FLCL Week 2020 (Part 3 of 3)

Episode 5: Shake It Off

While I would say that this is Pets’ episode, I see it as a set-up to the rushed ending of this season. That’s not necessarily a bad thing since this episode shows the relationship between Kana and Pets as well as a macroscopic look at Kana’s relationships with other people. While Kana tries to barge into peoples’ lives to do good things for them, it shows massive desperation and to Pets, it seems annoying.

Plus, the episode bends genres and goes into a sort of horror story mode as Pets’ disappearance spells disaster for Kana’s emotional health as well as her own mother as she goes into a psychotic state while questioning Kana about her possible whereabouts. While brief, the scene composition switches to accommodate a horror-like scene for a moment, and it does so well.
Overall, the music is subdued and low-tempo’d throughout most of the episode to build up tension before releasing it in the one song by The Pillows that you see here (before the ending theme).

(1)Last Dinosaur (Fool on Cool)
Just like season 1 and season 2, cue the action scene! Right as the big bad reveals himself, this song swings in, playing a majority of the song, lyrics and all, as Kana and Haruko fight to save Pets from the Terminal Core bot that also looks like a Piranha Plant from Mario. It has a briefly rushed ending before everything goes silent leading up to the explosive conversation between Pets and Kana where Pets essentially goes off on Kana for constantly prying into other peoples’ business.
While the voice acting and synch was a bit off, it was a decent plot twist to end the episode and even setting up the finale that you will see at the end of the season.