Feels good… I can do this! As his body reacted to his enthusiasm, Naota swung, hitting the satellite bomb dead on. With the weapon in his hand, Naota squarely bludgeoned the giant black metal baseball, which was several meters in diameter.
Holding their breath, the operators watched Naota's swing. "He swung the bat!" Amarao exclaimed, stunned. "Uraaagh!" the boy on the monitor screamed. All of a sudden, the Shockwave from the impact blew through the surroundings, and the satellite disappeared into the blue sky.
Naota had really hit it back. When it was reported that the satellite was flying toward another planet at warp speed two, there was a huge, long-awaited sigh of relief in the monitor room.
Amarao still couldn't believe Naota had swung the bat. "Maybe he really did hit his father."
If it hadn't been an android, could this boy really have killed his father?
Amarao stared at Naota on the monitor as the boy frolicked with Haruko.
Haruko hugged Naota in delight, rubbing his head with her finger. "See, you can do it if you try! See, see?"
"Stop it! That hurts!" Naota exclaimed, although he was happy, too. His palms were numb, but it felt good. It was the same feeling he got when he'd ridden on the speeding Vespa—the time when his brain had been empty.
Maybe this is how Haruko always feels.
Unaware of the harsh fate that awaited him, Naota laughed out loud.
Commentary by Kazuya Tsurumaki (Fooly Cooly Producer)
I thought about what it means to be a grown-up and what it means to be a child.
As the twentieth century comes to a close, I don't believe that all children will become grown-ups. They may get older, get taller, pay taxes, and get married, but there are people who will never become grown up. Take someone who ends up having to climb the ladder to being an adult two steps at a time due to some intense trauma. While this is happening, he may look at trivial things such as manga, sex symbols, railways, and fantasies. Then, there are the rest of us in the year 2000 a.d., whom those people pass on the stairs. More people fit into the latter group.
According to [Japanese] law, you're considered an grown-up as soon as you turn twenty, but this isn't the case. When I turned twenty, I was still in front of the television, critically hitting Metal Slimes in the Dragon Quest I'd bought at a used game store, and resetting when I got frustrated. A real grown-up wouldn't have reset. It's a kind of "Time out! Time out!" cheat particular to children. If Nintendo started to make an adult system that could play erotic games, I'd ask them not to include a reset button. Grown-ups, who don't have the luxury of resetting as they walk through life, have a right and duty to experience that struggle in games, as well.
Being a total kid, I buy a BOMB every month. To a proper adult, BOMBs are more childish than multicolored bonbons for kiddies. I can tell simply by comparing how they smell. Just as Kenzo Kitakata said, to be an adult is to smell like squid and breasts. (No, he didn't really say that.) However, once you pass thirty, another problem arises. In my workplace, there are seven desks, and four of them have BOMBs on them. What do you think about this? And it won't do you any good to run away saying, "Oh, but I want to read Lilly's column" or to take out an adult's secret weapon, a balance sheet. That only makes it worse. At a nearby Sunkus, seven or eight BOMBs are stacked up every day, and we ask ourselves, "Isn't this a first in Japan—to have these at a convenience store?" Even if we were to talk about economics, we'd still be kids. Those people who still can't accept it should shut up and go observe Haruka Suenaga or Masami Nagasawa. A Lolita complex is merely an adult admiring a child—a grown-up metamorphosis.
I think I've become a bit too preachy, so I'll change gears. This sort of improvisation is kind of grown-up.
I like Diet Coke. This is grown-up. The children I want to direct (being the adult I am) will choose Pepsi. It's like what Koikeya is to potato chips, Lee is to jeans, and the Dom is to mobile suits. To choose the main road of Coca-Cola is adult. If you're looking for zero calories, you have Diet Coke for the same price. But how much is really for your diet? Drinking Diet Coke won't make you lose weight. The cool thing about it is the accompanying positive thinking that tells you, "This won't be an obstacle to your diet." Because simply taking the main road is adult and will turn you old-geezer-like before you know it, you try adding the negative value of "diet" to control this. Then, you have the really off-the-wall Fanta. Grape, no less. Be careful with those, or it'll be, "If he's so grown-up, why is he messing around with that stuff?" You might fool your mother, but the girl at Sunkus won't let it slip by her.
Many of you will say, "He didn't talk about FLCL at all." I'm sorry. You know, deciding what I should write is tough. As a director, interpreting your scriptwriter's novelization of your original anime is tough even for a proper grown-up. If I'd been too intricate in my wannabe-Kenzaburo Oe interpretation, the book itself would've become vague. The very adult Mr. Enokido said, "Isn't the best way to understand Fooly Cooly to read into all the various subtleties yourself?" I agree.
Volume III
Brittle Bullet
Chapter 1
Huff, huff, huff. Naota's heavy breath condensed before dispersing into the autumn evening air.
Next to him, Haruko huddled up.
That day, that afternoon, that moment, on the bank near Mabase Bridge, sixth-grader Naota and housemaid Haruko were crouched down in the long grass, hiding themselves and keeping vigilant.
The air around them was full of danger. The situation was serious, and they were feeling the anxiety of the hunted.
Damn, they've got us!
At that moment, Naota and Haruko were being targeted by a sniper and were trapped in their position.
Only moments ago, they had exchanged numerous deadly bullets, the dry sound of gunshots ringing out emotionlessly. And in their hands, they clutched guns that glistened an ill-fated black. Naota was holding an Mil Ingram; Haruko had a bigger Uzi submachine gun.
This was a battlefield.
The area around Mabase Bridge had turned into the front of a dangerous battle.
And although the air was cool, the handle of Naota's gun was dripping with sweat.
The only noise now was the quiet babbling of the river, which only increased Naota's disconcertion. Don't panic. Don't be scared, Naota told himself, holding his breath.
Haruko tapped Naota softly on the shoulder. She was squinting at a thicket in front of her. "Look over there." She indicated the base of the concrete pillar holding up the bridge.
That was definitely where the enemy was hiding. He could sense their presence. His anxiety on the battlefield had proven to be unusually perceptive… of course. After all, the moment he let down his guard, he would end up part of that other world.
With the mouth of the machine gun, Haruko signaled for Naota to go first.
"Am I your decoy?!"
Haruko shot Naota an annoyed expression in response to his complaint. And then, she kicked the boy flying. "Go! Die for our love!"
"WAAAAHHHH!"
Naota lamented his bad luck at falling into this situation. Why did this have to happen to me?
It all had started the night before.