FLCL Wiki
FLCL Wiki
FLCL Wiki
238
pages
in: Episodes, FLCL

Brittle Bullet

Sign in to edit

"Brittle Bullet" is the fifth episode of the first season of FLCL. Its English dub aired on August 9th, 2003, on Adult Swim.

Summary[]

Naota has another horn, everyone’s playing paintball, and anime parodies abound. The Department of Interstellar Immigration are trying to take someone out.

Synopsis[]

Naota Nandaba and Haruko Haruhara are seen hiding from enemies in tall grass, armed with guns. She tells him to prove their love by taking the offensive, then promptly boots him up into the enemy's sights.

Flashing back to earlier that day, Naota and Shigekuni are watching an action movie together when, suddenly, Kamon bursts through the wall. Haruko used a boxing glove to launch him out of Naota's bedroom window, then proceeds to fire a machine gun at Kamon, saying he will "never get anything from her". Ever since Naota summoned his bat atop the Medical Mechanica plant, Haruko has fixated solely on him, sowing jealousy in Kamon. Naota rushes upstairs to his bedroom. There, he "overhears" Haruko talking 'to' Miyu Miyu; evidently, Haruko is able to communicate with her superiors of the Galactic Space Police Brotherhood using the cat as a proxy. Haruko tells her superiors that she doesn't have feelings for Naota, and explains that his mission was delayed because his N.O. channel still remains open. After noticing Naota, she again turns her attention to him. Through aggressive instruction--interspersed with the occasional burst of gunshots--Haruko urges Naota to try drawing out his Gibson Flying V bat again. When that fails to persuade him, she pins Naota to the bed and straddles him. Naota shows no interest. Haruko tells him to act like a man, even suggesting she 'teach him' how to be one.[1] A horn then erupts from the back of Naota's head, forcing his head up and off the bed until his lips crash into hers. Kamon sees this from the doorway; overcome by jealousy, he challenges Naota to a sabagē duel for Haruko's affection, ending the flashback.

Back in the present, Naota and Haruko's enemies are shown to be Kamon and Canti, engaging in a 2-on-2 airsoft gun battle. During their sabagē match, Lieutenant Kitsurubami arrives with a heavy-duty sniper rifle. She uses radio communications to confirm to Commander Amarao that Canti is still blue: not yet red. Amarao says Medical Mechanica has given their unofficial consent, and permitts Kitsurubami to open fire on Canti. Despite the color clearly being Amarao's primary motivator, his stated reason for targeting Canti is simply that it is a rogue Medical Mechanica robot; and this is true, lining up with what Haruko tells Naota in Fire Starter. Amarao then instructs his lieutenant to ignore Raharu and to focus on the robot until he is able to aid her in-person... which he cannot do because he's currently in the middle of a haircut: for a woman whom Commander Amarao has not seen in a long time.

Lieutenant Kitsurubami lines up a headshot on Canti, confident that she can handle the assassination herself. In retaliation, the moment Kitsurubami fires, Haruko uses her bass guitar to deflect the sniper bullet right back at her. The bullet hits and explodes Kitsurubami's van out from underneath her, catapulting the lieutenant straight into Kamon--both of whom promptly end up in the river, struggling downstream.

With his father out of commission, Naota charges ahead on the offensive; if he defeats Canti, he and Haruko win. While chasing the robot across the street, however, an old transport vehicle crashes into him. This allows Canti to take him at gunpoint: a predicament which Naota only manages to escape by calling for a timeout (a rule he just made up).

The vehicle stops to check on Naota. His three friends are driving it: Gaku Manabe, Masashi Masamune, and in the truck bed, Eri Ninamori. The three are doing part-time delivery work (under the table, given that they're elementary school kids) for Masamune Liquor: which, as the name suggests, is owned by Masashi's father. Ninamori compliments Naota's toy guns, while Gaku and Masashi prod him about the rumors spreading about him. According to the rumors, not only did Naota stop the killer robot at their school, but he also stopped the falling satellite, thus saving the entire city. Naota cockily confirms both rumors, relishing their attention. Gaku and Masashi praise him, saying he's like the "commander" of Canti. Ninamori sizes Naota up, however, plainly unimpressed by his sudden immodesty. After finishing up her popsicle, she checks the wooden stick to learn she's won a prize, and so Masashi gives her a squirt gun. Only then does Naota realize Mamimi Samejima has been watching them from atop the bridge the whole time.

