Flashman Episode 30

Neferu's turn to power up! And the show's smart enough to not show us the process SHE went through -- it would be repetitive and unnecessary. Plus, it leaves something to the imagination. She refused Keflen's summons in the previous episode out of terror, and she couldn't bear to hear Wanda's screams. But Neferu's a bad-ass, so I imagine once she caught a glimpse of Wanda, she was like "Pfff...if Johnny Bravo can handle it, I sure as hell can. And I won't be screaming like some punk, either. And I'll be sure to come out of the other side with a cooler power than stopping time for three measly seconds."

Because, while Wanda does manage to cause a lot of trouble with those three lousy seconds, Neferu's new power as the Phantom Beast Neferura has the better, more useful power, IMO -- to cause illusions. (The show seems to favor Wandala's Time Stop, though, because Neferura never uses her illusions that much.) She puts her new ability to nasty effect in this episode; first, the Flashman are lured out by the Alien Hunters kidnapping babies. (And as I've said before, if there's one thing the Flashman can't stand Mess doing, it's repeating the horror that happened to them 20 years ago.) Once the Flashman are lured out into a field and Neferura makes her reveal, she traps them in a batshit illusion which makes them relive the sensation and trauma of their own kidnapping. Damn! That's so cruel. (The scenes of the Alien Hunters creeping around through the night, kidnapping babies, is pretty disturbing, too, and had to have upset young viewers.)

It's an interesting way they depict Neferura's world of illusions -- it's conveyed mostly by unsettling filming techniques and by the actors' performances. Since Neferura's looking to get them to respond to deep feelings they experienced when infants and toddlers, you're not going to be able to convey that sense of dread and pain to the viewer, so unsettling filming techniques is an interesting way to convey that deep torture. (It's pretty unpleasant having a big portion of the episode that's divided by color -- the screen being split, alternating between a diagonal and vertical line, each section colored either red or blue.)

The newly kidnapped babies are put to use in the illusion, their cries, the situation they're in triggering the Flashman's reliving of their own experience, which hits Sara the hardest. We see her get glimpses of being plucked from her home by Kerao, otherwise the team's experience is presented in a way that's mostly suggestive. While I like those nutty Space Sheriff episodes of this type where it's just a bunch of insane, nonsensical, drug-induced WTFery thrown at you, you could easily imagine the Flashman staff going for that kind of thing here, but they don't, and that's a good choice. It would be harder to take seriously. And while they haul out those moai which represent Toku WTFery, it's still fairly reserved. Here, it's pretty unclear just what the characters are enduring, and something about the mystery of that helps make it creepier.

Again, I like these Phantom Beast forms bringing supernatural elements to the show, similar to the way Super Giluke does in Changeman. And while I like this design for Neferura and think the costume is very well made...the face is on the cutesy side, which is a strange choice, off-putting and doesn't lend itself well to the feeling these upgrades are meant to evoke. Spoiler alert, they thankfully address this and she -- with no in-show explanation -- in a later episode changes expression, into a more ferocious, bestial face, far more fitting of the creepy and intimidating power these forms are meant to represent.

The high point of the episode is, as the Flashman are giving in to their base fears, Magu has the idea to enlist the Tokimuras to send words of encouragement via the Prism Flash. Hearing from "mother" and "father" give them the drive they need to fight through and defeat the monster, even though their powers are showing further signs of faltering. (Geez, the psychological trauma wasn't enough for our heroes, but the mysterious buggy powers pop up, too. See the difference between heroes who are overpowered and heroes who struggle for their victories?) Prior to this scene is the professor sounding pretty certain that Bun is his son, with Setsuko voicing her hesitation, not wanting him to get his hopes up. (She thinks Bun was doing a kindness and trying to get through to the injured professor; it's interesting that this scene turns into Magu busting through the hospital to have the Tokimuras return that kindness.) So, the mystery of who the Tokimura child is continues.