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FLCL Reanimated is a Labor of Love

It's always impressive just how far some fans are willing to go to showcase how much they love a franchise. Fan animations have been around for a long time, with many people opting to do continuations or alternate takes on a series. One form of fan appreciation in the realm of online fan animations is the reanimation project, where a group of animators will come together and put their own stylistic spin on a pre-existing work. This can be a daunting endeavor, and it might not match every single project, but I can't think of a show that is more malleable for different animation styles than FLCL.

At Anime NYC 2025, the main organizers behind FLCL Reanimated were present for their own panel. Not only did they showcase an entire reanimated episode that had taken over five years to create, but they also shared some behind-the-scenes insight into what organizing such a massive project was like. Of the six episodes of Fooly Cooly that are out, the animation project chose to re-animate episode five. This episode was picked in particular because not only does it showcase a variety of different animation styles on its own, but it's also the episode that is arguably the most action-packed. It's also the episode that features the majority of the main cast. Speaking of cast, the episode utilized the dub of this show, and the reanimation featured the works of over two hundred animators, with the episode itself having its own unique intro sequence. The intro sequence alone took about six months to do and was one of the final things that was added.

You can find the whole animation on YouTube, and I would highly recommend it, because it really does feel like a love letter to the series and animation in general. The episode changes styles for what feels like every five seconds. Spreadsheets were made so participants could pick which scenes they thought were incredible, or sometimes shots were signed based on an animator's skills and aesthetics. This required a lot of emails and coordination, but it's easy not to think about that when you're watching the product itself because of how seamlessly it all flows together.Fooly Cooly is already an anime that features a variety of different animation styles not just on an episode-by-episode basis, but also on a scene-by-scene basis. A lot of scenes feature visual gags and straight-up homages to other animation styles, both Eastern and Western.

If I watched the first four episodes of FLCL and then watched episode five of the reanimation project, I probably would have assumed that this was how the episode was always meant to look; it just fit that well. Some animation styles utilized manga aesthetics, stop motion, and off-model smears. Cuts referenced more anime or Western cartoons, and scenes genuinely looked like they were from the original anime. Still, it was distinctly re-created with slight tweaks or filters. Probably one of my favorite cuts in the entire episode was actually a part of the closing credits because someone actually went out of their way to re-create one of the sections where we see the iconic yellow Vespa traveling to different locations. I legitimately thought it was just a scene ripped right from the show, but turns out somebody had a similar yellow Vespa and just created their own travel sequence with different locations.

You could tell that a lot of love went into a project like this. The fact that it is so beloved by both fans of the show and even some professional people in the industry is a sight to behold. FLCL is a series that I'm always learning from every time I rewatch it, so seeing people's different animated takes on certain scenes felt like I was getting a glimpse into how other people interpreted the show themselves. It was fun seeing the different ways artists drew characters' faces or animated body language. It's not about whether or not this is better or worse than the original; it's just a distinct labor of love. I love how the staff said they want to work on other shows, similar to Speed Racer. But they also made it clear that not every show necessarily lends itself to this approach, like Serial Experiments Lain. Still, though, I do hope we get more projects like this, either from for FLCL itself or from other shows, because we need more fan celebrations of the animated medium, and massive collaborations like this can really showcase how special things can be when talented people all work together.

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ANN's coverage of Anime NYC 2025 is sponsored by Yen Press!