FLCL: Progressive Musical Breakdown
It would be foolish for me to even attempt to discuss Season 2 and Season 3 of FLCL without addressing the elephant-sized Medical Mechanica robot in the room. With it being almost 18 years of detachment from the original FLCL and the newly revamped 2 seasons, you can see a drastic fall in quality in almost every aspect that the original did so excellently. The animation is objectively awful in comparison, the story failed to do anything of note, the characters and colors were pretty flat and stale, it makes me even wonder why I’m even addressing FLCL: Progressive and FLCL: Alternative at all because they appear to be such a blemish on the title’s namesake.
Even so, I felt compelled to look at them again and even now I can still find a few things to praise about the new seasons, one of them is actually part of the music. Unfortunately, I found out that while The Pillows did come back to make more music for the sequels, there was also another band that provided some music that attempted to mimic the style of The Pillows, not in full-songs but in sound bytes that would be used to fill up time and space, and as I stated before, I will not consider those part of this breakdown.
Generally, season 2 and season 3 had a drastic decrease in the amount of music in songs by The Pillows, so the breakdowns may not be as intense. Also, the music was much more subdued and didn’t appear to create as much tension or highlight any intense action scenes. All of the music was compiled into an album by The Pillows entitled “Fool on Cool Generation,” and it features all of the songs and sound-bytes used in the series. I actually own the album, however I do not have the discs on my person at the moment so I’ll have to do all of this by hand and internet. The “Fool on Cool Generation” album primarily contains “Fool on Cool” remixes of classic songs from Season 1 and some of the later albums of The Pillows and features a few brand new songs that would be used in the season.
One of my goals has been to own a hard copy of all of The Pillows’ albums, and I’ve gotten quite a few under my belt right now, and I can strongly say that The Pillows still produce good music. While a lot of the songs are not as bombastic as the ones compiled for the Season 1 Soundtrack, I can assure you that you can find quite a few songs in the albums between 2002 and 2013 that will stick in your head; some of them do suffer from imitating the same tone and not feeling too distinctly different. But back to Season 2...
Aside from the music, I would also like to state that even though the story wrapped up in the 6 episodes containing season 2 and the 6 episodes containing season 3 do not pose the best stories for the characters, but some parts of the story can actually provide more information that could enhance our understanding of the imagery and concepts of season 1.
For example, the Medical Mechanica iron-shaped building actually appears to be some sort of beacon or waypoint for intergalactic beings to transport to, and that they can be used to bring forth an alien species that could decimate the Earth and enslave humanity. The mythical energy known as N.O that we saw in season 1 seems to be a spiritual energy that can be cultivated through the latent hormone-induced craziness that teenagers experience through odd—often sexual—encounters, and can actually be weaponized. Also, apparently parts of the Medical Mechanica bots can be repurposed into different objects. Maybe in the end I’ll post my theory about how season 1 and season 2 are connected, because season 2 has the most draws to season 1 and I believe that was there for a reason.
