FLCL kicks off with these words from Naota Nandaba, a grumpy 12-year-old boy who almost seems to believe them. Yet when an enormous "Medical Mechanica" building in the shape of a steam iron sits at the center of his hometown, and Mamimi Samejima, the playfully weird girlfriend of his now-abroad brother, is pawing at Naota with curious abandon, claims of a normal life seem to be wishful thinking.

Naota can't keep up appearances at all when a pink-haired woman speeds out of nowhere to accidentally run him over with her Vespa scooter. She then pauses over his still form and plants a pucker-intensive kiss on his mouth. As Naota sputters back to life, the woman whips out a Rickenbacker bass guitar and, with an exuberant shout, belts him in the head.

The incident leaves Naota not with a concussion, but with a hornlike shape jutting out from his forehead, restrained only by a bandage. He later finds that his attacker, calling herself Haruko Haruhara, has been hired as his family's housekeeper. Frustrated with Haruko's unsubtle advances, her claims of being an alien, and her questions about what's beneath his bandage, Naota runs off and finds Mamimi, giving her some bad news about his brother. Then two robot bursts out of Naota's head. They fight.

The victorious one, a TV-faced automaton named Canti, isn't the last thing to come from Naota's skull, though it's the friendliest. From Canti's arrival, FLCL wanders deeper into its own weave of dreamlike logic, incorporating an arsonist's ideal video game, a plot-explaining government agent with huge rectangular eyebrows, the ambiguous phrase “Fooly Cooly,” and, of course, more robots. However, it's all strangely easy to accept when conveyed through FLCL's unique and feverish visual style. Brimming with exaggeration and parodies, the series offers a fascinating blend of risqué humor, adolescent angst, and hilarious clashes between cranially spawned mecha and the guitar-slinging Haruko. And no matter what happens, it's always rendered with marvelous flair.

In other words, it's precisely the sort of thing that one would expect from Gainax, the boldly scattershot studio responsible for The Wings of Honneamise, Gunbuster, and the industry-shaking Neon Genesis Evangelion. Director Kazuya Tsurumaki intended FLCL as a reaction against the pretentiousness of post-Evangelion anime, and he lends his creation an easygoing, cartoonish air that allows goofy moments to flow smoothly into serious undertones. Though not every joke is a direct hit (a scene of semi-static manga panels isn't as funny in episode six as it is in episode one), it's never uninteresting. The animation, aided by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's character art and Production I.G's staff, is gorgeous, and everything's cemented by a soundtrack snatched from the albums of one of Tsurumaki's favorite bands, the Pillows. Like a Japanese evolution of the Pixies, the pop-rock outfit fits the look of FLCL so well, it often seems as though Tsurumaki sculpted the entire series around their songs.

While the six episodes of FLCL are worth seeing for their inventive looks alone, they're more than an enjoyable surface. Within the comical excesses and bizarre concepts, there's a decidedly clever story about the path to adulthood, as trod by people who are often more than they appear. Naota spends a lot of his time yelling at Haruko and other adults, but his insecurities and scarcely hidden childish side make him far more alive than other youthful anime protagonists. Mamimi's strange habits are endearing, but those cute fascinations hide a desperate loneliness. Eri Ninamori, a precocious and astute girl from Naota's class, seems to have a crush on him, but the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated.

The center attraction, however, is Haruko. Beguiling, spastic, and recklessly independent, she torments Naota in every imaginable way, mugs a nurse, uses a housecat as a trans-space communicator, fends off a legion of heavily armed secret agents, takes advantage of anyone in her path, picks her nose, and all but dares the viewer not to love her for it. She's thoroughly selfish and even ominous at times, yet Tsurumaki and scriptwriter Yoji Enokido (Evangelion, RahXephon) make her an immensely appealing anti-heroine, letting her push the series to an apex both grandiose and unexpectedly emotional.

Considering that many of FLCL's jokes are esoteric even by their native Japanese standards, it seems impossible to create a dub to match the original track. That only makes Synch-Point's work all the more astonishing. The English language cast offers an excellent performance by Barbara Goodson as Naota, and an even better one by Kari Wahlgren, who imitates Haruko's Japanese actress, Mayumi Shintai, with uncanny precision, carrying the dub just as her character carries the show. Also impressive is Heather Lee Joelson, who nails Ninamori's role perfectly. If pressed to choose a weak link, I'd say that Jennifer Sekiguchi doesn't always seem right as Mamimi. Sounding much like her Japanese counterpart, she uses a distracted tone that comes through as innocent in some scenes and bored in others. Still, that's the sole shortcoming of a first-rate dub.

Synch-Point also gave FLCL the royal treatment in its packaging. Perhaps realizing that fans might balk at paying thirty dollars per two-episode DVD, the company bundled each volume with a thick booklet containing remarks from the production staff, Pillows frontman Sawao Yamanaka, and even a few FLCL characters. The discs also include commentary tracks from director Tsurumaki, whose explanations prove helpful in separating the series' core from the elements that were thrown in just for the hell of it.

Some describe FLCL as pointlessly inscrutable, and though such a remark could be a compliment to the series, I don't think it applies. Much is here solely for its own sake, but a satisfying story lies beneath the wondrous nonsense and noise. As with most exercises in absurdity, this isn't for everyone. Yet for those with a love of strange and beautiful cartoons, FLCL is a madly brilliant work of art, and one that shouldn't be missed.