Flashman Episodes 17-19

Big, big episodes that meant big, big things for the franchise, but also the show itself in what it reveals about Flash planet history. Episode 17 is my favorite one of this three-parter, and it's one that I remember loving as a kid. But these episodes don't have the big impact on me that they're supposed to, and I think it's because of the Ley Baraki character.

Before I start complaining about Baraki, let's focus on that episode I do like, 17. It's again pretty action-heavy, and it's an episode where the Flashman feel like they're against the wall because they're still screwed without Flash King. Kaura lures them into a trap by putting to use the latest Beast Soldier's power, which is to lay explosive eggs. So, Kaura sets up a giant minefield for the Flashman. If that's not enough, a schoolbus is coming back from a field trip and encounters some of the mines, wounding the driver (he's ejected from the bus!), sending the bus to the edge of a cliff near the minefield battle ground where the Flashman are fighting!

A hijacked schoolbus is a bit of a cliche in the Showa toku shows, but I think this version is one of the better depictions. The danger is real, the threat is immediate, it's well directed. My favorite moment as a kid was when Red Flash sees the bus and races through the minefield to reach it before it falls. He's ignoring the warning and pleas of the other Flashman and just dashing his way through a bunch of explosions, being knocked out of suit. But even as Jin, he just presses on through the minefield, all while the soundtrack is playing that variation of Fighting Pose Flashman as if it were composed by Ennio Morricone. It's a great scene, and probably one of the reasons why Jin was my favorite as a kid. And I like that, once he makes his way up to the bus, he has to have one of the kids help assist him in working the stick shift, because his arm was wounded in one of the explosions. I thought that was a nice little detail, and the way Jin handles trying to comfort the kids is another great aspect of the character. (It's sad that the show backed off on showing the Flashman's natural powers, though, because Bun or Ruu could have gotten up there with ease. It would have robbed Jin of a great, cool, heroic moment, but it would have been cool to see those special powers put to use in such a way.)

I remember seeing that MMPR as a kid, when that bus (that's only carrying Bulk and Skull, somehow) is teetering off a cliff and saved by the Megazord, and thinking "What a rip-off!" it was of this Flashman. Plus, you know, it sucked that they managed to save Bulk and Skull.

Tremors occur throughout the first episode, revealed to be the dormant Flash Titan mecha breaking free of its burial. Unlike a lot of other shows, I like that they try to come up with a reason -- that upon Flash King's trashing, it sent out of a signal which was picked up by the Flash Titan, another mechanism from the Flash planet. So, it's not just a big ol' coinkydink as it so often is. The mecha belonged to the Hero Titan, a famous figure on Flash that gave his life fighting Mess throughout the solar system. His final battle occurred on a planet with a Ley Baraki, who was Keflen's first creation. Baraki is defeated by Titan, but where he expects the killing strike, he instead is given mercy: Titan values life, so he wants Baraki to keep his. This is new for someone bred for just battle, as Baraki was, and Baraki is taken aback by this. And then, he sees Mess' true colors once their forces arrive to attack Titan, not caring if Baraki ends up as collateral damage.

Titan decides to protect his enemy and helps haul Baraki off to safety. This touches Baraki, he doesn't know what to make of this gesture from the guy he was just ready to kill. But that's Hero Titan, man. He's a righteous dude. He respects Baraki as a warrior, and tells Baraki that life should be valued. (Considering what we learn of the Anti-Flash Effect and what atrocities the Mess are up to -- sacrificing lives in order to play God -- repeat viewings help add layers to Hero Titan's beliefs here.) Titan takes a fatal hit -- FROM THE LAB SHIP! -- and makes Baraki vow to take his Flash Titan arsenal to Earth, for he knows Mess will target there one day, and there will be others who follow in his heroic footsteps to fight them. (Yeah, yeah -- joke now that "FLASHMAN" is written on the side of the truck, as if he prophesized it. But maybe he was hoping "Flashman" would end up being his superhero nickname!)

With nothing to lose, and no one else who treated him as respectfully as Titan, Baraki chooses to honor his dying request, flying to and landing on Earth with the Flash Titan, hiding out until needed, going into hibernation. Once everybody realizes anybody with "Flash" in their name is on the good side, the Flashman and Baraki team-up, with Baraki agreeing to give them the Flash Titan. (There's a moment when Baraki says Jin reminds him of Hero Titan, which is pretty cool. It reminds me of that one monster in Turboranger, who was a Rakia ally, who told Riki he's the reincarnation of Rakia.)

Baraki...I really like the idea of the character and his story arc. He could have been fleshed out just a little more, but I do think there's a kind of pitiful quality to him, that he's been made to die by Mess and my take on his quick liking of Titan is, as I said, that Titan's probably the only one who showed him any respect or treated him with value. If you look at Izubuchi's design for Baraki, Baraki looks like he's an old, proud warrior, weathered by battle. He has broad shoulders, but is tall, so he looks lean. So he looks like he'd be intimidating, and he should have been, especially in the earlier sequences when he and the Flashman don't know if they're friends or foes. I bring this up as a way of saying I think Baraki doesn't work because of the casting...

Baraki is played by Haruki Joh, who plays a ton of criminals in yakuza movies. He's popped up in toku, before. (OTOH, he's in Changeman 44 along with Kazuo Niibori as the human form of an old Space Beast Soldier.) Joh is a short, chubby kind of guy, who looks like a hoodlum. (Hence, all of the yakuza roles.) Not only is he the wrong type of person for the role, but he turns the design into just this...he makes Baraki a fat little furball, an obese walking Santa beard with horns, a chubby Tribble. And Banjo Ginga voices Baraki, and I usually like Banjo Ginga, but even HE is wrong for Baraki! He sounds like he's recording his dialogue as he falls asleep on the john. Joh makes him unlikable, Banjo's doing a completely different character, so it's poor casting in both cases, and Baraki never comes to life the way he should, his story doesn't resonate the way it should, and the upcoming drama involving the character misses the mark. Baraki's the kind of character Hideaki Kusaka would knock out of the park, if he had been a little older at the time. I have another casting suggestion that I'll address in a later episode.

