FLCL Omnibus

FLCL #1-2

by Gainax, Hajime Ueda (Illustrator)

The complete FLCL manga adaptation—now with bonus color illustrations and remastered story pages! In this surreal sci-fi romp, a sullen Japanese boy finds himself in the middle of an interstellar conspiracy. As his home life unravels, a sexy space assassin becomes his family maid, and his own head becomes a portal for armed robots. Life as he knows it is quickly falling apart, and Naota doesn’t know who’s friend or foe! One thing’s for certain—he has to grow up quick and save his hometown, whether he wants to or not!

With Dark Horse’s FLCL Omnibus, fans will not only get every chapter in Hajime Ueda’s acclaimed FLCL adaptation, but this collection will also include revised story pages and over a dozen color FLCL illustrations by Ueda.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

392 pages, Paperback

First published May 29, 2012

About the author

GAINAX Co., Ltd. is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Royal Space Force, Gunbuster, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Kare Kano, FLCL, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, and Gurren Lagann, which have garnered critical acclaim and commercial success.

Reviews

[✮ osanna aoki ✮ · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s not much to say about the FLCL manga aside from the fact that well, it was utterly confusing. While I do like a bit of chaos and peculiarity, this wasn’t it.

If you want a more digestible version of this story, watch the anime.

The manga is sort of like a frenetic, all-over-the-place spinoff that doesn’t dive deeper than the surface— not that the anime itself does either.

While you get the tone that there is intergalactic stuff going on— a cute robot girl who rides a vespa who’s a part of the galaxy space police, a young boy who has a thing that grows from his head to transport a robot cat, and references to outerspace— that’s all you get here.

The plot is virtually nonexistent and the art is really not my style. FLCL was a fight for me to get through.

So surreal that it was boring. Does that make sense?

Again, just watch the anime if you want somewhat of a story line. This was a mess and completely lost in translation. Get to know Naota Nandaba’s slice of life through your TV. Shows are typically never better than the book— but in this case, I changed my mind.

[Krk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really hard to rate. I like the anime a lot. Specifically, I enjoy it's frenetic and humorous qualities. I also like the animation. I took that into reading the manga, and I think taking my visual/audio memory into the reading helped me enjoy the text adaptation more. I think a great deal is lost in translation, both in language and medium, but there is something I very much enjoy about both the anime, and now this manga. In part I just like the idea of an intergalactic cop riding around on a space-Vespa, fighting interdimensional robots, and whacking people with electric guitars. I know my enjoyment is probably only surface, but trying to plumb the depth of both manga and anime seems both stupid and daunting, depending on my mood. This rambling review not withstanding, FLCL is a funny, fast passed, interestingly illustrated, and confusing story which I enjoyed very much and my rating is founded on an amalgamation of my experiences and enjoyment of both the anime and manga.

[Melissa Jacobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was easily the weirdest thing I have read all year and I loved the crap out of it. I can see why so many people don't like this, it is strange, bizarre, off-kilter, and insane. Nothing makes sense and that is the beauty of it. Certainly not the manga for everyone but certainly a manga for me.

Booktalk - https://youtu.be/etLdrfmX6Fw

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

no

[Leslie Carnahan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man... I went in blind knowing that this is considered a classic to some. And I just don't get why. It's all over the place. Time jumps. Random plot points that don't seem to go anywhere. Characters that I can't connect with. I see a lot of people here saying that they are glad they watched the anime first so they can understand the Manga. That to me is a joke. I shouldn't have to watch something to then understand it in novel form (I'm looking at you TOO Marvel). Idk y'all. I'm sorry if this review makes you upset - but know that I'm upset too.

[Arthur · Rating 2 out of 5]

this series made no sense whatsoever

[usagi ☆ミ · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I've already read "FLCL" in manga form, I'm going to focus on Dark Horse's omnibus re-release edition of this awesome work from the quintessential GAINAX canon. Dark Horse has done a wonderful job with this re-release, like they have with the CLAMP omnibuses that they've been releasing for the last few years and they don't disappoint with a fresh new translation and lovely extras. Whether you're new to "FLCL" or an old fan, this is definitely a must-have edition either way.

"FLCL" in manga form is a whole different animal than the anime that spawned it - it's full of more sex, more violence, and a generally darker tone with lots of black humor to go around. This was previously released by Tokyopop, and the translation was adequate, but Dark Horse's re-release is absolutely gorgeous. Where Tokyopop kind of scrimped on the delicious extras only available in the Japanese edition, Dark Horse has brought them back with full color plates and sketches before every chapter on high-quality glossy stock paper.

