Flip Flappers

Episode 8

Alright, I've tried to avoid it, but it seems the time has finally come. Let's talk about fanservice.

From what I've gathered, the greatest barrier to entry for most people watching Flip Flappers has either been its surreality or its fanservice. The first obstruction to enjoyment is obvious; either you love this show's totally bonkers aesthetic and clandestine storytelling, or you hate it. On the fanservice angle, however, I was a little confused at first as to why people were so hung up on it. Like it or not, sexuality is a pretty omnipresent aspect of anime, just like it's an omnipresent aspect of genres aimed at teens and adults in live action. (It's just weirder at first because even animation aimed at adults in the west isn't as likely to use sexual content for titillation, thanks to cartoonier conventions for character design among other factors.) My point is, if you've been watching anime for long, you've seen a lot more explicit and degrading fanservice than anything that pops up in Flip Flappers, handsy robot notwithstanding. (He's just...searching for wish fragments? Sigh.) Usually, the vaguely lurid imagery in Flip Flappers was used to illustrate the girls' growing feelings for each other and burgeoning knowledge of their own sexuality, rather than the camera just leering at them for its own sake.

But I guess once that handsy robot Bu-chan finally got his own episode, things were bound to go a little too far for Flip Flappers fanservice. There was absolutely no reason to put the girls in swimsuits and shunt the camera up their butts and taints as often as this episode did. Despite the series' past flirtations with sexual imagery, this was the first episode that seemed 100% unnecessary in its treatment of the heroines' bodies. I can't recall a speck of fanservice that spoke to the growing bond between them, and it mostly just undercut their sweet and sincere commitment to protect Bu-chan's metropolis instead. Honestly, most of this episode was more frivolous and predictable than what I expect out of Flip Flappers, ultimately wasting too much time in a series approaching its final quarter. When there's only five episodes remaining, do we really need to learn more about just how many screws are loose in the mind of the show's worst character?

Anyway, I'll try to dwell on the good up front, because it's not like this little plot cul-de-sac was bad on its own by any means. Visually, episode 8 is a total showstopper, dropping us into Bu-chan's dream-world, an Akira-like city filled with neon skyscrapers and populated by mad zombie parakeet-men. It's an awfully strange planet, but it's all Bu-chan has left now that he's just a brain in a little yellow wagon. (We zoom out a few times to see the entire planet is just his squishy cranium, with the metro's incredible splendor only representing the genius and creativity now locked away inside his addled shell. I'd feel worse for him if he weren't such an incorrigible pervert.) Bu-chan himself is personified as a pint-sized mad scientist desperate to protect his mental sanctuary from the inevitable entropy that invades it in zombie form. Most of his observations are standard chuuni posturing, but I did like his comment that his world was not "too small" for the girls, but that they were too big instead. Bu-chan isn't crazy or lost from his own perspective, and the girls' discomfort in his world should probably give them pause on how uncomfortable he must feel in theirs.

From there, it's just a series of giant robot references to save Bu-chan's world at the expense of one big burnt skidmark down Planet Brain's surface. (Well, what's one more patch of madness at this point?) After finally acknowledging her fear of change in episode 7, Cocona mostly gets to show off in this episode, embracing her role alongside Papika completely for the first time. You'd think this would be a more triumphant moment, especially considering we left episode 7 with a lot of her feelings unresolved, but it's almost handwaved during this adventure in favor of focusing on Yayaka instead. Don't get me wrong, it's important for Yayaka to start expressing some doubt over her actions at this stage of the game, and seeing her react to a stronger and more confident Cocona is a good way to do it, but I still think Cocona's flip from "I'm afraid of change and don't know what I want" to "I want to gather fragments with Papika even if it means the world changes!" was pretty damn abrupt.

Anyway, ignoring the awkward timing of Cocona's transformation, Yayaka's reaction to the change was heartening. Despite her usual coldness in their competition for amorphous fragments, it's always been clear that Yayaka dearly loves Cocona and has wanted to see her grow stronger for a very long time. It's possible that Yayaka's allegiance with the world conquest cult was even inspired by her frustration at Cocona's inability to commit to anything in life, but we'll probably learn more about that later. Whatever the case, seeing Cocona finally move forward without fear for someone and something she believes in finally pushes Yayaka to help her friend personally. Together, the three girls use their 80s super-robot to take down the 90s Evangelion-monster, while the amorphous twins look on with an ominous "will report this" when Yayaka surrenders the hard-won fragment to the Flip Flappers.

For the millionth time in a row, an episode of Flip Flappers ends with more questions than answers left behind. We know a little more about his personality now, but who exactly is Bu-chan to Hidaka? Is it an alternate dimension version of Hidaka's brain that he's trying to preserve somehow? Is it his partner in Flip Flapping, his very own Cocona that he almost lost in some undisclosed way? Or was Bu-chan never human at all, just a miniature construct of Hidaka's childhood personality that he can send to Pure Illusion in his place? He got a whole episode to himself, but I still have no idea what the point of Bu-chan is in the story at large. If nothing else, we learned that he and Hidaka share an obsession with preventing the inevitability of death for the poor little robot; Cocona isn't the only person afraid of the unstoppable changes life brings us all.

The episode ends with Papika accidentally referring to Cocona as Mimi once again, making it more obvious than ever that these girls weren't brought together by coincidence. While entertaining enough, this episode was mostly a misstep for me substance-wise, so I hope Flip Flappers can pick up the slack next week.

Rating: B-

Flip Flappers is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jacob would prefer to install his brain in one of these little abominations when he finally goes bananas. You can follow Jake here on Twitter.