There's this extraneous dilemma of Baraki losing control of the Flash Titan, so it's driving recklessly, causing destruction, until he's able to get it back under control, but it's an unnecessary dilemma. (And it's something writer Soda ends up putting to better use for Land Galaxy's debut episodes of Maskman.) But the Flashman do inherit it, and I like the way Yellow points out that they should all know how to operate it because, being an invention from Flash, well, they're obviously used to that. So many times pranksters will be like "How can a Sentai team just work a new mecha perfectly their first time?" Well, SOME shows explain it! And they're usually the good shows.

Titan Boy, a new era for Super Sentai. He set the standard for the secondary mecha being small and hyper. I always thought that was a weird choice for them to make the new mecha so strange, that they seem smaller and kinda of comedic compared to the main robot. I suppose they don't want to detract from the main mecha's coolness and star power, but it's weird that the franchise gets to a point where they don't care about respecting the initial mecha, the heroes will get a new mecha component in every episode and each subsequent mecha is meant to be bigger and better than the previous.

It's strange that Flash Titan is a tractor-trailer, but if Hero Titan saw a future in which the Mess targeted Earth, then he saw a future in which Transformers-mania swept the world, so...Flash Titan is a tractor-trailer. (Really, compare the three pieces of Flash King. They're a tank and jets, but still given a futuristic/alien oddness. That care wasn't put into the Flash Titan.) It doesn't really matter, though, because I LOVED Flash Titan as a kid. I clearly remember Santa-san bringing it on Christmas and I just thought it was the coolest, best, most magical toy ever. One of the things I loved most about it was that it was easy to handle, you know? The deluxe mecha involved just too much work to gattai 'em. You're folding them, bending them, snapping things into place... And it was a pain to UNDO all that stuff to get them back into vehicle mode! Flash Titan was relatively easy to make go from the truck to Titan Boy and then Great Titan and back again. So, it was a cool toy, and one that was actually fun to play with.

So, the Flashman now have Titan Boy and FINALLY defeat the pesky eggmine-laying Beast Soldier after two episodes. They don't enjoy their victory for long, because things rarely go right for the Flashman, as they soon learn that Baraki has been taken by Kaura.

Part three deals with Baraki being tortured and used by Mess to assassinate the Flashman. Baraki, to his credit, tries to REALLY hang in there and cling to life so that he can deliver to them an important message entrusted him by Hero Titan. Weisenheimers are going to say "Why didn't he just blurt it out during his first attack on Jin when he wasn't yet controlled? Why doesn't he write a letter?" Because this shit's supposed to be going down fast, man! He doesn't have time for that. He's captured, tortured, botches his first attack on Jin and then gets taken control of, as if a puppet, by the latest Beast Soldier who forbids him from even speaking. (When the controlled Baraki is attacking the Flashman, his few words of dialogue are spoken in his head. This seems confusing since the Baraki design can't move its mouth, but look at the Flashman's reactions. From their point of view, Baraki's just attacking them without a word, and it isn't until Jin sees that Baraki's crying that he realizes that the real Baraki's there, he's not brainwashed, but manipulated into attacking against his will.)

Once the Flashman free him, Baraki takes a nice hit by Kaura's whip. He's already endured a lot of pain throughout the episode, and Jin ushers him to safety where he can barely blurt out what Hero Titan so badly wanted conveyed. All he gets out is talk about a weakness of the people from Flash, that it's what contributed to Titan's demise, and that if they don't defeat Mess soon enough then... And Baraki loses consciousness. The Beast Soldier appears and attacks him once more, finishing the job, and Baraki never again awakens to Jin's calls.

I like so much about the Baraki character. He's a bad-ass in just this episode alone, and there's just such a sorrowful quality to the character. Not just his background, how little he was valued by Mess, but the way he pushes past the pain of being tortured, just wanting to live long enough to deliver the Flashman the warning of what will end up being the deadly Anti-Flash Effect. But, again, the casting doesn't make the character soar the way he should, and that's a shame, because it's a neat story, and a more meaningful way to introduce a new mecha than any modern show cares to do. Beating a dead horse, but stories of Titan and Baraki are something I could see being prequel/spinoff novels or comics. (Titan especially.)

I thought this episode was cool and weird when I was a kid, the creepy monster controlling Jin and Baraki with invisible strings, and that moment when Green Flash knocks Baraki's sword out of his hands and it ends up accidentally severing the monster's strings, revealing its ability to the Flashman. I just thought it was neat. It's also great how pissed off Jin gets at Baraki's death. Red Flash really does make Mess pay; a lot of toku heroes say that, but Jin means it, and makes it so. Spoiler alert: he pretty much is responsible for every villain death in the show save one -- someone who's a biggie and taken down by a surprising character.

I should also note that episode 19 is the last episode in which the Flashman will wear their funky alien outfits regularly. From here on, they wear ordinary Earth clothes, saving the funky alien stuff only for scenes at the Round Base. I like those unique outfits, and I think they're the best of the "funky outfits" we've seen Sentai heroes wear (others being Zyuranger and Gingaman), but I also like that the Flashman reach a point where they just want to go out dressed normally. That's sometimes a criticism with Zyu or Ginga, and it's one that Flash avoids.