Flip Flappers

Cocona, a girl who lives with her grandmother in Fukushima,^[6] attends middle school with her childhood friend Yayaka. While struggling to choose a future high school, Cocona sees a girl on a flying surfboard. The girl introduces herself as Papika and tries to befriend Cocona before a robot drags them down a pipe. Entering a world called Pure Illusion, Cocona uses superhuman abilities to save Papika from falling into an ocean. Shocked at the day's events, Cocona returns with Papika to the real world, and wakes up holding a glowing stone.

Papika says that the glowing stone is a fragment of a wish-granting object, and that she needs Cocona as a partner to find the remainder in Pure Illusion. While initially reluctant, Cocona accepts her invitation. Papika recruits Cocona into a fragment-finding organization called FlipFlap, led by a man named Salt. During an expedition in a desert world, Cocona and Papika transform into magical girls named Pure Blade and Pure Barrier. They discover that Yayaka and her two cohorts, Toto and Yuyu, are also hunting fragments on behalf of Asclepius, FlipFlap's rival organization. In successive trips to Pure Illusion, Cocona and Papika solve a time loop, experience the memories of their upperclassman Iroha Irodori, and collaborate with Yayaka to collect more fragments. Toto and Yuyu attack and abandon Yayaka when she fails to retrieve a fragment inside Cocona's thigh. As FlipFlap treats Yayaka's injuries, Papika regains memories of the past and briefly mistakes Cocona for Mimi, the name of Papika's former partner and a recurring figure in Cocona's dreams.

Asclepius attacks FlipFlap, and Yuyu divulges that Yayaka had initially befriended Cocona to spy on her for Ascelpius. Cocona evades capture but is ambushed by her grandmother, an Asclepius robot, who tells her that "everything was a lie." Mimi, revealed to be Cocona's mother, reappears by possessing Cocona's body and absorbs the collected fragments. After taking over Asclepius, Mimi vows to make Pure Illusion a place for Cocona alone. It transpires that Mimi, Papika, and Salt were escapees of a laboratory. Mimi, a test subject described as "the only one who can go to Pure Illusion", assumed a possessive personality and destroyed the laboratory after the researchers took Cocona away from her. Papika stopped Mimi by embracing and shattering her, which created the amorphous fragments. After wandering Pure Illusion, Papika collapsed under a tree and physically reverted to Cocona's age.

In the present, Yayaka and Papika return to Pure Illusion to save Cocona. While battling Mimi and monsters from previous worlds, Yayaka achieves her own transformation with a fragment she received from Salt. Mimi's gentler personality manifests in Pure Illusion and convinces Cocona to choose her own path in life. Cocona and Papika proclaim their love for each other and defeat Mimi's possessive personality. After briefly losing each other in Pure Illusion, the two return to the real world.

Flip Flappers was originally pitched as a space opera to series director Kiyotaka Oshiyama by the founders of Studio 3Hz. Oshiyama, who previously worked on Den-noh Coil and Space Dandy, adjusted the show's concept by having the main characters traverse parallel worlds instead of outer space.^[10] Oshiyama also designed several settings in the series from locations in Fukushima Prefecture,^[6] such as the Adatara Shrine and Mizuiro Park in his home town of Motomiya.^[11] The production team considered making the protagonists either primary or high school age, but settled on middle school to depict the emotional volatility of adolescence. In particular, Oshiyama likened Papika to protagonists in shōnen manga that he had read in his youth.^[12]

The concept art for Flip Flappers was created by Tanu, who previously designed characters for Tari Tari and The Rolling Girls.^[13] Under Oshiyama's direction, Tanu incorporated a butterfly motif in Papika and Cocona's magical girl outfits to represent their growth. Tanu's concept art was adapted into designs suited for animation by the character designer for Flip Flappers, Takashi Kojima.^[14] Oshiyama selected Kojima for his youth and key animation work in Your Lie in April. Early into production, Oshiyama and Kojima struggled to find common creative ground; Oshiyama often asked for retakes from Kojima and stated that their drawing styles "varied greatly from each other's".^[15] Kojima stated that he spent three months designing Cocona and Papika alone.^[15]

