×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Flip Flappers
Episode 3

by Jacob Chapman,

How would you rate episode 3 of
Flip Flappers ?
Community score: 4.5

This week on Fist of the North Star--erm, I mean Flip Flappers, Cocona and Papika came out the other side of Dr. Salt's ominous transportation device no worse for wear, only to crash-land on a hostile desert planet. It seems the downside to teleporting to Pure Illusion via FLIP-FLAP's weird magician's cabinet is that the two girls could come out equally separated on the other side. Papika ends up in a humble village of Haniwa-headed homies, but Cocona lands in a far more dangerous location. As Papika enjoys a giant "gung-ho sweet potato" spit-roasted to perfection by the villagers, Cocona stumbles around a foreboding Grecian palace in the middle of the desert, only to find a massive fountain overflowing with wasted water at its center, where naked women with their heads wrapped completely in heavy bandages moan and wail with ball-gags in their mouths, beneath a sinister magical girl matriarch. Flip Flappers has definitely taken a darker turn.

Still, apart from that shocking image and the ever-present feeling of dread that sneaks into the creases around the show's colorful aesthetic (particularly in the ED), this episode is the most exuberantly joyful Flip Flappers adventure yet. Even the arrival of a giant Ben-Hur death blimp manned by Mad Max goons manages to be more whimsical than frightening, and their incredibly rude way of wasting the villagers' water (pouring it down their pants) makes these "villains" seem like misguided goofballs from a little kid's imagination. No, the real threat doesn't come from within Pure Illusion itself, but from an outside source who saw fit to conquer it. She doesn't get a name, but the "dark magical girl" that Cocona and Papika must defeat in the desert makes a strong case that FLIP-FLAP has tried and failed to harness the power of Pure Illusion through many young girls before them.

Now, most of this episode is clearly not meant to be thought about too hard. You can and should be able to enjoy the wild Kill la Kill duel between our fully transformed heroines and the venus flytrap girl who wants their delicious fragments without digging deep into what it all means for the story at large. As an artistic showcase, Flip Flappers's almost-too-much-but-always-just-right aesthetic is more praiseworthy than ever before in episode 3, with animation blowouts from top to bottom that are bound to remind any sakuga fan what they love about anime all over again. (My favorite detail was the way that Cocona and Papika's costumes act as a crossfading illusion where you could see both one body and two bodies as they stand side by side.) However, since I'm reviewing the show, it's high time I started overthinking all the hints this episode drops about what's really going on. It's just what I do.

The reveal that struck me most in this episode is pretty blink-and-you-miss-it, but apparently Pure Illusion works on the exact same logic as Super Mario Galaxy. (Flip Flappers's aesthetic was always pretty Nintendo-game-like, but this is ridiculous!) We see that the desert planet is just one of many in a sparkly frosting-colored universe that probably represents Pure Illusion at large. When Cocona and Papika warp into the dimension, they are caught in the orbit of any number of countless worlds, and sometimes their streaking comet bodies can be seen on completely different planets in the big space-swirl that makes up Pure Illusion. My guess right now is that these "planets of imagination" are formed by the wishes and dreams of children, often simplistic or nonsensical in nature, but still spawning endlessly across a universe of possibility. Who wouldn't want to explore a place like that? Give me a No Man's Sky version of Pure Illusion, please!

Anyway, despite her obvious megalomaniacal endgame, the dark magical girl who first kidnaps Cocona does seem to think she's doing her a favor. The mask she claps over her head supposedly brings out Cocona's true desires, exercising the most control over girls who are afraid to be themselves. So it's no surprise that it has such a powerful effect on Cocona, who's trying so hard to be a grown-up despite not having any idea what that's supposed to mean, while resisting the childlike wonder of Pure Illusion that clearly brings out more of her true personality. (On reflection, I wonder if that's why Uxekull, who has a very chuunibyou name to begin with, transformed into a heroic prince in episode two. Perhaps that was part of Cocona's imagination she was suppressing, projecting her dreams of adventure onto her pet bunny in ways that could only be realized in Pure Illusion.) Some part of her did want to punch Papika, but probably not for the malicious reasons that the dark magical girl assumes. Is Cocona hiding from other types of strong feelings that Pure Illusion is beginning to bring out? How many girls have fallen into Pure Illusion and just decided that they never want to leave, warping into some obsessive version of their former selves?

Whatever the case may be, Papika shows up just in time to save Cocona from her darkest desires. For the third time now, they transform with the help of something tasty. First it was sugar-snow, then it was rabbit food, and now it's one hot potato. I'm not sure what it means yet, but it definitely seems like the girls bond together over eating things in some measure, and this is the first time they've fully transformed together. Papika professes her love for Cocona after it's all over, and Cocona, tamping down the high of their incredible fight together, tells her to put a sock in it. It seems like if she wants to survive the temptations and trials of Pure Illusion, she'll have to start being more honest about her true emotions, but before we can worry about that angle too much, another twist comes flying in to shake things up.

Suddenly, Cocona's childhood friend Yayaka shows up with a pair of mysterious twins to land the finishing blow on the dark magical girl, pulling a giant wish fragment out of her melted remains that they refer to as an "amorphous." My guess is that this amorphous was much bigger than the others because this girl has been stealing fragments from other girls, revealing that Cocona's own fragment is indeed just inside her left thigh. (That's why FLIP-FLAP's searcher robot kept sticking his feelers up her skirt. He's not a pervert! He's just very dedicated to his job of dousing for fragments. Frankly, I'm still unsettled by how little of his human brain still seems to be working inside that metal shell.) Yayaka's arrival also inadvertently cements FLIP-FLAP as a more benevolent agency than we may have suspected at first, because she's working for a completely different group that seems infinitely more sinister. This cult-like force bubbles agents into Pure Illusion from puddles in the ground (FLIP-FLAP sends its girls down like comets from holes in the sky), and they refer to Papika as "one half of the Direct Drive." However dubious Dr. Salt might be, I don't think he plans on turning Papika and Cocona into literal "amorphous resources" like this white-hooded religious order seems intent on doing, so I'm going to trust him for the time being, even if his employees are pretty annoying and rude.

Even after three episodes in, we don't have many concrete details about the larger plot of Flip Flappers, but at this point, I don't really care. The show is still tremendously entertaining and weird while remaining blessedly easy to understand and connect with emotionally. I'm sure we'll get to all those big reveals in time, but I'm also content to watch these talented animators express their ids across different dream-planets episode after episode.

Rating: A-

Flip Flappers is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jacob would prefer to transform his giant sweet potatoes into a basket of sugary french fries. You can follow Jake here on Twitter.


discuss this in the forum (195 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history

back to Flip Flappers
Episode Review homepage / archives