Flashman Episode 36

An episode about the bad guys peddling a bug that shits gold. Sound familiar? Kamen Rider Black goes on to steal this episode a little over a year later, only they make it terrible.

It might not be a totally essential episode, but I like it, and it certainly isn't as bad as that Black episode. It's kinda just one for the kids, focused on kids. Flashman doesn't remember the kids a lot, so they'll toss in ones like this every now and then.

In that dreadful episode of Black, Golgom's plan was to convince people to buy these bugs and rely on them for any financial purpose. People would get lazy depending on the gold created from these bugs and society would collapse! It was a goofy episode, more of a Crisis plot than a Golgom one. Here in Flashman, Mess are giving away these bugs to kids to raise as pets, with the promise that any metal it eats -- even simple screws and bolts -- will cause it to make gold. What really happens is that the bugs will eat enough metal and eventually emit a corrosive gas from its mouth, which we see causes a ton of problems when they'll end up eating through buildings and gas pipes and so on.

We follow a group of kids who gets one of the bugs, and all they really want is enough money to buy a good violin for a girl they like. (Two million yen!) Jin gets mixed up with them, being drawn to the music the girl plays, but quickly recognizes that the bug they have is bad news, and he spends most of the episode trying to convince them to see that. The kids give him a lot of hell, and Jin really has the patience of a saint.

The funny thing is, once Jin learns where the kids got the bug, they approach the disguised Mess vendors who...immediately freak at the sight of the Flashman coming to bust them. They don't even try to keep up appearances and pass the scam off as something semi-legitimate. It's flip out and reveal themselves! Oh, well, Kaura doesn't seem to mind -- this is his operation, as strange as it is, and he knows they've already given enough of the bugs away to cause serious damage. The monster who the miniature slugs derive from also emits a corrosive gas, so we get a lot of those effects I like where the Flashman's shields will be eaten away and dissolve.

And after so many episodes lately with the reduced villain cast, it's great to have them all back together on screen for this episode. The previous episode was just Wandala and Ulk and Kiruto, for example. Before that would be Neferu (mainly as Neferura) and Ulk and Kiruto. Here's it's everybody working for Mess, and it's awesome, leading to really big fights with some of Yamaoka's trademark long tracking shots. And it's fun to see Wanda, Neferu, Ulk and Kiruto disguised as humans, peddling the magic bug that creates gold. (That's even something the Black episode rips off -- Birugenia disguises himself as a human in it!)

This episode also features a crucial little tease from Kaura after a tense little face-off between him and Keflen; Keflen's furious at Kaura for taking charge of a plan without his permission and tries to put him in his place as just the mere bounty hunter, the sideline help. A seriously pissed-off Kaura blocks an attack of Keflen's and gets in his face, insinuating he knows a big secret of his true identity, so tread lightly, mutha! (Jouji Nakata's little mocking laugh here is great.) This is the beginning of what will be Kaura's rebellion, and it's one of the things that makes Kaura my favorite Sentai villain -- through his work and experience, he not only has the answers our heroes desperately want, but he also has the goods on one of the main villains! He's a great warrior, but also really cunning, such a formidable threat. Jouji Nakata brings SO much to the role on his own, the show is extremely fortunate to have him.

Any other show would have ended this episode by having the Flashman buy that expensive violin the kids wanted, but not Flashman. They don't have that money! So they just try to get the group of boys to push past their shyness, make that connection, and approach the girl and let her know they appreciate her music. It's sweet that Flashman want to help kids since they had a lonely and unhappy childhood, as the narrator reminds us; the kids listening to the girl play and letting her know they appreciate her music is probably more rewarding to her than if they bought that fancy new violin.

It's something small, but ties back into the Flashman's trying to make up for their stolen childhood. They isolate themselves at Roundbase most of the time, they're all business and try to be on call constantly to combat Mess, like it's their literal job, but when they DO get the opportunity to get out and enjoy themselves, they try to enjoy anything they can. They appreciate the small things. Whether it's Bun going crazy for balloons or Jin enjoying this girl's violin playing or Sara's small slice of happiness at buying an earring she liked -- the Flashman haven't had a lot of happiness in their lives, but they try, dammit, and especially try to make up for it. And when you rewatch the show, knowing where the final episodes go, it makes the show even more tragic. The Flashman really get dumped on, but they don't let it get them down...

That's something that, along with the fact that they're all so decent and nice and get along, is something that could ring false or hollow or make them seem flat in a lesser show, but I don't think that's the case here. I truly believe in these characters, I think they still manage to be distinct (they're not just dudley do-rights), and I think the cast plays a big part of that. They're all good in their roles, they all believe in it. The fact that the entire cast -- heroes and villains -- remain so close to this day says a lot. They're proud of their time on Flashman, they believed in what they were doing, and it shows.

Neferu Disguise Watch: She disguises herself -- and gets all of the other Mess officers in on the fun -- as an ordinary Earth woman in order to give away some of them gold pooin' slugs.