(L+CR) Samurai Flamenco

[Frontier]

I'll probably post more thoughts later, but right now... it looks like Samurai Flamenco is going to actually turn out to be the show I expected it to be. An animated Toku show. So I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this development, though it did kinda come out of nowhere .

Harazuka sure has his work cut out for him now .

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by MCAL

Well I can honestly say I did not see that one coming. The funny thing was at first, despite being interested, I wasn't sure this was a good idea, but now that I have had time to think about it, yeah, I don't think this was a good idea. I am painfully reminded of the twist in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (You know... THAT twist).

So all in favor of it just being that Hero show Ishihara said was interested in Hazama, say aye!

At least with Magnitude 8.0 I can see that twist actually happening...This however cam out of freaking no where going zero to 60 in two seconds flat.

Still I'm intrigued and want to see where they take this now. While I was expecting more conventional crime bosses or something mutated drug addicts are fine too I guess...

[RobotCat]

I think it's best to way until the next episode before making any snap judgments. So far the show has handled itself very well so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, you just HAVE to want to watch the next episode after the cliffhanger for this episode.

Anyways, anyone else think this episode gives more evidence that Goto's girlfriend is dead? When Goto and Masayoshi have the talk, Goto didn't want to give the reason why he became a cop after Masayoshi asked him whether he could have found his parent's murderer if he became a cop instead of a hero. Given the slightly darker tone of the episode with Masayoshi's past, it's entirely possible that's going to be Goto's backstory.

[Triple_R]

On the one hand, I'm very pleased to see actual "Super-Villains". Yes, this ups the ante quite nicely, and gives Samurai Flamenco some new and fitting challenges. And given how rapidly Samurai Flamenco has developed as a hero, and given that this is a two cour show IIRC, getting actual super-villains was probably inevitable. You can only do "costumed vigilante beats up random thugs and drug dealers and attempted rapists" for so long before it gets old.

However, this first "Super-Villain" isn't exactly the easiest to roll with suspension of disbelief-wise. Gorilla Grodd with a guillotine for a stomach? Randomly appearing from a random druggie having a seizure? I'm having a hard time imagining a good realistic explanation for this... and that's coming from a guy who was a hardcore comic book fan for a decade or more!

I suppose the tech level in the show could be developed to reasonably allow for this to happen due to some smoke and mirrors tricks by the real main villain. That's all I can think of, and hope for, right now. Well, other than this all being a dream (though I honestly hope it isn't, as that would feel like a copout to me).


My hope has been that Samurai Flamenco would eventually face a villain like Lex Luthor, The Joker, or an Evil!Tony Stark. You know, somebody theoretically real. At the end of the day, Lex Luthor is a wealthy, sociopathic corrupt businessman who happens to be insanely smart... and none of that is impossible in the real world. The Joker is a deranged flamboyant serial killer on steroids, but again, somebody like him isn't too hard on the suspension of disbelief if he's handled well. Heck, you could even say he's simply a way more competent version of the real life mass murderers we've had in recent years and decades.

But Gorilla Guillotine? Well, it nothing else, its a clever villain concept and name. Very comic book-esque, lol.

I'm willing to take a wait-and-see approach here. Hopefully the writers for this have come up with a decent explanation behind Gorilla Guillotine and how he appeared.

And I'm already suspecting the following: Konno is playing a key role in this new supervillain group. He was bored with the current situation, and wanted something flashier. He knows what he's doing is quite illegal, so he's cutting unnecessary ties (hence him cutting things off with Samurai Flamenco's boss).

It's possible that Konno is innocent here - Him being a mastermind, or at least a bank-roller for the bad guys, is almost too obvious. But I do see the narrative value in the main antagonist being a character that we've known since almost the beginning, and not simply someone to first show up several episodes in. And I can kind of see how the way Konno's been wrote so far nicely lends itself to that.


Putting aside the ending scene, I found the latest episode very nice and well-executed. They gave Samurai Flamenco a personal backstory that borders on cliche, but his reaction to it makes it so much sweeter and pleasing at a meta level than if he had just bought into his grandfather's words and goals without a second thought or conflicted heart. It makes sense that he finds it hard, at least initially, to really care about something that happened almost two decades ago to two people he can't remember (even if they are his parents).

I also really liked the "mental image" they used for Samurai Flamenco reading about the truth from his grandfather. That was very cool.

Finally, I liked how the actions of Samurai Flamenco and the Flamenco Girls have lessened crime in the city. That only makes sense, at least in the short-term. Four pretty effective vigilantes should put a considerable decline on crime.

[Thatguy3331]

I...not really even mad... I'm just confused...I feel lost. Did I miss something? Was there any remote hint that something like this was possible? I'm definitely going to keep watching but, this show just isn't going to be the same...

[thieftheodore]

there is a beheading scene out of nowhere in the quarter of the show...
looks like we madoka now

[bakAnki]

So now this is the second time I'm "fooled" by this series. At first, only saw one of the covers without watching the trailer, I thought this will be animated tokusatsu show but then we get toned-down anime version of Kick-Ass. Not really disappointed by that in fact I quite enjoy the past 6 episodes, but now it really did turn into animated tokusatsu I feel sort of cheated

Like mentioned before by others, I also felt the pace was too quick for 2-cour show these past 6 episodes. Skipped training "arcs" with the mentor to the point Hazama already skilled enough to beat thugs when on the first episode he was beaten up by some teenagers, no training with the new gadgets, no story of how Mari convinced the other two of MMM to be Flamenco Girls and their first battle. So yeah, I thought things will do change or escalated but not like this

I'm fine with violence and gore scenes, but even though the beheading scene here itself was not that explicit but for me it really change the overall tone of series instantly, regardless whether this turn out to be Hazama's delusion or something later. I will still continue watching the show since I'm big fan of tokusatsu and superhero though. Looks like we will see Hazama wears the full armor, as well as the appearance of other armored hero characters on that poster up there after all, won't we?


