Fooly Cooly

“I know he’s doing it. Doing, doing it, fooly cooly-ing!”

The term Fooly Cooly is never explicitly explained in the series Fooly Cooly. In fact, in the season 1 finally, Haruko, the main character, says to Naota, the other main character, “Have you figured out what fooly cooly means?”

Well, I know Fooly Cooly as the anime series about an alternate world in which getting hit by high speed cars and shooting bullets doesn’t kill you, in which electric guitars are not only musical instruments but deadly weapons, in which robots pop out of your head, and in which everyone in the small town of Mabase are being mind controlled by a giant gold iron at the top of a hill at the center of town.

Naoto is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, and into his life intrudes Haruko, an alien in the form of a crazy, sexy vespa woman. She literally intrudes, like all of a sudden, and everyone acts like it’s perfectly normal. Throughout the series, Naoto is really annoyed by her. In fact, he’s kinda annoyed by everybody. He’s one of these disgruntled kids who’s all down on life and wallows in his own teenage angst. Haruko is fucking insane. In fact, she’s kinda abusive towards Naoto–in a Rick-and-Morty kinda way–and brings him through a lot of chaotic adventures, putting his life at risk, forcing him to take a lot of shit. There’s even hints of pedophilic seduction on her part–and not only on her parts, but in regards to a lot of characters in the series, a lot of young teenage girls (that’s pervie Japanese culture for you, I guess).

Anyway, what does Haruko want with Naoto? She wants to use his brain as a portal to introduce highly sophisticated robots into this world–hence the robots popping out of people’s heads (Naoto’s not the only one). They literally come through the forehead, tank-sized robots, ripping through the skin I suppose (there’s no blood). Naoto and other characters express pain when it happens but not nearly to the degree one would think if they had something three times the size of a tank pop out of their head. Most of these robots are evil (or at least unfriendly to humans), but there is one, Canti, who turns out to be everyone’s friend.

Here’s some vespa woman clips:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTQzA1e-KYE[/youtube]

^ I love this chick. I wanna be this chick.

In fact, I see her as the equivalent of Gaz Digzy or Rick Sanchez. Not exactly the same–they all have their differences–but I see an uncanny similarity between all three of these Adult Swim cartoons with respect to their relationships to their sidekicks–Morty, Ace, and Naoto.

All these duos have something in common. They are all characterized by crazed lunatics placed in the position of overseer or care giver of a young child/adolescent boy, and do a terrible job at it, putting them through abuse in most cases. Gaz Digzy’s the only one who doesn’t quite fit this description, but she is placed in the position of overseer / care giver of the Leptons (the team), and therefore Ace by proxy. I also don’t know if I’d call her a crazed lunatic but she’s definitely got a few screws loose upstairs–I’d call her more “out of control” than “crazy,” and more of a narcissist than a lunatic… and definitely very Rick-like. She also doesn’t really put Ace through a lot of abuse (Ace is too positive to even process abuse) but she doesn’t take very good care of him either–more like a neglectful mother than an abusive one. But in all cases, it is all too reminiscent of me and my demon–Haruko on the more playful side, Gaz on the more cynical self-destructive side, and Rick nicely in the middle.

There is also a parallel between how Haruko and Rick enter into the lives of their side kicks. They all of a sudden show up. And I’m even reminded of episode 4 of Rick and Morty season 2 (Total Rickall) in that there is a hint that Rick might be a parasite–an alien who intrudes into the Smiths’ lives disguised as a human and implanting false memories that he is Beth’s father. Except for the false memories, this is more or less Haruko’s story–alien being disguised as human and intrudes on Naota’s and his father’s lives and is accepted like a relative come to visit.

On occasion in Fooly Cooly, there is the theme of synthesis between man and machine. Naoto, in a couple episodes, is “consumed” by Canti the good robot, and when that happens, they become a force to be reckoned with. This parallels a similar theme in Ballmastrz: Ace and Baby Ball (who is a robot if you follow the back story of the Rad Wars) join together to become a Ballmaster, a bionic synthesis that results in an amazing ability to mentally materialize any mechanical formation they want. Both the Canti/Naoto synthesis and the Ace/Baby Ball synthesis even result in very similar formations. The image below, for example, shows the formation of a canon:

Then there is the electric guitar. Haruko always carries one around. But it’s not just a guitar. It’s a deadly weapon used to attack the robots. Somehow, it packs an enormous punch; not just from the impact of Haruko’s forceful swing, but from some inherent power to destroy whatever it strikes. And when Haruko isn’t attacking robots (or Naoto) with it, she’s riding it like a surf board:

Haruko’s not the only one to have such a guitar. It seems every alien from her world carries a guitar around… just in case they come across some deadly robots. Take Julia Jinyu for instance:

Nice guitar!

I know this thread is ancient AF, but I’m once again enthralled by a cute little cartoon series for adults featuring another duo that matches the pattern described above, and I thought a post acknowledging its place here is warrant.

Introducing Alastor and Charlie from Hazbin Hotel:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH50pCm6MeM[/youtube]

I’ll let you decide which one is the abuser and which the abused.