How much of the strangeness in Gainax' FLCL was fantasy, and how much was
inspired from real life? It's safe to assume that none of the creators of
the show about a boy, his chain-smoking friend and the guitar-swinging woman
who takes over their lives ever had to save their home towns from a meteor...but
you can see their home towns in the show's background designs. When producer
Hiroki Sato and director Tsurumaki Kazuya appeared at a FLCL
panel at Fanime con, they said that scenes such as the bridge where Naota
and Mamimi seem to first meet came from their lives. "It's kind of based
on a town where I was born - they're very famous for their freshwater eel,"
Sato said. Added Kazuya, "I used to play a lot under the bridge when I was
young, I used to play with fire a lot, too."
It's
already been stated by Gainax' creators that FLCL's title came from the phrase
"cool fool," which got contracted across languages into "FuriKuri." At the
panel discussion, they added that the overall theme of FLCL was the differences
between childhood and adulthood. It's hard to tell on which side of that
divide the Haruko character might fall. Sato said "If a real Haruko existed
it would be a problem - she'd be arrested, wouldn't she? Would you want to
be around a real person who attacks you with a bass, would you?" Kazuya
apparently wouldn't mind. "None of the staff understood me when I said this,
but it would be nice to have a beautiful woman run you over," he said. Replied
Sato, "Normally you would want a beautiful woman on top of you, not running
you over with a scooter - I still don't understand you."
Doing the running over in the FLCL dub as Haruko is actor Kari Walhgren (right),
who said she worked hard to get Haruko just right. "In the outtakes it's
just pure natural talent - I didn't have to try at all," she joked. "Some
of the other actors we work with talk about their outtakes. I was personally
so nervous that when I messed up I would say, `Do it again.' The old hands
would laugh, they were more relaxed about it. Especially in the beginning
when the director Kazuya was around, I was trying to be perfect and I was
trying to stay true to the character." Added Jennifer Sekiguchi (left), the
English-language voice of Mamimi, "I was very much trying very hard to be
good. It was only my second role so I was a good student. I tended to swear
if I messed up, and I guess that's not really funny." Both the producer and
director went out of their way to make sure the Fanime Con fans knew that
they were very pleased with the FLCL dub, saying their performances were
very much like the original Japanese recording.
How much of the strangeness in Gainax' FLCL was fantasy, and how much was
inspired from real life? It's safe to assume that none of the creators of
the show about a boy, his chain-smoking friend and the guitar-swinging woman
who takes over their lives ever had to save their home towns from a meteor...but
you can see their home towns in the show's background designs. When producer
Hiroki Sato and director Tsurumaki Kazuya appeared at a FLCL
panel at Fanime con, they said that scenes such as the bridge where Naota
and Mamimi seem to first meet came from their lives. "It's kind of based
on a town where I was born - they're very famous for their freshwater eel,"
Sato said. Added Kazuya, "I used to play a lot under the bridge when I was
young, I used to play with fire a lot, too."
It's
already been stated by Gainax' creators that FLCL's title came from the phrase
"cool fool," which got contracted across languages into "FuriKuri." At the
panel discussion, they added that the overall theme of FLCL was the differences
between childhood and adulthood. It's hard to tell on which side of that
divide the Haruko character might fall. Sato said "If a real Haruko existed
it would be a problem - she'd be arrested, wouldn't she? Would you want to
be around a real person who attacks you with a bass, would you?" Kazuya
apparently wouldn't mind. "None of the staff understood me when I said this,
but it would be nice to have a beautiful woman run you over," he said. Replied
Sato, "Normally you would want a beautiful woman on top of you, not running
you over with a scooter - I still don't understand you."
Doing the running over in the FLCL dub as Haruko is actor Kari Walhgren (right),
who said she worked hard to get Haruko just right. "In the outtakes it's
just pure natural talent - I didn't have to try at all," she joked. "Some
of the other actors we work with talk about their outtakes. I was personally
so nervous that when I messed up I would say, `Do it again.' The old hands
would laugh, they were more relaxed about it. Especially in the beginning
when the director Kazuya was around, I was trying to be perfect and I was
trying to stay true to the character." Added Jennifer Sekiguchi (left), the
English-language voice of Mamimi, "I was very much trying very hard to be
good. It was only my second role so I was a good student. I tended to swear
if I messed up, and I guess that's not really funny." Both the producer and
director went out of their way to make sure the Fanime Con fans knew that
they were very pleased with the FLCL dub, saying their performances were
very much like the original Japanese recording.
