OrpheusTelos
Smash Lord
Who is Haruko?
Haruhara Haruko is a major character from the cult classic 2000 Gainax OVA FLCL (pronounced Fooley Cooly). The series follows 11 year old Naota Nanadaba growing up in the boring Japanese city of Mabase with nothing to do. After his brother left to play baseball in America, the feeling of dissatisfaction in Naota’s life grew larger as he had to deal with his growing boredom, strange family, and his brother’s clingy ex-girlfriend Mamimi. The mundanity in Naota’s life comes to a screeching halt when one day, a pink-haired girl riding a vespa comes in and slams his head with a guitar, causing him to grow things out of his head. The assailant was none other than Haruhara Haruko, a strange alien woman who is searching for a space-manipulating being known as Atomsk and inserts herself into Naota’s life in order to find it, resulting in him having to deal with the trouble that she brings. FLCL’s plot might seem super weird and complicated, but the basic gist is that the story is supposed to be a big allegory for puberty and it’s something that really needs to be experienced to truly comprehend (I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious lol). It’s not for everyone, but I personally love the series to death, which is why I’m making a case for Haruko in Multiversus right here.
Why Haruko?
Before going any further, I need to establish FLCL’s connection to Warner Bros. While not originally produced by WB, the English dub for FLCL made its U.S. debut on Adult Swim in 2003. Despite its short length of only six episodes, the series immediately became a long-standing fixture of the block’s anime lineup, frequently re-running for years alongside the likes of Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. FLCL’s status as an Adult Swim staple eventually led to them funding and airing two new sequel series in 2018, FLCL Progressive and FLCL Alternative. While I haven’t heard very many positive things about these sequels from fans (I haven’t watched them for myself, so I can’t comment on their quality other than I find their existence super unnecessary as a fan of the original), Adult Swim’s involvement in them gives FLCL a clear connection to Warner Bros. and, for our purposes, makes Haruko eligible for Multiversus. Though even I’ll admit, having FLCL’s links to Warner be easily the most controversial pieces of FLCL media ain’t doing it very many favors lmao.
Haruko specifically makes sense as the FLCL rep not just because she’s arguably the most iconic character in the series, but because she’s constantly getting involved in the action the most. While there’s other FLCL characters I like more than Haruko (mostly because she’s intentionally written to be kind of a **** person and unrelatable, but that’s 100% the point so she’s still cool to me), she’s almost always at the center of whatever crazy action scene is happening in each episode, making her more of a naturally predisposed fighter than anyone else. And how could I bring up FLCL without bringing up one of the best anime soundtracks of all time, composed by the pillows? If Multiversus ends up using tracks from their series’ source material, then Haruko can bring some absolute bangers with her.
What Could Haruko Do?
As mentioned earlier, Haruko is frequently put into a majority of the show’s over-the-top action scenes, meaning she has plenty to pull from for a moveset. Her vespa and guitar are an absolute must to include, being Haruko’s most iconic belongings. Her guitar is a particularly versatile weapon as she can use it as a blunt object and as a gun. I think it’s be funny if her support move had her hit her teammate in the head in order to summon various Medical Mechanica robots to fight alongside them. There’s some more stuff that can be done, but just know that the zaniness of FLCL lends itself well to a creative Haruko moveset.
I imagine I’m one of the few people on this subforum passionate enough about this character to make a support thread for her, but Haruko is based and she’d be a really fun addition to the Multiversus roster. I just think she’s neat!
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