Fool on the Planet

"Fool on the Planet" is the fifth episode of season 2, FLCL Progressive and the eleventh overall. It premiered on Adult Swim on the Toonami block on June 30th, 2018 at 11:30 PM ET.
==Synopsis==
Having made damage to the plant, the iron now stands up straight. Haruko bursts into class and announces that she is pregnant, getting married and quitting her job as a teacher. She also exclaims that the only way to become happy is to go to the amusement park.
==Summary==
Hidomi dreams again, this time of a colorless, devastated world overrun by the irons of Medical Mechanica. At its end, as she runs down the beach, smiling, she awakens to find her headphones have slipped off. Eye Patch and Masurao take the pieces of Canti to the Bureau of Interstellar Immigration space elevator on the outskirts of Ohzu City to dispose of it. A seemingly pregnant Haruko bursts into her classroom on her Vespa, announces that she is getting married, tells the class a false anecdote about how she met Atomsk, and cancels school to take them to the amusement park.
Ide and Hidomi are the only ones who refuse to follow; Ide, now brandishing Jinyu's guitar as his own, confronts Haruko in the school's empty swimming pool and demands that she stop dragging Hidomi into her plans. Haruko easily defeats Ide in the duel that follows; Haruko expresses disappointment that he has failed to learn anything, to which Ide replies pointedly that she doesn't satisfy him. When Hidomi finds them, she sees Haruko trying to seduce Ide. She overflows, pulling Ide into her N.O. channel and leaving behind a limp, featureless black husk in the shape of his body. Haruko apologizes thinly and soars into the sky on her Vespa. At the husk's gasping request, she takes it in her arms and stands under the pool shower with it, recalling the discovery that her mother is closing the café and the anger she felt in the moment. Under the shower, Ide's husk inflates like a balloon and floats into the sky; as Hidomi watches it disappear, her portal opens once more, this time shredding the world around her into pieces.
At the theme park, Tonkichi begins the operation of collecting N.O. energy from the high concentration of adolescents in the park, using it to transform the park's rides into a large mech-like robot to attack the Medical Mechanica factory; the factory survives the attack and begins assaulting the mech in turn. In orbit, Ide's husk is picked up by the Immigration Center's Lost-and-found satellite, which dumps it into a bin full of metal shards; an elderly woman in the room scoops out the husk in a dog bowl and feeds it to the head of Canti, which has sprouted legs like a dog. As Haruko, who no longer appears to be pregnant, watches the battle unfold, Hidomi, now a fusion of human and metal due to her overflow, finds and attacks her, demanding that she return Ide to her. As they duel, she asserts that Haruko's quest to capture Atomsk makes her "no different from the rest of them," and that she is "just a girl in love." The sky suddenly turns red, and as the two stare up at it in awe, Haruko whispers that Atomsk has arrived on Earth.
==Songs==
* "Stalker" (FooL on CooL generation version)
* "Fool on the planet" (FooL on CooL generation version)
* "I think I can" (FooL on CooL generation version)
* "Last Dinosaur" (FooL on CooL generation version)
==Credits==
* Original Concept: Production I.G.
* Executive Producers: Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Jason DeMarco, Keiji Ohta
* Production Supervisor: Katsuiji Morishita, Takayuki Oshima
Japanese Cast
* Haruko Haruhara: Megumi Hayashibara
* Julia Jinyu: Miyuki Sawashiro
* Hidomi Hibajiri: Inori Minase
* Ko Ide: Jun Fukuyama
* Goro Mori: Tomo Muranaka
* Marco Nogata: Masatomo Nakazawa
* Hinae Hibajiri: Kikuko Inoue
* Aiko: Tomoyo Kurosawa
* Masurao: Kikuko Inoue
* Eye Patch: Takayuki Sugo
* Tonkichi: Jin Urayama
* Tami Hanae: Reiko Suzuki
* Misaki: Uncredited
* Wataru: Uncredited
* Yuya: Uncredited
English Cast
* Haruko Haruhara: Kari Wahlgren
* Hidomi Hibajiri: Xanthe Huynh
* Ko Ide: Robbie Daymond
* Goro Mori: Jon Allen
* Marco Nogata: Yuri Lowenthal
* Hinae Hibajiri: Julie Ann Taylor
* Aiko: Christine Marie Cabanos
* Masurao: Jason Griffith
* Eye Patch: J. David Brimmer
* Tonkichi: Steve Kramer
* Tami Hanae: Barbara Goodson
* Misaki: Cassandra Morris
* Wataru: Kyle Hebert
* Yuya: Lucien Dodge
==Gallery==
Pro_concept_art13.png|Early Hidomi design posed in front of the amusement park
Pro_concept_art.png|Concept of Hidomi's N.O. fusion with metal
Pro_concept_art8.png|Conceptual rail spire from Haruko & Hidomi's battle
Pro_concept_art9.png|Early design of the amusement park robot
==Trivia==
* The majority of this episode is animated in the style of paint-on-glass animation.
* Concept art of the mechanized park shows it was once planned to be a much larger, more elaborate structure with a head that emits light from its mouth, wings and mobile arms.
Category:Progressive
Category:Episodes