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During the commercial break for the premiere of episode 2 of FLCL: Grunge, on the night of September 16-17, 2023, Toonami revealed in a bumper that FLCL: Shoegaze the fifth season in the FLCL franchise, was set to premiere on September 30 at midnight. Max, the streaming service by Warner Bros. Discovery, will have the show available for streaming the following day.
On Thursday, Adult Swim posted on their social media accounts a full trailer for Shoegaze, which you can see below. FLCL: Shoegaze will be a sequel to FLCL: Alternative which aired on Toonami in 2018, as the latter’s protagonist, Kana Koumoto, is a recurring character in this season. Shoegaze is directed by Yutaka Uemura animated by Studio NUT.
Unlike the original FLCL in 2001 and the Progressive and Alternative spinoffs that aired in 2018, which were each six episodes in length, Grunge as well as Shoegaze are both three episodes in length. Maki Terashima-Furuta, the President of Production I.G USA and producer of FLCL, revealed this on Twitter when asked by a fan. She also answered that the shorter length for these two sequels was a “business decision.”
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https://twitter.com/MakiTerashima/status/1703268125050122620
This means that the third episode of FLCL: Grunge, which will air on September 23 at midnight, will be the season’s last. The episode count for Grunge was not revealed to the public until last Saturday.
On a related note, the official FLCL Twitter account revealed that the ending theme song for FLCL: Grunge is titled “Vivid Venus” by The Pillows. The band has been a regular contributor to the show’s soundtrack since its 2001 premiere, and will also continue to contribute music for FLCL: Shoegaze.
FLCL USA Official on Twitter: “The name of the song in the end of FLCL: Grunge is “Vivid Venus” by @thepillowsJPN. / Twitter”
The name of the song in the end of FLCL: Grunge is “Vivid Venus” by @thepillowsJPN.
Kazuya Tsurumaki, the original director of FLCL, served as an executive producer for both Progressive and Alternative in 2018. Tsurumaki was not involved in the production of both Grunge and Shoegaze this time around, but according to Toonami creator Jason DeMarco, he did give them his blessing to produce them.
Some viewers have questioned whether or not FLCL needed sequel seasons, given that some fans have felt that the series hasn’t been able to capture the same “lightning in a bottle” that the original six episodes did. But when asked about the show’s reception and ratings performance from the perspective of Adult Swim in general, Jason answered “Mixed response but good ratings. Plenty of ppl tell us they like them, plenty tell them they don’t. Honestly about the same as most other AS shows. Adult Swim looks at these as worthy endeavors, that’s why they made more.”
In an interview with vulture.com, when Jason was asked if there will be further seasons of FLCL, he responded by saying: ““Whether or not there are more is probably going to be up to Production I.G. and how these perform,” DeMarco says. “As far as our involvement, we’ve done everything we wanted to do. We weren’t trying to recapture lightning in a bottle.””
Editors Note: Fixed the airing date for FLCL Shoegaze, which is scheduled for Saturday September 30, instead of September 29, as originally posted. Apologies for the inconvenience.
What are your thoughts on the FLCL news? Are you enjoying Grunge so far? Are looking forward to Shoegaze? Sound off in the comments below or on our social media outlets.
