When keeping up with 2016 anime, I would often watch a title with a nagging sense that something was missing - something I wasn't seeing that was keeping a show with a workable or seemingly exciting premise from being truly engaging. And yet, for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what that something was.

Then, as the year approached its end, I was shown a world almost entirely unlike anything I knew from that year. Suddenly, it all made sense! What was missing was surprisingly simple: a sense of passion - ambition! A willingness to take risks - to try something bold, run with it confidently, and, perhaps most importantly, to have fun along the way!

This key ingredient sums up exactly what Flip Flappers sets out to do, and for the most part, it delivers in style! It’s not a show that’s interested in playing it safe, running with the pack, or following the norm. It does its own thing in its own world. It remains committed to this and never looks back. Not only does it feel novel, but as it runs, it succeeds in providing something many of its contemporaries struggle with: pure, unapologetic fun.

The show immediately pops with a striking presentation style that is excellent for the experience it attempts to create. Anytime the setting enters the whimsical world of Pure Illusion (which it very frequently does), a vibrant and impressionistic colour palette combines with sketchbook character designs to create worlds which immediately pop out at viewers; smears and flashes of colour - the worlds themselves - comes alive onscreen through highly expressive and fluid animation, all backed by a suitably fantastical score. Whenever this show wants to sell a big set piece, bombastic moment or climactic sequence, it does so with ease, energy and expression filling every frame! These moments are exciting; often breathtaking, and they combine with a general livelihood and an ever-present sense of wonder and novelty to immediately make Flip Flappers a fun watch!

But such moments aren’t the only things contributing to this anime's flair. The very nature of Pure Illusion - an abstract world which seems loosely representative of characters' inner states of mind - is a perfect fit for this style of entertainment. Flip Flappers can effortlessly realize just about any setting it wants without it ever feeling out of place, nor completely random. This is great for keeping the level of variety and creativity consistently high. With this, and since much of the show runs on a cohesive semi-episodic structure, pretty much any crazy idea the show comes up with can be successfully built up to, and then executed with gusto!

And so, when the main pair of magical girls suddenly finds itself in an epic high-speed flying surfboard chase to escape from a crazy torture factory, or a DBZ-style fight involving a mind-altering mask culminating in a meteoric final smash, it works like a charm!

All of this crazy not-quite-randomness is thankfully held together by a controlled yet dynamic sense of tone and pacing. Each episode offers something new - something fresh - and each one makes an effort to go all-out with itself. In addition, it all ties into a core theme of the show: that of identity. Pure illusion itself is an expression of this, and in terms of story, each episode for most of the series tackles aspects of the theme in a different and interesting manner. One particular highlight of this (and of the show’s writing as a whole) came in episode 6. I won’t say any more on the matter, but it remains one of my favourite anime episodes of 2016. Point being, the show has a sense of cohesion that keeps most of it from feeling too unhinged, and allows viewers to build up expectations that it can subsequently defy in any number of ways.

Just a few episodes in, I was already preparing to crown this my favourite anime of fall 2016 by far! And... in the end, I definitely think this is a show worth watching, but unfortunately, it hits a few stumbles.

For all the strengths of the show’s presentation and structure, the characterization is often lackluster. While the main characters aren’t one-dimensional, per se, they tend to lack in depth or detail that could really make them interesting to invest in. The main duo of Cocona and Papika can certainly be fun to watch as they contrast with and bounce off each other, but this dynamic relies heavily on moment-to-moment chemistry and less on meaningful conflict or development. That’s not to say it isn’t present. Cocona in particular does go through several instances of personal conflict and development - disagreements with Papika’s adventurous ideologies being one example - but little of it, for Cocona or any other character, is presented with the kind of weight, importance or urgency to get a viewer eager to see them grow or overcome any difficulty. Similar things can be said for the rest of the main cast. As for the supporting characters, they’re pretty forgettable, with maybe one or two exceptions (Again, I refer to episode 6). As a whole, the characters don’t actively harm the show, but rarely do much for it either.

One may also notice many of my aforementioned praises apply to "most" of Flip Flappers. Alas, it admittedly falters a bit later on, and in ways that prevents it from ultimately reaching its full potential. Sometime around the halfway point, Flip Flappers had a change of writers, and it shows. I suspect the general direction of the story was either changed or left on the sidelines for too long, because when things finally start unravel, they REALLY unravel. And so does the quality of storytelling. As if from nowhere, the show decides it has a ton of plot to reveal, and is going to pick up the pace as much as it deems necessary to get through it all.

