Flashman Episode 16

There's a LOT packed into this episode, it's filled with action, and it runs the gamut in emotion. It feels like it could be one of the movies, it's doing so much and feels like such an event. Kaura's debut was an event, and that approach continues into this episode, a direct continuation, and THEN it gets into a three-parter that's so big and, yes, such an event that Toei will edit them together and put it on the big screen as Flashman's second movie.

But before getting to any of that...this episode. I happen to really like this episode, and my enjoyment is boosted by the fact that I didn't even have this episode for a while, so it still feels "fresh" to me. In it, Mess is full of themselves for their absolute pwnage of the Flashman. A confident Kaura decides to go ahead with a plan in which last week's surviving Beast Soldier, The Zukonda, will go around Japan and capture people for Mess' use. Zukonda's given an ability in which he takes a large gold ring and, if he places it on a person, that person will be wrapped in a capsule and shrunken down to micro size where Zukonda can easily store all of those he kidnaps, leaving room for plenty of specimens.

Our heroes have tasted defeat and are battered, but regroup and set out to stop Kaura's plan, which I don't have to say is what happened to them, but on an even larger scale. Not only are they recovering, though, but they don't have Flash King! So, for the entire episode, they're very conscious of how to put a stop to Zukonda -- they know if they kill him, he'll just be enlarged and they won't be able to stop him. If this was a newer show, all the Flashman would have to do is grunt and yell an inane catchphrase and they'll be rewarded by the Bandai Gods, but this is a Showa show, and the Flashman will have to achieve victory on their own.

A great turn this episode takes is that Sara, while trying to protect a little girl who Kaura's targeting, is caught in a capsule with the girl and miniaturized. What makes it great is that Sara starts to experience some deeply buried trauma, reliving her own kidnapping, but she's able to eventually pull herself together for the sake of the kid. (And the set-up provides great visuals, as the girl is being chased at an airfield by a HELICOPTER-RIDING Kaura.) I think this is a nice exploration of Sara's character, that she's thoughtful and caring of other people, despite her own sadness and tragedy. There's something about the way Yoko Nakamura plays Sara that makes Sara seem just so sorrowful. She's not, like, unfriendly or a downer, she can enjoy herself and become cheerfully lost in a moment, but I always think of Sara as having a sad quality. You just want to root for her and have things go right for her; Nakamura makes her really sympathetic.

Yoko Nakamura was supposed to be a big deal in this show. Her star was on the rise, she was a singer who had several popular singles and an album before transitioning into acting, with Flashman serving as a big break. While Nakamura and Sara were popular, overall she only ended up with a handful of guest appearances and variety show appearances on her resume, and she never released any more music than that initial album and singles. (It's a shame, because she's a good actress and had the potential to grow into a great singer.) She fell off of the radar for a bit, but I remember co-star Sayoko Hagiwara saying on her blog at one point that she had kept in contact with Nakamura, who said she was happy to be out of the spotlight and living a normal life.

I've always wondered if we didn't get more from Nakamura because of some showbiz ugliness or if she was just unhappy with a celebrity lifestyle. I was surprised, yet glad that she ended up appearing at a Flashman reunion for the 30th anniversary. It's said that she didn't want any pictures of her released, which is why -- if you saw any of the official pictures of the five from the event -- the pictures would be, like, 75x75 in size! But some nosy fan was able to find and post pictures from private gatherings that took place after that event. Officially, I wag my finger at disrespecting Nakamura's request, but secretly I'm glad they were sneakily posted. I don't know why she didn't want pictures to get out, because I don't think she looks all that different.

And despite having a relatively small output, Nakamura remains popular to this day, to the point where fans successfully badgered Sony into re-releasing her album onto CD, with all of her singles and B-Sides included as bonus tracks. (Too bad they weren't able to get her Flashman, song, though, dammit, and make it truly complete.) I think Nakamura could have been a big celebrity in Japan if she hadn't stepped away.

OK, enough Nakamura fanboying. At this low point for Sara, she decides to snap herself out of it for the little girl's sake. The girl was at the wrong place in the wrong time, on her way to the airport to wait for her mother, who's returning from overseas for the first time in a decade. (Her mother had to seek treatment for a medical ailment.) And the girl's pretty young, she probably didn't really get to know her mother well at all before she had to leave. It's too close to home for Sara that this girl was targeted and captured by Kaura, being robbed of finally meeting her mom, being pulled from family the way the Flashman were.

Things are bleak enough with Sara and the girl captured in a miniature capsule, with the episode turning into a race between Mess and the Flashman as the Flashman try to keep the capsule safe. But then it gets even worse when the capsule is dropped into the sea in a Kaura attack, where a gluttonous pig of a fish eats it! It doesn't play as goofy as that sounds, and you can make Jonah connections if you want, but it's also kind of like "Damn! Those two can't get a break." That's just about as hopeless as it could get for those two, right? But Sara remains positive, trying not to let the girl fall into sadness. And they're against the clock, too, since, you know, the fish will eventually digest them. (They, and all those captured, are eventually freed by Red Flash destroying the component Zukonda wears in which he creates the pesky capturing rings from, which Kaura quickly restores.)

The way the Flashman end up disposing of this week's monster is funny and creative, though; they can't just blow him away with Rolling Vulcan, so Red Flash comes up with an appropriate way to get rid of him -- they get the monster to place one of the rings around himself, shrinking and encapsulating him. For good measure, Yellow Flash gets revenge by chucking the pill-sized capsule into the sea, where it quickly gets swallowed by a fish. Kaura lets them enjoy their little victory, and tells them as much, but he and they know they won't be able to keep on going without Flash King.

An episode with a good pace, tons of action, and great character moments. (See: Bun's reaction to Jin's command that they all jump off the Classic Toku Bridge to evade Mess's forces, which have them covered.) It's sad that pieces of this episode weren't worked into the movie edit.