Flashman Episode 28

The kick-off to a big five-parter. This episode's a bit of a sneaky trick, though, in the way it misleads you. Spoiler alert, the next couple of episodes are about our villains powering up and causing problems that require the Flashman to step up their game, and this episode is about Garus being the first to power up, only...surprise! It's actually Garus' final episode. It's not only a mean misdirect for the audience, but ends up being mean for the Flashman!

This episode's always seemed a little weird to me in the way that it forces a group of kids into the mix. There's definitely a feeling of "Oh, shit, we haven't featured kids for a while. Well...squeeze some in here." Because they're just so random and unessential to what's happening. It's nothing major, but it just sticks out. I guess the real reason is that this is the last of the "summer-y" feeling episodes, and this group of kids are reminiscent of the standard groups of kids that hung around in '70s tokus. At least they help provide some info for our heroes, they're not just pains that get themselves in trouble.

While Garus is a regular villain, he's never been made to be all that important. Nevertheless, this is the final episode of one of our regular villains, but it's not treated all that importantly. It's meant to be pretty big, but there's a real cheapness to this episode that shrinks the events. For starters, it all takes place in practically one outside location and that cave Toei used to love. (Along with its companion piece, the cave interior set that Toei used to love.) Another thing is the effects. Now...I try to not poke fun at effects at the time. It's easy to do, I've done it, but I don't like it. But not only are the special effects graphics weak here, but so too the effects of the pyrotechnic kind.

This episode's at that point in the series when the head villain is tired of tasting defeat, so he's taking it out on his co-workers and giving them an ultimatum. Keflen steps in and offers to power-up his underlings, requesting Deus give them another chance. He whisks Neferu, Wanda and Garus to Toei's cave set, where he reveals some weird-ass flower-tentacle thing out of an X-Rated manga called the Energy Flower. It's a flower he's cultivated, that's attached to the Earth's core and he can merge it with someone who can utilize its abilities -- some real nutty stuff. Stuff so crazy, that when he asks for volunteers, even Neferu and Wanda are kind of backing away in terror. (At what the ritual entails, or at what a crazy idea of Keflen's this is? You decide!) Garus steps up, which tells you all you need to know about this plan. (It ain't gonna go far.)

Flashman track unusual activity in the nearby forest and investigate, where they stumble upon that group of kids. The kids hang out outdoors in a clubhouse, where they said they spotted a bear. They ask the Flashman to help them, and it's a good thing they do, because it ends up not being a bear on the loose, but Garus! Garus absorbed fiery power from the Energy Flower and starts to wreak havoc in the surrounding forest.

This power-up for Garus...you can tell they don't want to spend the money. They know they're writing him off and that Wanda and Neferu are going to get the cooler, costly power-ups. So how do they depict this fire-powered Garus? They just color him red via effects. He's got a cartoon red glow of a vaguely flame design around him. It's...not impressive. And he spits cartoon fireballs, and you expect Junji Yamaoka to unleash some of the fiery hell he did for Super Giluke's Space Buster move, but he doesn't. It's just all so small seeming and disappointing. (Spot how Hirose REALLY overreacts to some fire he's witnessing Garus unleash -- he, too, was obviously expecting more impressive explosions to be added later.) The ONLY neat thing is when Garus takes the Prism Sei-ken and burns it. They set that thing on fire for the shot, which lets you know how cheap that prop must be. (I still dream of a Premium Bandai Prism Sei-ken, dammit!)

But...it's Garus. The show knows you're not exactly impressed with him, that he's not one of your favorites, so they think you'll excuse them for saving some change here. Because the more important thing of this episode is when Red Flash weakens and his power goes haywire at a bad time in a fight. He worries it has something to do with Baraki's dying words -- whatever was responsible for Hero Titan's demise, the thing that threatens anyone from the Flash planets.

So, the Flashman are in a tight spot -- this mysterious dip in their power begins to happen just as Mess is actually powering up and becoming stronger. And here's what's mean about the episode: the powered-up Garus IS a pain in the ass who's difficult to defeat -- taking TWO hits from the Rolling Vulcan to fall -- but Red Flash powers through and they just manage to win. Despite worrying what the weakening of his powers could mean, this victory has a strange taste to it. They think they've overcome obstacles and beaten Garus, so maybe there's nothing to worry about, but...knowing what we know about the show makes things twice as messed up, and I'll mention why in a few episodes.

And, so we bid farewell to Garus. While designer Yutaka Izubuchi says that they knew the character wasn't intended to last the entire series, you know a silent, costumed character just couldn't keep up with dynamic performers like Sayoko Hagiwara and Yutaka Hirose. And once Kaura came into the picture? Forget it.

What I think *was* interesting about Garus is that he was a cyborg. We're never given any information about him, but it's easy to imagine that he's a very, very early experiment of Keflen's, one of the first experiments in creating a really new type of lifeform, before focusing on splicing lifeforms' genetic material together instead. It's sad I never realized it before, but Izubuchi says Garus' design is based on the Terminator -- check out the metallic arm and red eye. Too bad Garus never felt as intimidating as he was obviously meant to be, just an inscrutable, hard-ass beastman cyborg.