They've also rejuvenated older pages, making the sketches sharper and pop off the page - so this was a real pleasure to read, compared to Tokyopop's kind-of-sub-par release years back. It's so nice to see GAINAX get the attention it deserves with this re-release, and it fills me with hope for maybe a re-release of the original "Evangelion" manga in omnibus format at some point. They really did a great job with this one, guys, so it's a definite must-read and must-buy for any manga fan!

The omnibus edition of "FLCL" from Dark Horse will be out May 15, 2012 in North America - other places, check with your local bookseller. Definitely one of the better manga re-releases in the last few years so it's highly recommended!

(posted to goodreads, shelfari, and birthofanewwitch.wordpress.com)

[Lauren (Northern Plunder)]

This review was first posted on Northern Plunder, if you want to see more reviews please click here.

I honestly have no idea what I just read. It's bizzare, confusing and all over the place. I don't know whether it has something to do with me being tired every time I tried reading it or if it was due to the fact I was reading it on my laptop. I just don't really think I took any of this manga in. There is a girl with a vespa, a boy who grows a robot out of a lump of his head (not the mention the semi-naked girl dressed as a bunny), another girl who has a jellyfish-looking-thing growing out of her head and cats that seem to be some form of higher beings or Gods. I just - what? I enjoyed what I understood but I just couldn't follow the storyline and was left so utterly confused that I almost almost gave up. I think one day I'd like to try and reread this in a hard copy because I think that would really help for me to take in what the hell was going on and it'd be a lot easier to flick back and read or double check the previous pages. I'd try and write more but I don't really think I can do it justice from this readthrough.
Recommend? Yes simply so you can explain to me what I read.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

More reviews at Rondo of a Possible World: YA Book Reviews

Usually I can follow a manga but FLCL was just too over the place for me to really take in what was actually going on and it was just too weird for me to understand anything that came through the pages. From what I understood from the synopsis felt like it was going to be an interesting science fiction manga and I really enjoy those. But from what I read I was completely lost. I could only retain what happened in the first few chapters. Everything else just completely went through one ear and out the other as I tried to formulate what was going on. The art work was interesting but it wasn't enough to hold my attention and make me want to figure out what the in the hell what happening.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

so I went into this with no context, having not watched the anime yet (though it's been on my watchlist forever) and I'm even more curious to watch the anime now. supposedly, the anime and manga stories are somewhat different.

as for this omnibus, the art style is absolutely gorgeous and unique, definitely my favorite part about it. it's super sketchy, cartoonish, and adds to the surreal and strange atmosphere of the manga. however, at times the vagueness and sketchiness of it caused certain sequences (specifically action sequences) to be difficult to follow.

I really enjoyed the characters as well, they all had distinct personalities and had some zany and funny interactions.

my biggest issue with this manga was the organization and story. the story is hard to follow at times; in some scenes, it's difficult to tell who the various speech and thought bubbles are coming from. on the one hand, I know the surreality was a conscious choice, but I feel like I was not always given enough crumbs of context to work with to interpret the story. again, I'm wondering if I will feel differently after watching the anime; but from the manga alone, I'm left feeling like there was a lot missing and a lot of loose ends left unraveled. the "basic" storyline isn't hard to understand, but it feels shallower than the setup and certain story events imply, leaving me feeling like there is more to it that I'm not yet understanding.

overall, I enjoyed reading this and it is a beautiful omnibus edition with bonus color art pages and a story from the artist; but at the end I was left wanting more depth and context that I feel was left out of the manga's story.

[Collin Henderson]

I read this before almost a decade ago and remember finding it really nonsensical and not really enjoying it. I made it about halfway through on this reread and decided yep this is simply not for me. The art style is creative and has a rough and tumble attitude but it is just so nonsensical that I’d go so far as to say the story barely matters. But the art isn’t cool/interesting enough to carry it for me. I know some love it. I don’t.

[Demetria ꩜ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was able to somewhat understand what was happening in the first half of the manga but after that the story became incomprehensible for me. I didn’t realize that this was based of the anime which I haven’t watched. I’ll give this book a second chance after I’ve watched the original story.

[tankbredgrunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean...what?

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ueda’s art and style of storytelling is so idiosyncratic. Designed to fire off all my neurons. Manages to be separate from the show and somehow still lives up to it.

[Kai Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely wouldn't recommend this to someone who hasn't watched the anime, I don't think. but I still love this. its weird, and chaotic, and fun.

[Sylvia Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

never knows best

[Tim Sweatshirt · Rating 5 out of 5]

peak peak peak read watch consume i love this and there will never be anything that comes even remotely close to flcl in terms of making me feel feelings (big feelings)

[Lex Marroquin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the art. The story was fast and loose. To the book's detriment more the latter. Did get hyped for seasons two and three of the show.

