Episode 3: Stone Skipping
At this point I started to lose focus with the music. In fact, I actually missed out on some of the songs because they sounded similar to other sound-bytes that I was intentionally trying to ignore. Also, this was the dreaded Beach Episode, so it was hard to pay attention and get what I needed out of it. But here’s my breakdown of it.
(1)Unrising Sun-Instrumental
I’ll just use this translation because it sounds cool. It underscores the dream sequence, and honestly, this was the dream sequence that seemed to put me off the most. While I do think the song was used effectively, something about the electric guitar just put me to sleep here when I heard it.
(2)Thank You, My Twilight-
This starts as Raharu begins playing Volleyball and on Jinyu’s speech about Raharu and her relation to Atomsk. What’s funny is you hear Raharu do a quick onomatopoeia in tandem with the song, and the song ends abruptly on the phrase
I was waiting for you
(3) She Stood There, Like The Angel/You Stood There, Like The Angel (Fool on Cool)-Instrumental
The title of the song is hard to fully pin down, you hear the terms “she stood there” and “you stood there” and the terms “the angel” and “an angel” appear in different combinations with one another.
Watching the episode again I had to comb through it and it was actually used for a brief minute to cover a montage on the beach. It’s another one of those songs that I don’t think has the same stinging impact that other FLCL songs do. It honestly feels like background fodder rather than something that should divert your attention.
(4) White Summer, And Green Bicycle, Red Hair with Black Guitar-This song, and “Unrising Sun” sound so similar that it’s nigh impossible to tell the difference from the first few seconds. They both carry a slow, melodious guitar opening and this song actually takes a minute to pick up in tempo and another few seconds to swing into the lyrics.
Honestly, these two songs kind of hurt to listen to in tandem with the scene because I feel as if the scenes could have done without them. Dare I say the songs aren’t that good—I personally like songs by The Pillows that aren’t super slow and methodical and carried by the electric guitar, I like slow songs that are carried by the bass drum and bass guitar.
(5) Freebie Honey-
If it wasn’t last episode that cemented this song as the action theme, then having 2 episodes back to back where such is the case would help stick the point. What really threw me for a loop was when you had Jinyu, crystallized in a dome of concrete doing the classic GAINAX Gunbuster pose to signal the start of the song.
All of the action pales in comparison to season 1, but at the very least we have a decent track to go with the action. It has a rushed ending when Ide strikes the robot holding Hidomi to signify that the action has subsided.
(6) Fool on the Planet (Fool on Cool)-
This song, however, serves as a much better episode-ender than the “Little Busters” rendition for season 2. Also, I like the Fool on Cool version of this song more than the original. It doesn’t open on the beginning, in fact it opens towards the end with these lyrics (Google Translate):
Even if you want
I won't sing it
Even if everything changes
I don't know
Not much in the lyric department but the vocal harmonizing is sick.