Oshiyama described the production as "an exhausting experience."^[16] The show's premise of dimension-traveling necessitated new setting designs for each episode,^[10] and several staff members left in the middle of production.^[17] These included the lead writer Yuniko Ayana and background designers from Studio Pablo, who left after episodes 6 and 9, respectively.^[18][19] Infinite [ja], a production company that had worked on Studio 3Hz's first series Celestial Method,^[20] supplied a writer for the series after Ayana's departure.^[21] To manage the limitations of a small staff, Oshiyama interspersed episodes with simpler animation between action-heavy ones, and recycled as much artwork as possible during the second half of the series.^[9]

The concept of Pure Illusion was inspired by books on Jungian psychology and Jakob von Uexküll's theory of umwelt. Oshiyama also cited his personal interest in folklore and the psychologist Hayao Kawai's book on Grimms' Fairy Tales as a specific influence. While he added transformation scenes and weapons to enhance the project's appeal, Oshiyama considered the inclusion of Pure Illusion and fairy tales to have largely been his personal decision.^[9] Several critics have offered specific psychological interpretations of Pure Illusion; The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction argues that the allusions to umwelt reflect how Pure Illusion is "shaped by various individual's perceptions",^[38] and Michael Goldstein states that the dimension represents the fantasies of in-world characters.^[39] Peter Fobian maintains the theme of Jungian psychology and asserts that the worlds are aspects of the collective unconscious.^[40]

Flip Flappers features an intimate relationship between its protagonists,^[39][38] and Oshiyama has stated that the series incorporates yuri elements.^[9] Many critics interpret Cocona and Papika to be in a romantic relationship; Carlos Ross writes that the series attempts to show Cocona's "sexual and philosophical awakening" after meeting Papika,^[41] and Fobian claims that Cocona expresses her own agency by choosing to reciprocate Papika's affections at the series finale.^[42] Scholar Arana Blas mentions Flip Flappers in an overview of yuri works, and contends that the series presents sexuality as a "part of the protagonist's growth".^[43] Some critics have discussed the fifth episode of Flip Flappers in light of the yuri-related Class S genre. Steven Pearce of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction regards the episode as a satire of the genre, while Alex Henderson of Anime Feminist argues that the series rejects the emphasis on ephemeral relationships in Class S stories by showing a romantic relationship that perseveres outside of school settings.^[44]

Miles Thomas of Crunchyroll argued that each episode of the show focuses on "homosexual tropes" and gives an insight into "Cocona's coming-to-terms with her suppressed sexuality," saying it is part of the show's focus on gender identity struggles of queer people, specifically of Cocona and Papika.^[45] Carlos Ross of THEM Anime Reviews was more critical of the series. On one hand, he said that the series is "hyperkinetic, visually inventive, chock-full of references...and at times emotionally hard-hitting" but on the other hand he said it had "crass pandering to otaku audiences," saying that the show has a problem of "the fetishization of middle school girls."^[41] Ross said that the series intentionally uses imagery from the yuri genre, which is at times "virtually comedic" and called Papika's nudity to be a deliberate use of fan service, arguing it "cheapens and demeans" the plot. He added that these criticisms, he liked the character development, especially of Cocona and Papika, the openness of same-sex attraction in the anime, with scenes which invoke Nausicaa, Madoka Magica, Maria Watches Over Us and Kill La Kill. Nick Creamer of Anime News Network called the series "inherently rare and special" as an anime passion project which was "beautiful, original, and altogether stunning."^[28] He argued that the show is a coming-of-age story touching on how our families define us, how the world views us, and how we begin to love ourselves, containing a "multi-generational love story," broken homes, and a rebuke of "how society reinforces our fear of honest self-expression." Creamer also said that the show stands as "a remarkable union of emotional intent and visual execution" even as it is "pretty messy" by having occasional fan service, and music that isn't memorable. Even so, he said that he found himself "stunned" by everything the show accomplishes and attempts, with references to Neon Genesis Evangelion and Penguindrum, grading the sub, dub, story, animation, and art an "A," the music a "B+," while praising the "purposeful visual storytelling" and criticizing the "occasional fanservice."^[28]