Flashman Episode 45

"We came back to Earth to save it... The people, the beautiful greenery... We're here to protect flowers as beautiful as these. W...why?! Why then are we seeing such hatred from the Earth?!" ~Sara

The Anti-Flash progresses, Kaura reveals the use he has of Professor Tokimura and the farewell of two more regular villains...

Keflen sees the pain it causes Deus to put to use his genes. The next Deus Beast Soldier, Keflen decides, requires Kiruto to sacrifice herself. As he goes to work on the synthesizer -- which once again causes pain to the other officers -- he considers to himself the idea of turning Deus into a Beast Soldier. Madness! Kiruto becomes the latest Deus Beast Soldier, to the upset of Ulk.

Meanwhile, the Flashman have been searching for the professor with no luck. Kaura and Gardan are hiding him in an abandoned boat, where Kaura presents to the professor the blueprints for Keflen's Gene Synthesizer. He kidnapped the professor knowing he's fully capable of following the plans and building Kaura his own, but with some tweaks. Tokimura claims he can't, and even if he could, he'd refuse. Kaura doubts his claim, noting that he invented a freakin' time machine! And, besides, Kaura would be willing to tell him which one of the Flashman is his own child, which briefly excites the professor, before his better judgment returns to him. Tokimura then activates a beacon on his watch, which Jin catches on radar. Hoping the source is the professor, he leads the others, eventually reaching the boat. But before there's a chance for either Kaura to react to their finding his hiding spot or for a fight to break out or an attempt the rescue of the professor, Mess shows up and gets in the way...

I like the way this whole boat-scene-turned-Mess-battle is filmed; mainly that the sky is overcast, looking like a nightmare of a storm is heading the production's way, with a lot of heavy wind. It just gives it a cool look and suits the mood -- not only the Flashman's failure to save the professor (who Kaura successfully makes off with again), but they also suffer another defeat from the Deus Beast Soldier, Kirutos. They can't catch a break, and they certainly didn't need these upgraded monsters on top of it all. Kirutos tears through the Flash suits with her claws, and only breaks away from the fight once Red Flash Super Cutters them to pieces with Prism Sei-ken. This leads her to run off and put her powers to use, which is absorbing people's life force and being able to regenerate her claws. (She leaves young people old when she does this.)

The gloomy weather in this scene helps make the rest of the episode stand out as most of it takes place at the beautiful Kawaguchi Green Center, which is sunny and colorful with flowers. That Kirutos attacks here is another juxtaposition, her draining the people who are enjoying the vibrant scenery there of their vitality. And it further makes an effective backdrop for the latest development in the Anti-Flash, in which the Flashman find the plant life of Earth now being not only untouchable, but their presence can cause plants to emit carbon dioxide. And this after they try to help a woman and her child, only to shock them, with her fearing their presence and telling them to stay away from her and her kid! It's a bit X-Men-like, saving someone only to have them be like, "Keep your distance, mutie freak!"

The Flashman just kind of break down at this moment. (It's here that Jin realizes this must have been what Baraki's warning was about.) It hits Sara hard, she cries at the unfairness that they're from Earth, they've returned to save Earth, and now they're being rejected by the Earth itself and possibly its people, judging by that woman's reaction. Screams for help break through their desolation, with Jin whipping everyone back into fighting shape -- there's people that need 'em. Knowing her strength comes from her claws, Red Flash decides to restrain the monster and orders Blue Flash to hit her with a Super Cyclone. After a moment's hesitation, he does so, with Ulk shielding her close friend from the hit. (Nobody comes out of this attack unhurt -- not even Blue Flash!) Her claws once again broken and sensing the pain her former friend is in, Ulk offers herself to Kirutos, who absorbs her, giving her strength once again. But the Flashman manage to overcome her with the Super Spear because the episode is running out of time!

Tokimura's still missing, the Anti-Flash is getting worse, so it's not a great victory for our heroes. The episode ends with them just solemnly walking through the Kawaguchi Green Center, taking note of the people whose youth has been restored, that they saved -- the five just seem broken. Also: I kinda call bullshit on this happy end of the people's youth being restored. Now, a modern Sentai, using this scenario, would have had the monster just collecting people's youth in a basket or something, and once the monster was killed, the basket would break and the youth would just magically returned from whence it came. Fine, that kinda works.

But here, Kirutos is absorbing the life energy into herself, to regrow her claws and strength. It's energy taken, consumed, and even destroyed once the Flashman break those claws. That sounds like a permanent deal to me. That would be like killing a vampire and expecting it to burst like an overfilled leech, and all of the blood it had drank in its lifetime would spill out and magically wash itself back to the victims and restore their life. What the hell sense does that make? But I guess this episode was depressing enough without leaving all of those people turned so old and weak-seeming. It's just kind of frustrating since a lot of Flashman episodes have established that it doesn't follow the standard toku logic of defeated monster = defeated damage caused by monster. For example, people still had pumpkin heads even after Gourmess was defeated. People still had that measles-like illness after Mazaras was defeated. The Flashman still had to step in and help them even after the monsters were dead, so...yeah.

Miyuki Nagato gets a lot to do in this episode as Ulk, and it seems like she takes a lot of beatings here. Maybe she feels lost without her cohort backing her up. Nagato gives a great performance in this episode, seeming just heartbroken over what happens to Kiruto. Her final act, crawling towards her injured comrade, offering herself to her so they can be together forever and embracing has led to some believing Ulk and Kiruto were lovers. Nagato certainly gives it a more intense emotion than them just being kunoichi buddies, and this last scene is filmed like many of the scenes in toku dealing with the final moments of characters who were romantically involved -- crawling to each other, arms extended. Even Yellow Flash notes that she'd never imagine Mess members having caring feelings for one another. So, it's there if that's the view you want to take.