[Joshua Fenner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, convoluted, and sometimes more obtuse than the show. Makes a great companion piece but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have seen the show.

[James Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rarely ever give a book or manga a one star, but I wish there was something lower to rate this omnibus. As soon as I finished this dreadfully long manga I went straight to eBay and listed the thing. Never have I read such a waste of paper. There really is no plot, there isn't even a coherent sentence in the entire book. It simply doesn't make any sense at all. I get that it isn't supposed to, but I seriously think the person who wrote this has to be a psychopath because it's like something a deranged lunatic would create. Furthermore, I am shocked that a publishing company would look at this and think it was worth publishing...the author must have known someone who worked at the publishing company because it simply makes no sense. I feel like my time was stolen from me and I want it back! I only finished the manga because I wanted to write an honest review of it and warn others not to waste their money. I'm disappointed that a book like this was ever published and even more disappointed that I was sold this at a bookstore..I feel robbed.

[Bri · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a rare day that I say I enjoy the visual version of something more than the written, but for FLCL that's the case.

This story is so crazy and motion driven that I feel it's simply better suited as an anime rather than a manga. Don't get me wrong, though; I still very much enjoyed it! And Ueda did an awesome job representing these cooky characters. But I found myself setting this down repeatedly because I just couldn't stay focused.

I really feel like the story just jumped around EVERYWHERE. I lost track of what was happening more than I'd like to admit. I probably wouldn't have known at all if not for the anime...

Overall I still liked the manga, but if I feel a bit of nostalgia for Naota and Haruko I'll probably head for the anime first.

[Hitzuji · Rating 4 out of 5]

El estilo de ilustración es algo que me gustó muchísimo, pues de pronto es muy simple e incluso parece como borrador con trazos muy irregulares y luego hay cuadros con mucho detalle. Creo que así es la historia, como las ilustraciones, irregular. Pero me gustó.

Ya había visto el anime hace muchos años y una característica del anime es que la verdad nunca había entendido bien qué pasaba, en el manga al principio así se siente, completamente random, pero conforme avanza la historia comienza a tener más sentido.

Sólo diré: pobre Naota.

[O. U. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing made sense. Absolutely nothing. This reads like someone ripped out every single panel that was supposed to give some sort of context as to what's happening in the story.

The art and style are great, and I'm a big fan of Gainax/Trigger, so they get two stars for that. I think I messed up by not watching the anime first? I don't think that should be a requirement to enjoy this though.

2/5.

[Slack617 · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not enough that the story is confusing but this book leaves out out details and jumps around too much. If it wasn't for the show I wouldn't know what's going on at all. I'm not even going to bother finishing it because it's too confusing to follow. Do yourself a favor and skip the book and just watch the show.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man I forgot how hard it is to follow this story!

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really took me out of reality and I take it everywhere I go. A lot of the time this manga makes no sense but I think that is the beauty of it.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of FLCL since about as soon as I could watch it here in the States (first through a fan translation bootleg, and then later the DVDs when those hit). Some time back, I had seen the manga version in some bookstore and thumbed through it and then put it back since it seemed to be mostly the same. I often prefer manga to anime when given the choice, but there was something so...multimedia...about FLCL - the storyline, among other things, is deeply entwined around The Pillows-featuring soundtrack - that I couldn't quite picture what the manga would even bring to the table.

This past weekend, going through a bookstore and wanting to pick up a few random books to read, I spotted this omnibus edition and thought...well, why not? The follow-up season came out earlier this year, FLCL Progressive, and some of the fans were talking about it being more like a follow-up to the manga-verse than the anime-verse, and I was curious to see what they meant. And, I've seen the first season enough to have huge chunks memorized so having some wrenches in the cowshed didn't seem like a bad twist.

This is...different? Sort of. The first half is mostly the same, especially the first few scenes. I haven't done a frame-by-frame comparison, and though so some elements are cut or moved around or added, you are going to get essentially the same thing overall. However, as the story progresses, the manga becomes...stranger, weirder, more displaced. Characters from the anime are sometimes regulated to entirely background cameos while others have different general arcs. In some cases, this feels a bit like a fix. Mamimi's characterization, which still has elements of broken youth, feels a bit more...rounded? Naota feels like a younger, brattier kid who is struggling to deal with separation from his brother and, though he is trying to do what's right, is often too selfish to appreciate his part in the story [he occasionally tries to be a hero type, but deals poorly with other people's attention]. The creepy elements of older women (well, older teens) hitting on the young boy are still there, but kind of dealt with. In the anime, you root for him more as a romantic character, sort of...while here you kind of feel his confusion more solidly.

