Flip Flappers

Episode 5

After weeks of traveling to enchanting dream worlds, it looks like Cocona and Papika have stumbled into their first world of nightmares. When the Flip Flappers try to pursue Yayaka and her sidekick twins into Pure Illusion, they find themselves trapped in a time-looping world of yuri genre clichés, where every day is filled with embroidery, tea parties, and chaste snuggling under the watchful eye of Maria (and a creepy doll or two).

While it's tempting to read this unusual episode as some sort of commentary on girls' love tropes (if you try to escape the academy, you get caught in a downpour of what I can only assume is implied menstrual blood eww), I think the story's intended impact is based more in imagery for its own sake than any deeper subtext. With no more concrete context on how Pure Illusion works or any deeper look into Cocona's psyche, it's hard to extract much from this seemingly symbolism-laden world apart from "damn it's creepy." Sure, we know that Cocona is developing feelings for Papika that are echoed in the yuri aesthetic around her, and it also seems likely that her fear of moving forward in life is related to the time loop, but that second part quickly gets undercut by her immediately breaking away from the loop as soon as Yayaka tells her about it. Papika is actually the one who can't seem to escape the loop, which seems incongruous with her character on any deeper level than "she's ditzy so it's cute that she doesn't care." (Maybe Papika is just happy that she's found a place to belong? Again, I'm forced to speculate because Flip Flappers has spent precious little time giving us details to chew on.) While I desperately want to overthink this episode because it's such an enjoyable watch, I'm not sure I learned anything about Cocona or Papika that I didn't already know by the end. Heck, even their transformations (prompted by the magic words "Flip Flapping!") didn't seem related to anything based in character this time.

We learned just a smidge more about Pure Illusion itself, at least. Yayaka confirms the creepy theory that viewers have long suspected: Pure Illusion warps the minds of its visitors to willingly accept its dream logic. This gives the once wondrous dimension a whole new level of danger that easily explains why so many of FLIP-FLAP's past experiments have gone so poorly. It's bad enough to get suckered into believing terrifying nonsense logic in your own dreams, but it would be so much worse to get trapped in someone else's dream made reality. Are Cocona and Papika's consciousnesses being swapped out for some part of the dreamer's own mind? And what kind of person dreams about an all-girls' academy they can never escape from? Okay, that second question is actually pretty easy to answer. Despite the seeming insanity of Pure Illusion's various pocket universes, they're all pretty banal as far as adolescent dreams go. (I hope the poor lonely schoolgirl responsible for episode 5's world gets some therapy!) So was the world in episode two Uxekull's dream, and that's why he became a rabbit prince in it? Questions within questions remain as we reach Flip Flappers' halfway point, which has now become the show's biggest glaring problem.

Don't get me wrong, episode 5 was tremendously entertaining! The comedy (girls running in terror from their classmates' "qrE3TInqs") and horror elements (those bloody goo-hands of the fallen inside the clock tower!) hit the perfect balance between familiar and creative to make this one of the show's strongest episodes aesthetically, alongside episode 3. But the problem remains that we are far enough into the story that we need to start getting a better idea of what the show is actually supposed to be about. Apart from the broad brushstrokes of "coming-of-age story" and "potential lesbian romance," I couldn't really tell you what themes Flip Flappers is meant to be playing with, and I still know too little about basically everyone who isn't Cocona. It would be different if Flip Flappers was clearly intended to be a Space Dandy-esque animator playground for its own sake, but it's constantly batting around coy insinuations of something bigger and darker hiding under the surface, which isn't going to play well if we haven't been prepared for it with enough character development and thematic exploration to give those big plot reveals legs.

If it keeps up the gorgeous artistry and jubilant creativity every week, Flip Flappers will continue to be a joy to watch no matter where its story takes the end result. Unfortunately, it's hard for a 12-episode anime series to just rest on "pretty," and the amorphous chunks of context we get each week are just tiny enough to make an emotional investment in Flip Flappers more difficult to maintain, as it blows through its first third with more questions than answers still left in the audience's lap.

Rating: B+

Flip Flappers is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jacob is very happy that he's not caught in a nightmarish time loop! Ẻ̥̟̖̹̜͔͐̀̿̽͌̆͛ṽ̛͍̘̟̜̼̘͈͖̀͐̋́͐͑͢͞e̜̝̬̮̲̙͖͎̊̈́͗͑͂͡r̵̢̬͍̥͚͌́̂́͑͘y̴̧̛̺̪͔̬̞͉̿̈͋͌̆̎̍̽̓͢͜ţ̴̖͖̭͓̞̀̃͊̈́̋̃̈͗͢͜͡ḥ̷̱͓͖̪̼̼͒̽̏͘͡͞ͅͅį̷͍̤̣̽̂͆̃́̊͜n̙̜̬̱̂͌͐̿̃͟g̴̲̝̪̙̙͍̙͖͇͑̒̀̊̆̎͢ ĩ̝̪̲͈̼̩̀͌́̀͐͠ͅs̛̱̜̜̘̞̘̀̅̐̒͘ c̷̢̨̙͎͍͓͕̪̈̾̔̅̿̂̚͟o̵̢̘̰͇̹̤̤̗̱̍́̿̀́́̎̌͋͊m̸̨̨̛͔͔̰̤͚̙͆͊͆̾̉̔̆͑́p̮̗̮̖̹̤̞̩̦͐̐͋̈̑̏͊ļ̣̫̺͓̬̦̜̮͖̾̋͆̉͡è̢͍̞̺͑̆̽̚͢͞t̨̙̠̲̫̠͕͖̃̌̆̊́̀̆̕͘͜͠ȩ̸̤̗̩͙̰͑̿̅͒̿̚̚͞l̴̨̛͖̪͉͓̅͆͒̉̓̏͘͝ͅy̧̟̹̦̼̭̬̘̽̽̍̀̋̅̓̄̚ n̸͇̹̯̗̪͈̋̿̂̋̈́̓͘͢͠͠o̡̨̺͈͎̞͆̽̈̋͛͜͢r̢̩̺͔̙̺̩̹̞̖̂̅̓̔͒̄̕m̵̡̨͈̜͖̼̻̻̫͊̓̋͗̈̍a̧̧̺̹͍̪͔͈̔͐̋͌̓́̃͢l̶̤̳̠̞̳̍̊̿́̋̽͋͛͐͜ .̛̬̝̞͇̝̇̊̄̀̂ .̴̨̨͙͍̠́̿̔̀́̓̄̊̕͜ͅ .̪̰͈̱͍͍̖̪̂̉̐́̔̀̒̀͋
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