How much is that, exactly? Enough that all the viewer's attention is suddenly fixated on following this mass of new information and development, instead of actually enjoying the ride. Flip Flappers, which relies so heavily on its apparent simplicity and well-paced structure to remain grounded - to create its special brand of charm - loses itself to a degree when it comes unhinged. In its strives for progression, it sacrifices any chance to be reflective or create a sense of wonder and fascination, and it doesn't leave the audience much time to catch their breath either.

The result resembles a rollercoaster whose design was unexpectedly and radically altered partway through assembly. What was once a carefully-paced ride quickly becomes a tornado of loops and corkscrews and twists and turns one after another, and another, and another, and another, while the track suddenly becomes bumpier and more hastily-thrown together at the expense of rider comfort!

It’s almost as though they got two-thirds of the way through construction and realized the track was too straightforward, so they decided to build THREE TIMES AS MANY CRAZY TURNS into the last third to compensate! “What’s that?! We’ll make our riders dizzy?! No worries! We’ve got them in the cart already!” I admire the ambition, but Flip Flappers may have tried to tackle just a tad TOO much. Attempting to cram all the resulting plot development into 4-5 episodes was always going to be nigh impossible without the pacing suffering to a degree. If it had been granted a longer construction time and was a 2-cour series, then likely none of this would have been a problem, but regardless, what we got was, at times, a bit of a mess.

Thankfully, Flip Flappers doesn’t completely lose its way during this segment. Even at its clumsiest of times, it never completely loses direction, and if one can keep up with its frenetic pace, the story can still be followed to a degree. In addition, its sense of expressiveness and energy remains mostly intact throughout, while the visual quality stays impressively consistent. And fortunately, this jerky ride still eventually reaches a fairly satisfying and conclusive stopping point (ending) so riders can steady themselves.

One final silver lining to the comparatively weaker third act actually emerges from the previous ones, and that is the show’s knack for effective foreshadowing. For all the twists, turns and unexpected bits of information Flip Flappers eventually blasts through, many of them are actually built up to quite well. While a few things still feel a bit spontaneous, Flip Flappers as a whole rarely seems to haphazardly throw out its plot twists without some level of setup. I won't be giving anything away here, as even with the chaotic structure near the end, discovering these things can be fun to an extent. Amidst all of them, though, there was one revelation in particular that really impressed me with its unusual yet brilliant method of foreshadowing. Without giving too much information, one of the ways it hints at itself is through the very structure of certain episodes themselves, and the effect that structure has on the viewer. If that sounds rather meta, you’d be right, but if it sounds like I’m overthinking things, I can affirm I’m not.

If only the viewer was a bit more invested in the character(s) involved. Then, perhaps, this revelation would have had more impact - beyond its novel execution - and indeed, the same can be said for the show as a whole.

Ultimately, Flip Flappers concludes itself as an imperfect but valuable marvel. It strides forth unexpectedly, as if from another other world, seemingly out of nowhere, to show what it can achieve! As a thematically varied audiovisual treat, full of creative energy, it possesses a rare, passionate desire to do what many series forgot how to do: to just have fun for once. In today’s period of frequent anime monotony, Flip Flappers stands out as a welcome modern breath of fresh air; one that knows its strengths, and plays to them well.


- FINAL SCORES & SUMMARIES -

* Critical Quality: 6.5/10 (Story - 6 | Art - 9 | Sound - 7 | Character - 5)
– Despite some late-game plotting and pacing weaknesses, as well as functional but unremarkable characterization, Flip Flappers excels where it counts. Its top-notch, vibrant, energetic presentation and consistent creativity really help it succeed.

* Memorability: 7.5/10 – In addition to a strong sense of novelty, Flip Flappers knows how to craft creative and memorable moments and properly sell them, and does so frequently; it all gives this series a very unique identity.

* Enjoyment: 6.5/10 – My enjoyment was brought down a fair bit by the final third, which simply wasn’t as engaging as the rest despite all the surprises and plot developments. But the “rest” I refer to was definitely a fun ride!

* Overall: 6.5/10 – Flip Flappers didn’t quite reach the highs I was initially hoping for, but I still consider it a respectable series that achieved what it set out to do. Even with its setbacks, it has enough standout qualities to make it well worth watching, and I can confidently recommend it to anyone interested. One small warning, though: the ending theme won't be leaving your head for a while.