eyebrows make him more of a man–the story is focused mainly on three characters: Mamimi, Ninamori, and Naota.<\/span><\/p>\n