Once again, the Reverse Thieves held their annual Secret Santa. This is where anime bloggers take part in hopefully A) getting recommended good anime B) Finding time to watch that anime and write about it. It’s been fun to try and convince someone to potentially pick one out of three shows (or all of them) and hope they like it. Conversely, hoping to find a show to watch out of whoever was my secret santa and like it is also fun as well.
This year though, the choices outside of one I was already interested in watching eventually. And with the very enthusiastic recommendations of these three shows, I was definitely aiming to check them out.
But of course, I’m checking only one of them out now…
Long story short, a combination of poor planning on my end and work has led me to be late with this year’s Secret Santa. My only hope is that for 2019 I can be far more timely and actually have this ready during the Christmas holidays. But on that same token, I wasn’t really interested in writing this for 2019 either. It was 2018 or bust. So thankfully I had enough time (and good planning) that I was able to complete one of my choices.
And that choice was of course, the longest out of the three!
When Marnie Was There was one of the suggestions, and one that’ve been planning to watch because it’s another Ghibli title that I haven’t seen at some point in the near future. But due to timing, I wouldn’t have been able to grab it from the library for Secret Santa. The sequel to Saekano was another suggestion, and one that would’ve been fairly easier to do — I already watched the first season and enjoyed it. I was definitely gonna watch that at some point. Except the fact that it was on Amazon. Little did I realize that not mentioning that I’ve rebelled on watching anime on Amazon would’ve come back to bite me so soon!
So this left Samurai Flamenco. How can I properly describe an anime where the following happened in its 22 episode run:
- A human with no super human powers becomes a super hero
- A idol unit’s main star happens to really be into super heroes
- That idol turns herself into a super heroine that loves to destroy men’s balls
- There is a character called Guillotine Gorilla
- A super team assembles where my Marvel sensibilities can’t help but replace the FLAM in FLAMENGERS with AV
- BIG ROBOTS FIGHTING MONSTERS
- A scene where Miyamoto Musashi dies and splits into multiple Miyamoto Musashi’s, including a Hatsune Miku Miyamoto Musashi
- A Flamenco in Space?
- The first episode and the last episode involves the main character solving his problem by stripping. Sorta.
…Oh, and I totally forgot to mention the Prime Minister of Japan executing a Fuji Drop so powerful that I’m still debating if it’s a super move or should be banned from tournaments…
Anywho, here’s a basic one-sentence summary: a cop encounters a naked model in a back alley, triggering a story that starts with basic vigilante justice but eventually grows to a situation where the fate of the Earth, and potentially the universe, is at stake.
The much more palatable summary: Hidenori Goto is a cop who’s just heading back to his place when he runs into Hazama Masayoshi, naked and claiming to be a superhero. This encounter leads Goto to discover Masayoshi is not only a superhero nut — he basically has grown up on superhero shows — but also an up-and-coming model under the supervision of Sumi Ishihara, his manager.
Goto also discovers Masayoshi masquerading as a low-budget “superhero” called Samurai Flamenco. What exactly does Masayoshi do when he’s not improving his standing in the industry? He’s imploring residents to put their trash on the correct days at the proper time, telling kids to not cause trouble, and telling people not to smoke in smoke-free zones. In other words, nothing about Masayoshi screams superhero, but his brand of justice manages to win over Goto (who just calls him a freak though), and soon enough, a couple of the residents. With people filming Hazama’s exploits, he’s slowly becoming a popular person, either to mock, or for people to take him seriously.
Masayoshi’s life begins to change, however, when Joji Kaname, a former action star known as Red Axe, appears as a fake Flamenco and challenges Masayoshi in battle. After proving his heroism to Joji, this leads to a series of encounters — first with one of the members of MMM (Mineral Miracle Muse), Mari, then with stationary creator Jun Harazuka — that shape how Masayoshi actually grows as Samurai Flamenco. It’s not until he discovers what happened to his parents, however, when the story takes a turn.
…Like, not even a 360 turn. Maybe a 520?
Simply put, Samurai Flamenco’s direction changed considerably towards the end of Episode 7. It’s not even crazy to say the anime could be a new one on top of what was already shown. In any case, this dramatic change has Masayoshi go from your neighborhood vigilante to being part of a super sentai team, and between battles with a new force and soon enough, aliens getting involved, Samurai Flamenco was literally the ride you get on that somehow adds a twist in certain turns the longer the ride goes on.
But while the superhero elements are at play in this anime, the comedic tone for most of these is what takes the cake. From how Masayoshi and Goto interact, to Mari and Moe and Mizuki’s fights, to how the people react to any of these events happening (like in real time, the seriousness went from high to whatever REAL fast) was pretty funny.
This doesn’t quite mean the work was all comedy though. If you’re into the sentai franchise, then this certainly speaks as a bit of a love letter — it makes references to them in just about every way, from the past heroes on TV to the characters and how they grow like a standard super hero character. I think hardcore fans probably might even recognize any specific callbacks throughout this work, and will certainly get a kick out of seeing them referenced in big or small ways.
It does deal with a few heavy themes though, and that involves the two main characters Goto and Masayoshi. At first when they meet it couldn’t have been more coincidental, but their encounter and how they interact moving forward reveals they have some similarities — from their passions to their dedication to what they love. As it turns out though for both, maybe in unfortunate ways, and both had to overcome difficulties in order to solve their immediate challenges.
The other major character, Mari, also had a bit to overcome, and that ultimately began with changing herself. She very much loved being a hero, and the elegance that came with it — that did involve a justice that differed from Masayoshi’s though. But it was her justice that ultimately got her and her group in major trouble, so it was interesting to see how she tried to resolve that — note, it got resolved in the messiest and probably the most romantic way possible.
I will have to note a few things about Samurai Flamenco though: the change in tone was hard to shake though, but it mostly made me think how and why the shift. So I can totally get why those who watched this years ago could’ve flipped at what actually happened with the story.
Conversely, for those who watched this week to week, I could definitely understand if you didn’t like the last arc of this anime. I mean, it makes sense to re-introduce a character that we all saw in Episode 1 right? No way anyone could forget, even if he just stood there for an extra few seconds as Hazuma gave his passionate speech right?
…Ok, maybe that’s just me projecting! I will admit I wasn’t a complete fan of this last arc because of how the final “villain” was introduced. I was thinking he’d be introduced earlier, and even wondered why would the show pause and then not have him show up in the first half of the anime. But to then have him appear in the final 4 episodes? Yeah, outside of how it concluded, I don’t think it was executed all that well to me.
But from start to finish, Samurai Flamenco was a wild one. There’s so much that happened in this anime, from a relationship standpoint to a comedic standpoint, that I will remember for years. No really, it’s gonna be hard to forget the scene where Hazama needs to escape, and his escape consists of being driven to a locale by a “loosely-inspired” Captain America character in a truck with an American flag plastered all over it that screams find me. Or that time where 5 Flamen Red’s were assembled…
…If you haven’t watched Samurai Flamenco, you should go do it to have a very fun time.