Flashman Episode 40

A pretty tense, dark, atmospheric episode written and directed by Takao Nagaishi. Nagaishi wrote a few scripts in the '70s, so the fact that he wrote this isn't unusual, but it is a little unusual for somebody to get to write and direct the same episode. I mean, the only other cases I can think of that happening in a toku is with a couple of Showa Ultraman episodes and then Keita Amemiya with some of the GARO entries. I don't know how or why Nagaishi came to writing an episode of Flashman -- it's always strange when somebody who hasn't written for the show writes an episode so late in its run, so I wonder if he was just filling a slot that was vacated by sub-writers like Michiru Shimada and Kenji Terui not doing more than one each. I like to think he just had an idea and a vision for an episode and was passionate about bringing it to life. Whatever the case, it's fortunate that Toei let him do it. It's a standout episode and has its own feel to it, and it's experimental feeling. This episode could have been a three-parter.

It begins with Jin taking an early morning jog, just taking in and appreciating the refreshing Earth morning. He's watched by a masked stranger, who uses a mechanical device to transport him to another location. That place? A mysterious city run by Mess called the Execution City; they're kidnapping people and plan to do mass conversions into Beast Soldiers. Jin's quickly spotted by Kaura, who has him imprisoned, and he's eventually freed by that masked stranger, a woman named Shibel, who brought him there in order to put an end to this plan of Mess'.

Shibel was kidnapped by Kaura as a young girl and raised by him. She works for him/Mess, in charge of this so-called Execution City, overseeing this latest plan, the XX Plan. But she doesn't have a taste for Mess' cruelty, violence and destruction. She's a good person, whose values were shaped by a children's book she found as a kid, Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince. The book was actually Jin's; his mother was reading it to him as the lights of Kaura's UFO shined upon him and abducted him, twenty years ago. Like a useless omake that came with Kaura's bigger fish, he just casually tosses the book to the child Shibel, not knowing or caring that she'd actually read the book and take its lessons to heart, one day rebelling against him. (This episode makes it seem like maybe Kaura picks up some stuff as he's abducting kids, giving the impression of a pirate, kinda like maybe he plunders and sifts through the extra stuff he might pick up along with the creature he's after.)

Shibel's a bit of a mystery, and one can imagine her crazy upbringing since she was raised by Kaura. Where is she from in the universe? Could she actually be human? Was she accidentally kidnapped by Kaura along with another person, ending up another extraneity from his haul that Kaura kept? (That's damn sad -- the idea that Kaura, say, kidnapped two people for Mess, Mess only wanted the one, leaving the one with Kaura. What a damn twisted story, the reverse of the Flashman's -- being raised instead by a very evil alien, and yet it's the decency in a story from Earth about selflessness and sacrifice that saves her soul.)

She frees Jin and sets about her mission, only to have Mess interfere. The Beast Soldier this week can create unbreakable shackles on people, and by Keflen's orders, he has Kaura shackled together with Jin, and sends them away from the center of operation. It results in a really cool scene of Jin and Kaura, battling each other -- chained together -- at night, in a heavy storm. Kaura! The guy who's basically always besting the Flashman in battle, the one responsible for kidnapping them, the one with all of the answers. It's a slow, brutal fight (Kaura even at one point is struck by lightning!), and it looks like it lasted a while, because when we next see them, they're both unconscious and it's daylight. They've both seen better days, but there's no time for Jin to rest, because Mess is speeding up their XX plans. Jin's really put through the wringer in this episode, hauled away on his morning jog, beaten, imprisoned, getting into a brutal brawl with Kaura. He's just in red sweats the entire episode, and it gives this added sense of vulnerability. He might as well have just been grabbed by Shibel when he was waking up still in pajamas.

At one point, Shibel brings over the remaining Flashman, and they're all pretty much on the run, hiding from Mess forces who are after them. When they finally come upon Jin and Kaura, Shibel manages to break the chain by revealing she has a weaponized cybernetic implant in her chest. That's another mystery about her, now isn't it? Could it have been a Mess experiment? Did Kaura take her to some funky black market surgeon from a cyberpunk story? Did she sneak and have this implanted on her own? I like to think that last option. Because people like to laugh that it looks like she has a "booby cannon," but I think it's supposed to be a heart. And doesn't that make sense with her love for The Happy Prince? The prince who lived in a guarded illusion of happiness, but when he died and became a statue, saw all of the suffering that happened in the cities outside of his walls. And he tries to help as much as he can, and eventually dies of a broken heart, a lead heart that can't be destroyed when the rest of the statue is. A heart that's taken by an angel to God in Heaven.

So I like to think that, at some point, Shibel, in secret, got that weaponized heart implant, to honor that story, and knowing that she would one day need it and use it for good. And she ends up, like the prince and his swallow ally in that book, using it and sacrificing herself for the betterment of others. She frees humans from all of the chambers they're in, from being turned into Beast Soldiers, and then destroys the facilities, dying herself in the process. I think it would have been a nice touch if her cyborg heart had survived, been found in the rubble, as another nod to the story, and where Jin could have laid the book to rest with her. (He does leave the book behind at a makeshift grave at least.)

I like to think that what Nagaishi is saying with this episode, with Shibel's being inspired by the old children's tale, is that these stories are important, they're something that helps shape you, and if you take their lessons to heart, you can carry the lessons well into adulthood and they still apply and can be used in positive ways. So, basically like if the character was motivated by a toku. The book was a little light of hope in what had to have been a tragic and brutal childhood for Shibel.

This episode could have easily been a two- or three-parter. With Shibel's background, her connection to Kaura, Mess' evil plan... And we could certainly have used more reaction from Kaura that the girl he raised as his own turned on him and Mess. (He's probably secretly happy that she ruined Mess' plan, but what were his own feelings?)

And I of course should mention that Shibel is played by Mina Asami, who would soon go on to play Mio and Igam in Maskman. I think she's good in the role, and really has a steely toughness that makes you believe that she grew up in a really harsh and unpleasant environment, but -- as we also see in Maskman -- she's also able to convey a kindness and grace.

One last thing that's caused debate amongst Flash fans, though. The flashback to Jin's kidnapping doesn't line up with what we were shown earlier in the series. I think that can be explained, though. In this episode, Jin takes a beating from Kaura and the Alien Hunters and is imprisoned within a strange device. I feel like that state of exhaustion and stress could have unlocked a memory, and what we saw before was either just a fuzzy recollection or just what I call "TV show memory" -- what we were shown wasn't really Jin's memory, but just a scenario playing out for the benefit of the audience.