And I'm still waiting for the ED single to come out, the song is so good. Made this out of boredom yesterday, btw

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[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for ep7:

I'll have to see how they follow up this episode, but the last part really dropped my expectations of the show.
I do like Stromheim (or whatever that JoJo character's name was)'s voice actor though. (Which isn't the point)

Everything other than the end was fine though. Everything BUT the last part.

[Pacify]

What the Fuck just happened lol

Can't say I saw that coming....

[desrtsku]

Hoy, what the hell was that? Man, that was unexpected.

[Dop]

I still think that ending was a dream (possibly nightmare) sequence, fuelled by grandad's old hero stories. I suspect next time we'll see the REAL drug bust which will be more down to earth.

[Golden Bug-Hunter]

What was that I don't even???

WTF?

I'm not still drunk, right? I thought I sobered up before watching the episode. This is just....


Ok, I watched the end again and that still happened. I don't usually see unreal things when I'm drunk, and who ever heard of a hallucination repeating itself? So no, I'm not that drunk.

Samurai Flamenco, though, the show itself might be drunk. I don't really have a problem with the sudden genre and style jump, but I'm utterly shocked. I wouldn't be this surprised by the appearance of a super-villain per say, like a crime boss or the guy from Green Hornet, but this is such a complete jump in style and world-view that I'm really surprised by it.

[Xero8420]

I'm standing with Triple R for this one. This current episode is basically introducing the "super-villain" of the series. Since the crime rate was declining, it would expect the fun thing is ending too soon, so they introduce a "super-villain" to promote more adversity to SF in order to keep this series going, as well as making it more "tokukatsu" feel like Kamen Rider. I also like how Masayoshi responded honestly to his parents' death by murder (which led his grandpa to create SF as his 'vengeance'), knowing that he knew nothing about his parents for nearly two decades. Doubting whether if he's angry or upset, it's just too difficult for him of how should he express/react to his parents' actual death. But he chose to 'move on' rather than a cliche of violently lashing out like an angry kid.

By the way, Triple R. I think you could include The Mandarin from Iron Man as an example too.

[ellessarr]

i was thinking and if this was a "movie" remember when the movie guys say who their want him have his own serie/movie maybe their wanted make a serie about samurai flamenco and choose him to be the flamenco(the irony/troll moment since he is acting as himself), after that scene will be showed the studio stop the record and everything was their productin the "first episode".

[erdii]

well I was excpecting villains but at Masayoshi's level like throwing trashes on streets or vandalizing or just challenging flamenco but not this. my villains were idiotic like masayoshi not heartless villains.

what happened to our normal stroy for a beheading scene to happen ?

[Cloudedmind]

Well that escalated quickly. I won't say I'm disappointed, I am actually kind of interested in where they take this, but I was really enjoying the more down to earth feeling of this show, and Masayoshi's simi-slow progression. With the crime rate declining, and Masa and Mari feeling bit bored, and useless. I figured something was going to happen to lull them out of their false sense of security/boredom. I just wasn't expecting Gorilla Guillotine Grod. I'm also glad they didn't go with the cliche revenge route and instead had Masayoshi conflicted over how he should feel.

As far as the explanation of how this guy ended up this way. When he runs into the other room he opens up a draw that has a box and a gun, making the audience think he's going to go for the gun and try to either shot his way out or whatever. Instead he goes for the box which appears to house some pills which he never gets to take. I'm guessing these pills may factor into whatever it is that happened with this guy.

[Frontier]

Oh God bakAnki, that picture is perfect .

Though I personally would've switched the guy on the left with a certain break dancing dragon .

And Triple_R, on the whole Supervillain thing, I think it helps to understand that Samurai Flamenco takes far more influence from Japanese Toku hero shows than it does from western heroes. The traditional villains for Tokustatsu shows, like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, aren't generally like supervillains from American comic books.

They're not villains who use their intellect like Luthor, or psychopaths like the Joker, or even really have superpowers. They're Kaijin, people who turn into monsters or are monsters to begin with. The whole ending sequence with Gorilla Guillotine was almost straight out of a classic Kamen Rider show.

There's probably going to be some explanation as to how normal people are transforming into actual Kaijin, likely related to the pills as Cloudedmind brought up, but be prepared for a lot of people turning into crazy monsters if the show is really going where I think its going.

[HandofFate]

rofl, using a drug bust as a PR event w/ a mascot.
Japan must be a peaceful country.

also, holy crap, is this really happening?
maybe its for the tv show they were talking about earlier...and its all being acted and filmed.

[Triple_R]

@Frontier - Thank you for that info. It does help to explain what may be motivating the writers here. Well, I don't know how I feel about such a non-realistic element as "people turning into actual monsters" becoming a key part of this show. But I'll wait and see.

[playmaker2k]

I want him to rock the red power suit just to make up for Bamboo Blade messing with me with the Blade Bravers.

Goto would wear a Shinaider style suit when they take on King Torture.

Spoiler for cho ken sentai blade braver:

Shinaider's theme is still superior.