Some scenes, like the brutal murder (???) of his father...are darker. For sure. The ending is a lot less defined. These things feel better, more suited to the story and its strange retelling of a coming-of-age story where virtually everything is a metaphor.

In the end, though, the manga often feels incomplete and would likely require having watched the anime to make sense of things (despite the differences), with some scenes and characters bubbling up like little islands and others abruptly ending. The manga is also missing some of the over the top gusto of the anime. The final battle is gone (replaced by a different final battle that is much less satisfying). The baseball scene is devoid of its impact (no pun intended). The sense of things building up to a climax is generally not there. The manga does fill in some gaps from the anime-storyline - to what degree their canons overlap - but it feels even more incomplete, like it it needed another 50% to get to where it was intended to go.

It is the lesser FLCL, but still of interest.

[Cosmic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel as though I was exposed to the original anime series at the perfect time in my life back when I myself was a young teenager and remembered it fondly. Recently I decided to revisit this story now as an adult re-watching the original show (which required no continuation) and chose this as my first manga read ever. Now I can safely say that I am deeply affected by it and do not regret that choice.

This story as it exists here somehow perfectly manages to encapsulate the feeling of being a young teenage boy going through the early stages of puberty in a very unique and very absurdist and surreal manner.

The art style is charming and so too are its characters. It is a work that inspires layers of reflection on its symbolism. There is love, there is lust, even action and humor, but also a layer of deep melancholy that looking back I believe returns to the reader to the loss of the innocence of youth. Which I think is something we all long for, but can never get back. That is something in the way of the emotion of this story, beneath its absurdity.

My Rating: ●●●●●

It may not be a five star work for everybody, but for me, FLCL is life changing and it has somehow stuck with me all these years later.

*As an aside; the manga is more overtly sexual than the animated series, but is not pornographic. Discerning parents may want to look over it before allowing their teenagers to read it as there are both mature and graphic themes including patricide.*

**Additional postscript; for those who were or are confused by the manga's structure, that is very much intentional. The manga contains certain nonlinear story elements and the creators of FLCL have mentioned this. They also have said in the past that they actually wanted to make it more confusing (if you can believe that) as they thought that the story would be "too easy to understand." The animated series on the other hand is constructed in such a way as to be significantly more digestible for a wider audience.**

[Torrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know how some people say that certain works just cannot be translated to another medium - not out of risk of doing a disservice to the source material - but because it would be a nigh impossible task to have it make sense to the reader? There's a reason why Tolkien's Silmarillion was never adapted into a movie franchise, let alone any other format than the book itself. The FLCL Omnibus is where you take something that was already perfect in its format, that being an animated serial, and try to turn it into something remotely readable that's only 400 pages long.

As someone who owns the animated series and watched it prior to reading this, I can safely say that this barely makes any sense to me as the book touches only the surface of what happens in the show. Some characters are completely out of the picture, others have unknown motivations, and the worst of all is, all the characters have been shafted or wronged from their development. I'm not going to go into the plot as it's a retread of the source material itself, but it would make absolutely no sense to anyone who hasn't seen the anime.

And yet, I can't help but find myself but liking this because of how there was clearly passion put into this. It took the manic in the show to an almost unconventional level, but suffers the most from a slow start. The best part about the entire story from start to finish is the art. Hajime Ueda, the artist behind this, has a very distinctive style; scratchy meets chibi meets grotesque, with gravitas in certain scenes being handled in a more traditional style. It's really the only reason to read the book if you've watched the show. It's better for something to try and exceed its expectations and fail rather than playing it safe.

[Ais · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manga is about a young adolescent dealing with the struggles of growing up. Aaaaand there’s robots and space police and weird mutations and clones and all sorts of abstract weirdness. There is also family drama, romantic intrigue, and other relationship issues that arise for the main characters. I have actually watched the anime version (though only once and a long time ago so I only remember a few things), but the manga is different in many ways, both in form and in plot. It can be very difficult to follow the specifics of what is going on. The conversations sometimes seem like pieces of two different conversations awkwardly fused together to simulate dialogue, which sometimes makes sense and sometimes doesn't, while the action sequences are a series black-and-white stills, so it can be hard to distinguish what is happening within the chaos. Despite this, I think I understood the gist of the plot well enough. The points I missed were filled in by my partner, who has also seen the anime several times, and read the manga along with many other reviews of both works online. I know people who really like FLCL. I have heard that it’s supposed to mean nothing, but that’s the point, and that everything matters and doesn’t matter at the same time. I am not opposed to this idea, but I think I would have appreciated it more if it flowed more fluidly. The combination of disjointed panels and a confusing plot was not enough to attain my admiration, but it did still manage to hold my interest.