After briefly teasing Naota in front of his friends, Haruko inexplicably disappears.

Naota's three friends drive off, leaving him alone with Mamimi. She plays with his airsoft gun and probes his 'pulpy' choice of drink, pointing out that Haruko likes the same kind. Mamimi then inquires about Haruko herself, revealing she saw them stop the bomb atop Medical Mechanica. Still feeling cocky from his friends' attention, Naota again confirms that he saved the city. Mamimi tags him with the airsoft gun, saying he's "too amazing." She then wonders aloud when he suddenly grew up, and if Haruko is perhaps to blame. In response, Naota cockily asks if Mamimi is jealous (such is the implication, at least; his question is interrupted, appropriately enough, by the image of a handgun's hammer 'cocking' back). Naota then urges Mamimi to come along somewhere with him.

Still in the river, Lieutenant Kitsurubami is seen reporting her failed assassination to Commander Amarao, citing Canti's ability to levitate. Suddenly, she is 'ambushed' when the robot floats up behind her, and she begins frantically shooting at him. However, Kitsurubami soon realizes that Canti was trying to help her out of the water, lending a hand to take her safely ashore.

On the other end of the line, during Amarao's haircut, his female hairdresser suddenly starts waterboarding him. She is revealed to be Haruko, who came to pursue Amarao in retaliation to sending Kitsurubami after Canti. A gunfight breaks out between the two. Commander Amarao tells Haruko he's "not a child anymore", and calls upon a group of hired gunmen for backup. He insists Medical Mechanica will make its move if Canti is not dealt with. Amarao even claims Medical Mechanica is willing to "activate" the plant they've built on this planet, despite the catastrophic implications this would have on the planet itself. Lastly, he confirms his knowledge regarding the robot's evident danger: that if Canti turns red, it has become Atomsk. Haruko is enraged, and their shootout begins proper. Despite the commander and his men vastly outnumbering her, Haruko defeats them all using her bass guitar (which apparently also doubles as a shotgun).

Meanwhile, Naota is seen dragging Mamimi aggressively through the city, assuring her that he doesn't like Haruko. He complains that ever since Haruko showed up, problems keep arising. Naota says he misses the simpler times when it was just him and Mamimi. He tries leading Mamimi into a cafe. She resists, insisting Naota does like Haruko. To prove her wrong, he tries forcefully kissing her, but Mamimi pulls away. This leads Naota to lash out angrily, and even outright insist Mamimi likes him. The look of estrangement on Mamimi's face when she hears this leaves Naota dismayed, realizing all at once the extent of his recent growth and arrogance. This causes the hammer protruding from the back of his head to finally snap forward, shooting a horn from his N.O. channel which quickly expands into the ground. It is the largest object his N.O. channel has expelled: a huge leviathan robot. The horn quickly grows tall enough to strand Naota and Mamimi atop its head, carrying them high above the city.

Commander Amarao sees the horn from across the city, telling Haruko that Medical Mechanica is transporting such robots to the planet in order to destroy it. He tries goading Haruko into resolving the crisis herself. With a wave of her bass guitar, chanting 'Furi-kuri, Furi-kura,' Haruko rouses a humiliatingly micro-sized bat to pop out of Amarao's forehead, saying Naota's is "manlier". Once the commander is thoroughly humiliated, Haruko revs-up her bass guitar and uses it to fly away into the city, leaving Amarao shouting up at her, pleading her to explain what he lacks compared to Naota.

When she arrives, flying up beside the horn robot, Haruko attacks it with ranged explosives. Mamimi, still on top of the horn with Naota, cowers and murmurs repeated pleas for Tasuku to save her again, rather like Naota's own instinctive pleas for his brother in Fire Starter and Full Swing. Even so, outraged that she called out for Tasuku's help instead of his, Naota summons Canti and demands Mamimi to never call him 'Takkun' again, leaving her speechless. Canti then devours him, and the two combine. Haruko rides off on their back like a hovercraft: to battle the massive leviathan robot together.

