Flip Flappers

Cocona is an average middle schooler living with her grandmother. And she who has yet to decide a goal to strive for, soon met a strange girl named Papika who invites her to an organization called Flip Flap.

Dragged along by the energetic stranger, Cocona finds herself in the world of Pure Illusion—a bizarre alternate dimension—helping Papika look for crystal shards. Upon completing their mission, Papika and Cocona are sent to yet another world in Pure Illusion. As a dangerous creature besets them, the girls use their crystals to transform into magical girls: Cocona into Pure Blade, and Papika into Pure Barrier. But as they try to defeat the creature before them, three others with powers from a rival organization enter the fray and slay the creature, taking with them a fragment left behind from its body. Afterward, the girls realize that to stand a chance against their rivals and the creatures in Pure Illusion, they must learn to work together and synchronize their feelings in order to transform more effectively.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Papika Main

Ichimichi, Mao Japanese

Cocomine, Cocona Main

Takahashi, Minami Japanese

Yayaka Supporting

Ohashi, Ayaka Japanese

Uexküll Supporting

Murase, Michiyo Japanese

Yuyu Supporting

Toshinou, Airi Japanese

Hidaka Supporting

Fukushima, Jun Japanese

TT-392 Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Sayuri Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Mimi Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Welwitschia Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Nagatani, Takayuki Producer

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Yoshie, Terushige Producer

Isogai, Noritomo Producer

Reviews

Dec 29, 2016

LeaderTGW

Recommended

To be honest Flip Flappers should-be more popular. I felt that it had all the material needed to engage with audiences regardless of their preferences, and most importantly sell great merchandise. The only thing that stopped me from giving the incredible piece of art a solid 10 was the strange and often times confusing story; which I'll get into in a moment so please keep sitting in your chair, or levitating above, you wizards.

So what is Flip Flappers about? Why should you be watching it? Can you eat it? Only two of the three questions above will be answered.
Flip Flappers’ story is interesting in many ... ways. We follow the lives two cute girls, there’s intense action, amazing visuals, a yuri undertone lurking. What more could you want— other than nudity, perv.

The Story can be hit or miss depending on your preferences. If you’re into simple story-telling and plot developments then Flip flappers most likely won’t be on your watch list. The plot, the real plot, not fan-service is very confusing at times. It is so bad to the point where I found myself questioning “what the hell going on?” in certain episodes. You see, Flip Flappers method of storytelling is hard to follow…

There are often times too many distractions, mostly imagery, that if you miss a single detail then you will be momentarily confused as to what is happening in the story. This is extremely prevalent when there are scenes filled to the brim with dialogue and monologues. Personally, I found myself getting lost in the vibrant imagery or special effects while characters were talking. Now as far as the story telling goes, the “direction” I have to say that I strongly believe that both the narrative was straight forward as to be expected. Flip Flappers method of storytelling is “the hero’s journey.” For example, think of movies like Harry potter or Lord of the rings.

For those who are unfamiliar with the scenario, something bad or out of the ordinary happens. This causes the girls to go on an adventure to solve the problem; they receive supernatural aid, and get just a bit of character development. As their adventure progresses, they run into the antagonist whom they proceed to do battle with. At this point, “death & rebirth” kicks in. The girls lose, but suddenly realize that this battle is important, plot armor kicks in, and they both gain some sort of supernatural ability that helps them defeat the antagonist. After the grueling battle rests, a predictable outcome, the heroes succeed and head back home where everything is nice and happy.

Now with “the journey “that the girls go on. It is not incredible but it sure is unique. During the span of the entire series Papika and Cocnoa are involved in some type of journey that teaches them both lessons. For example they both need each other. They’re friends! Most of the problems the two have to fix during the series, I perceived them as stepping blocks for the two to continue building their budding relationship.
There’s never a dull moment in the Flip Flappers’ story I feel like it provided more than enough entertainment.

At first glance, depending on if you have a good eye or are just really experienced with watching anime. One would assume Gainax worked this title with its unique choices in art. However, they didn’t (as far as my knowledge goes) do much in the animation department. The credits in episode 11 say that they were used for outsourcing. This is common in the anime industry. Personally I believe that their unique art style was used as inspiration for 3hz.

Backgrounds are beautiful despite lacking detail and high quality at times. Character designs are unique, cute which is most important. On the other hand, the animation wasn’t as impressive. I felt like there could’ve been improvements to the aesthetics and quality to make the show look more modern. HOWEVER! And Honestly, I think everything worked out. I enjoyed the beauty the show had to offer. It has a sort of “dreamscape” fantasy design to it. This choice fits with the theme of the show. Lastly, the colors are rich and the special effects are fluid.

The soundtrack does an excellent job setting the mood for certain situations. I felt that the composer did a wonderful job of creating songs that fit theme of the show. Happy, jaunty, tunes, the bells are of course the most important part. Voice acting was good to say the least. I didn't feel like the actors were anything special. The opening and ending song... Scratch the opening song. The ending song perfectly describes what the show is about! the sound director deserves to be acknowledge for their contributions to the show.

