Full Swing

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"Full Swing" (フリキリ, Furi Kiri^?) is the fourth episode of the anime FLCL. The name of this episode is given as "HR/kr" in the preview at the end of "Marquis de Carabas".

[edit] Summary

No one can believe their eyes as Haruko wields previously latent baseball skills in a heated performance of talent and wallops on the floundering squad, the Martians, coached by Naota's grandfather, Shigekuni. Their situation is further aggravated by Naota's complete obliviousness to the game as he has never once swung the bat. Haruko catches him off guard as one of her mighty pitches lambastes him in the nose, causing it to bleed. In lieu of the much-desired Tasuku, the Martians recruit Canti as their "star player" while Naota walks away in disgust and humiliation.

He returns home, after a tidbit of advice from Haruko, to find her and Kamon intensifying their sexual relationship through an "electric massage" as Haruko moans with pleasure. Naota's jealously seethes beneath as he berates Haruko for playing on a team based outside of Mabase when she doesn't even live there. She calls it a part-time job and claims that she wants "to help out with the electric bill." He rudely brushes off the awkward situation just as the two lovers begin to feed each other, mouth-to-mouth.

At this point the episode starts showing flashes of scenes, making it somewhat non-linear and confusing. Near the end however, this stops.

As Naota vents his anger on a vending machine, a strange, brow-raising (literally) character rolls in on a moped and instructs him to keep Haruko's presence hush-hush, calling her a "menace," and ambiguously saying that "older women can have a very strong effect; a very painful effect." With Kamon and Haruko still "playing" in the background, and a cryptic message about Haruko, Naota resolves that "adults are really stupid."

Meanwhile, at the clandestine headquarters of a peculiar military division (identified as the department of Interstellar Immigration), the bushy-browed Commander Amarao and a Lieutenant Kitsurabami spot a damaged satellite that is rapidly falling towards Earth. A quick shot in the background as Commander Amarao discusses the issue is shown that the satellite was damaged by one of Haruko's baseballs. This was also referenced by one of Naota's team members early in the episode ("I think that last one... escaped Earth's orbit."). At the same time, Naota is awakened by the sounds of Kamon and Haruko apparently having sex (although their conversation all has a double-meaning associated with fixing the Kamon robot) and is unable to squelch his feelings any longer. Incidentally, his N.O. portal erupts in a great, blinking light, which is so luminated that the satellite mistakes it for its programmed target and speeds for Mabase.

In a flurry of anger, Naota confronts his obvious feelings of jealousy towards his dad who has been acting incredibly bizarre and nearly assaults him with his bat. When Amarao interrogates Naota on the matter, he maintains that he only swung at his T.V.,(which he really did, and a clock flew from the set and hit the robot on the head) which Amarao dismisses as a poorly constructed lie. Soon, Amarao increases the scope of the conversation to include Haruko, branding the "older woman" a "big mistake," and her intergalactic connections, the nature of the mysterious N.O., and the pirate king Atomsk. Amarao, seemingly omniscient at this point, explains what Naota encountered was simply a robot duplicate of his father, "the equivalent of a vending machine." The strange incoherent session ends as Amarao requests that Naota ask Haruko to "hit one more out of the park" per the wishes of a "hometown fan."

Naota returns home to find the rotting corpse of his father in a closet and revives it, by some outlandish alchemy, with hot water. As Kamon recovers he admits that he was "no good for Haruko-san" (his head didn't contain sufficient N.O. for her purposes). Meanwhile Mamimi is perching on Canti while welcoming the fallen satellite. Haruko returns only to accept the challenge of the "hometown fan" and speeds off with Naota, going atop the Medical Mechanica plant. She produces a mighty Gibson Flying V from Naota's N.O. channel (calling it "his bat", a not so subtle reference to penis size, as Lieutenant Kitsurabami and the other ladies all have nosebleeds) and abandons him to face the blazing satellite himself. As it approaches, it unfolds into the shape of a baseball glove and launches a bomb that looks exactly like a baseball (thus enforcing the baseball theme of the episode) and Amarao and Kitsurabami observe in horror as the apprehensive Naota invokes his brother's name at the final second, and swings his mighty guitar with all his might. Everyone, now dumbfounded, perceives the amazing sight as he struggles to hold it at bay, finally stopping it in midair whilst the Atomsk symbol glows full on his forehead. The bomb nearly detonates in his face, and at the last second, Haruko jumps in and hammers it into the utter reaches of space with her own mighty guitar. Mamimi, witnessing the event from afar, perched atop Canti, is astonished and somewhat surly as she comments that "He really swung the bat."

[edit] Trivia

When Haruko tells Mamimi to go to the Baseball game, at Minute 9:32 (best seen by freeze frame) Naota accidentally pulls off Mamimis panties.
Along with Amarao's "nori" eyebrows, it is stated in the commentary that the cockroaches crawling on Kamon Nadaba's body were made with the texture from a picture of real cockroaches, giving it a more realistic look.
The logo for the Pillows can be seen on the back of Haruko's baseball shirt.
The animation consistently depict Haruko as left-handed as she swings the bat and the guitar in same direction.
In the beginning of the episode during the first baseball game showed, all the players on the Martians team wear blue pants and high socks. However, there is a boy wearing a backwards baseball cap who wears brown colored pants with short socks. He is, however, an actual player for the team because he is seen wearing a glove while Shigekuni is hitting baseballs to Canti.