Despite their best efforts, they're unable to stop the leviathan's rampage en route to the Medical Mechanica plant. The robot draws out a massive gun which, upon striking Canti, ejects Naota like a molten canonball, sending him crashing into a nearby billboard. Only then does Canti manifest a strange power from within itself, drawing a 1961 EB-0 Gibson bat from its channel, much to the amazement of Haruko and Amarao, the latter of whom promptly pronounces Canti to be "the real Pirate King." Using his newfound power, Canti hurls the robot away. As the leviathan rockets up over the Medical Mechanica plant it flips upside-down, revealing its true form to be that of a gargantuan hand, whose five fingers each have five fingers of their own. Then, with red Canti's second blow, it bursts straight through the hand's palm, destroying it and turning the remains into a petrified monument which looms above the clothing iron. Something tumbles from the sky and lands on Kamon, who has just now managed to get out of the river; it is later clarified this was the hand robot's Terminal Core, and therefore removing it destroyed the hand's ability to move or function. Upon its defeat, an endless poof of pale-pink smoke floods all of Mabase.

Naota finally tdown umbles from the billboard he crashed into. Even as he hits the ground, his body remains molten and white-hot; thankfully, Ninamori is there to douse him out with a squirt from her water gun. Haruko steps straight on Naota's face to get a closer look at the red Canti. Mamimi comments that it looks painful for Naota, but Haruko doesn't notice (or care): too busy fawning over the newly emerged Atomsk.

Songs[]

Credits[]

  • Original Concept: GAINAX
  • Directors: Kazuya Tsurumaki, Shouji Saeki
  • Executive Producers: Toshimichi Ohtsuki, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Hiroyuki Yamaga
  • Planning: Hirotaka Takase, Masatoshi Nishizawa, Hiroki Sato

Japanese Cast

English Cast

Gallery[]

Brittle Bullet/Gallery

Trivia[]