Enjoyment & Overall: Flip flappers deserves some notoriety for its great efforts and contributions to the fall 2016 season. I felt that this title was incredibly fun to watch! The characters, art, soundtrack and story. There was so many things that I liked in the show that made it enjoyable. I had to give Flip Flappers a solid 9/10 because of how great I felt watching everything unfold.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 29, 2016

MaskettaSenpai

Mixed Feelings

It's painful to see a show with boundless imagination be constrained by the cold, harsh facts like Flip Flappers. It's a beautifully animated show with an endearing, infectious sort of charm, but BD sales are the lifeblood of seasonal anime, and all the charm in the world won't count for anything if you can't make the grade. Flip Flappers struggled to find an audience, and you could feel the creators; mad-dash scramble to wrap everything by the end of the first and certainly only season.

If given the chance to stretch its legs and take its time, perhaps over two full-length seasons, I think Flip Flappers ... could have developed into something really marvelous. The chance for anything like that now, however, is pure illusion.

Flip Flappers has a great start. The artwork and animation is gorgeous throughout, full of liveliness and energy, capturing everything from fantastical dreamscapes to heated battles to the subtle, little gestures that are so often forgotten. That and the intrigue of the setting and the characters was enough to draw me in. I kept watching for the varied worlds each episode would offer; it reminded me of Space Dandy in that each setting felt like a chance for different artists to go hog wild and really let loose. Papika and Cocona are likable leads to boot, which always helps.

Something I also appreciated was the show's slavish devotion to showing, not telling. There's no narration, no characters explaining every step of their thought process (at first), it's all conveyed through the visuals and the way these characters interact. That can be all too rare in anime and should be applauded.

Unfortunately, the last third of the show starts to cram in plot point after plot point, as if the crew realized that they were running out of time. We stop exploring these distant worlds and instead have to drudge through the tedious, infinitely-less interesting backstory. Characters show up with no purpose (NyuNyu). The characters we already have are pretty thin, with little depth or nuance to really explore. We have yet another "small child with reality warping powers of a god running amok" plot. Then the whole thing ends with so many threads unresolved at best or completely forgotten about at worst; Yayaka, who's friendship with Cocona is the basis for a powerful turning point in Ep 8, is almost entirely redundant by the end and gets no conclusion to her arc. The story doesn't end, it just stops.

It's a shame that a rushed end can damage an otherwise good or even great show, but that's why execution is so, so important.

All that being said, don't take this 6 to mean its bad. I would still heartily recommend Flip Flappers as a whole; it's breathtaking to look at and, at its best, it's a wildly fun and imaginative ride. You just have to take the show warts and all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 1, 2017

Animorphimagi

Not Recommended

This show is amazing...if you liked Madoka or any generic anime that has an organization that won't tell the main character what they are doing or why they should be doing it until the last 2 episodes of the show.
The show's atmosphere drips with the depressing normalcy of Cocona's life. She's a realistic shy high school/middle school girl who just wants to live her life in peace. UNFORTUNATELY, a random girl shows up named Papika, who is one of the most unrealistically cheerful and positive plot driving characters ever. If you like that type of character then this is definitely a fun ride, if you ... would prefer something more realistic, again Madoka like, then this show falls short. Papika might as well be immortal, or at least an inhuman freak who believes she is immune to death. Papika and Cocona are two of the lucky few who get to go to bizarre and amazingly inventive worlds the likes of which no one has seen since the Witch Labyrinths from MM...
Although the worlds are more thought out and unique than MM, they lack a sense of purpose towards the greater plot and are just a showcase for whatever random thing popped into the animator's head that week. The two girls go to these worlds, which may be quite deadly, for no reason beyond curiosity and a prize that neither seems to care about. They desire the greater goal of getting "a wish" but they barely care about the 10 or so pieces they need in order to actually get the wish. Once they learn the organization's overall goal, it becomes even more questionable why they would help out the organization beyond the fact that the story must happen or there will be no show.
Character designs are very unique and purposefully cartoonish, allowing radical changes to their designs when going to different worlds. Unfortunately, the designs are easily the most interesting part of the characters. The art style of their shaded eyes reveal their lack of complexity and failures compared to MM. You might believe there's depth beyond their standard girlish antics, but in reality the character's emotions range from super excited to depressingly sad with nothing but boredom in-between.
The story obviously is just going to string the audience along until the story becomes darker and darker where the leader of the organization reveals his wish that he wants to achieve and the girls must use the power of their love for each other to overcome whatever the "adults" have chosen to believe is the superior ideology. There is an evil organization. They are barely explored and are basically just the villains from the anime Evangelion and Darling in the Franxx.(hooded figures who want to rule/warp the planet into their own ideal world bla bla bla)
It is above the traditional, generic magical girl series, but only just barely and I pity anyone who has much higher hopes than a 6/10 for the show's run.
To be fair, this is probably more like a 5/10, but my standards for stories right now are to at least break previous ideas of the genre and go in a direction that might be better than the ones before it. For that reason I dropped it to a 3/10. You need more than a unique art style to push the boundaries of what's expected in new anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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