I couldn't finish watching FLCL
January 31st, 2025
A coworker recommended me to watch FLCL. I watched the first two episodes and got sent into a dissociation episode. It just hit too hard. It started tearing open my experiences of being groomed and sexually abused. Of how the adults in my life committed emotional incest and started to rely on me to make hard decisions to comfort them.
I can be openly honest here about what I thought of the first two characters. Everyone here is anonymous, and there's no shame when you're anonymous.
Mamimi Samejima
I felt like I was watching my mother in her younger years. The way she'd emotionally coddle and cuddle around Natota. The way Naota didn't like it yet felt sorry for her, and that the adults in his life were using him for emotional sustenance. Mamimi Samejima named things dependent on her "Takkun" to fill the void and emptiness and loneliness in her heart. I felt it was the same motivations my mother had for having children, that she needed something to depend on her to feel love.
My mother probably feared abandonment most. She was scared everyone would leave her, and that in order to be loved she needed to be useful, and that she needed something completely and utterly totally dependent on her and for her to have full control over.
Mamimi feels the same way. It was just gross. I felt like I was going back. Like I was under control again. I felt like I needed to go back to my mom to make her happy and tolerate her inappropriate behaviour. That I needed to comfort her since my father was so emotionally absent.
I wanted to throw up. The way I feel is just overwhelming. I just feel so overwhelmed by it all. I want to throw up.
There's a voice in my head that's telling me I'm making this shit up, but the fact is that I'm dissociating as I write this. This is really what's going on in my subconscious.
It's all so fucked up.
Naota
He kept whining about how the adults in his life aren't acting like adults. It really triggered something in my core memory. The adults in my life were not adults at all. I want to whine too.
The sexual abuse by the two female leads of the show made me feel disgusted. I just felt disgusted by it. I want to stuff my feelings down and pretend like it isn't the case, but I seriously physically want to gag and throw up.
I could not finish FLCL. It is fun and games, but it conjures up too many mentally ill themes that throw me for a spin. On the surface it seems like a fun ride of a show, but looking on people who are fans of it they are not well.
I am a fan of FLCL. Though I could not finish it...