  • The first part of the episode involving Haruko, Naota and Kamon makes various references to the anime and manga series, Lupin The Third.
    • Kamon's red jacket, khaki pants and Walther P38 pistol are based on the main character of the series Arsène Lupin III.
    • Kamon asks Naota if he prefers the green jacket, in reference to the first animated Lupin TV series, Lupin the Third Part I, where Lupin wore a green jacket.
    • Kamon also mentions The Castle of Cagliostro, which is the second Lupin film and also features him wearing a green jacket.
    • He then states, "Monkey-Sensei said he prefers the red one, you know?", referring to Monkey Punch, the creator of the Lupin series.
    • Kamon jumping out of his clothes to join Haruko in bed, only to be punched into the wall by a spring-loaded boxing glove between her legs, is a direct reference to the opening for the second animated Lupin series, Lupin the Third Part II.
    • The episode title is typed on a typewriter in the same fashion as the Red Jacket episode titles.
      • In the book, FLCLick Noise, director Tsurumaki noted that the inspiration for Kamon dressing up as Lupin was based on a stage play performed by Suzuki Matsuo, the Japanese voice for Kamon, where he imitated Lupin.
  • When Haruko explains why Naota should learn to play the guitar, she list off several Japanese bands,
  • After listing off various bands, in both the English and Japanese versions, Haruko tells Naota that he needs to learn how to stand with his guitar and mentions musicians Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney.
  • Upon seeing Haruko having brought only her bass guitar during the battle, in the Japanese version, Naota tells her that they are playing sabagē before she starts doing wordplay:
    • sabagē (サバゲ) - shorted name of "sabaibaru gēmu" (サバイバルゲーム) or "survival game", a term used to describe a team-based shooting game where participants use airsoft guns.
    • asage (朝げ) - Breakfast
    • hiruge (昼食) - Lunch
    • yoruge (夜食) - Dinner
    • yabage - Trouble
    • The words that Haruko uses are actually part of a jingle for Nagatanien, a Japanese company that makes various instant food mixes. Each word is the name of their instant miso soup products. Though she uses "yoruge" instead of the actual flavor "yuuge".[2][3]
      • In the English dub, Naota tells her that they are at war, she says "and squeegee and bungee and grungy" before realizing that they are in trouble.
  • As Kitsurubami fires her rifle and says "Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Cobalt Blue", in the Japanese version, she then goes on to explain how the characters for "Fish" (魚 sakana) and "Blue" (青 ao) form the word, "Mackerel" (鯖 saba) when put together. Mamimi then points out that it is common to mix the characters up, followed by a caption at the bottom that explains how to correctly write "saba".
    • In the book, FLCLick Noise, director Tsurumaki mentioned that this particular scene was tricky due to its use of word play, as Haruko and Naota are playing sabagē ("survival game"), associating it with Kitsurubami mentioning saba ("mackerel") and then when Haruko launches Kitsurubami's round back at her, she yells out "sabagēruge" ("mackerel game").
    • In the English dub, Kitsurubami says "If Seven of Nine heaves a sigh, you get a 'sigh-borg'!" which is a reference to the cyborg character, Seven of Nine from the television series, Star Trek: Voyager. Mamimi then explains that cyborg is commonly mistaken for robot (as a cyborg is a human who has been augmented with robotic parts, while a robot would be purely mechanical).
    • Additionally, while the joke is changed in the English dub, the caption explaining how to correctly write "saba" in Japanese is still shown.
  • The scene at the salon alternates its animation style with some parts mimicking the art style of the animated series, South Park.
    • When Mamimi asks Naota if he is growing a horn again, he hides inside his hood and begins acting like Kenny McCormick from the series. The reference extends to his speech which, like Kenny, becomes indecipherably muffled due to his hood covering his mouth.
  • Kamon dresses in a nazi uniform complete with a swastika band on his shoulder during his firefight with Naota. It is unknown why he does this.
  • As Naota and Mamimi are stuck on the robot, Haruko appears in a bunnygirl outfit and air surfing on her bass guitar, before screaming out "Daicon V". Her outfit and "Daicon V" are references to the 1980s anime shorts, Daicon III and IV.
    • Hideaki Anno, who voiced Miyu Miyu, is credited as one of the films' creators, as he and the group that created the films eventually created studio GAINAX, which worked on FLCL.
  • The giant hand is a rotoscope of director Kazuya Tsurumaki's hand.
  • In FLCLick Noise, Tsurumaki noted that the opening scene where doves fly out of the television set after Kamon flew into it as well as the gunfight between Haruko and Amarao were inspired by Hong Kong film director John Woo.
  • This episode was chosen to be reanimated by over 250+ artists and animators in the FLCL Reanimated collaboration project.
  • In the preview for the next episode, Haruko laments that they have reached the finale but do not have much to say. She then asks the director if the show will end properly, to which he replies, "Uhmm... 多分" (tabun/perhaps). Haruko then finishes by saying viewers will simply have to take his word for it and watch.
    • In the English dub, the dialogue is essentially the same as the Japanese version. Though the notable difference is that the director's line is changed to "Mmm... 如何んですかね (do nan desu ka ne, How do I put it?), as Haruko asks how is it going to end (rather than if it will have a proper ending). Also, it concludes with Haruko asking what exactly does "Fooly Cooly" mean.
    • During the preview, in the background, there are several scenes with texts that offer explanations of what "FLCL" could possibly stand for.
      • Flick Clock
      • Foolish Cleverness
      • Flimsy Claim
      • Flighty Clipper
      • Flint Cleaver
      • Fleming, Clemet
      • Flection Climate
      • Fleecy Crew

References[]

  1. ↑ The latter is unique to the English dub
  2. ↑ CM 1980 永谷園 あさげ ひるげ ゆうげ 納豆汁 とうふ汁 柳家小さん
  3. ↑ What kind of miso soup do you like? Red, white or mixed?
FLCL (Series)
FLCL (Season 1) Fooly Cooly • Fire Starter • Marquis de Carabas • Full Swing • Brittle Bullet • FLCLimax
FLCL Progressive (Season 2) Re:Start • Freebie Honey • Stone Skipping • LooPQR • Fool on the Planet • Our Running
FLCL Alternative (Season 3) Flying Memory • Grown-Up Wannabe • Freestyle Collection • Pit-a-Pat • Shake It Off • Full Flat
FLCL: Grunge (Season 4) Shinpachi • Shonari • Orinoko
FLCL: Shoegaze (Season 5) Full Barricade • Generational Battle • Far Friend
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms