Flashman Episode 50

Is this the saddest finale in toku history? Maybe in Sentai history, at least. And while I usually complain and don't like Sentai finales that put too much emphasis on mecha battles -- most of the entire A Part is a mecha battle -- Flashman at least tries to get you to care about it by having the ticking clock, and by having a great monster design for them to battle.

The episode begins with La Deus' giant, broken mask piecing itself back together and rising. At the Lab, Keflen notes that while La Deus is dead, his genetic material lives on and is still usable, and so he sets about creating the latest Deus Beast Soldier, Demoss, even combining Kragen with it. Demoss is HUGE, and a unique design, because he's three-legged. The Deus mask remains for the most part, but it ends up turning monstrous as the beast absorbs more and more energy. (That's Kragen's contribution -- absorbing energy and making the monster seemingly invulnerable.) Keflen knows the Flashman have only ten hours remaining, and the Lab is in bad shape after La Deus' rampage, but Keflen is certain of his victory -- all he needs to do is pretty much hang in there until the Flashman's time is up.

The Flashman are all resting in hospital beds, hooked up to IVs, oxygen masks and machinery to check their vitals. They're a sorry sight, and only have ten hours remaining. Once they get the warning about Demoss' rampaging, they're up and ready to battle, despite Magu's warnings against it. But what other choice is there?! The Flashman are the only ones who can stop it and the sooner they get to it, the better. They're soooooo close to being done with Mess, but ten hours?!

By the time Flash King enters the battle with Demoss, the timer is at eight hours. (How'd that happen?! Did they get ready and sit down for breakfast before leaving the Roundbase? Did it take two hours to gattai Flash King? Someone's rigging the clock!) Demoss is just unbeatable. Flash King can't get in a hit or attack of any kind, the Cosmo Sword breaks over Demoss' head and Demoss sucks so much energy from it that Flash King is said to be destroyed.

Meanwhile, the Tokimura family followed Sara's signal and find their old, abandoned home from twenty years ago. They find the framed photo and a heart-wrenching note from Sara telling them that they're her family, saying how much she'd like to be with them, but she's a warrior and her friends need her to help save Earth. "Mess needs to be defeated before sundown. I'm afraid I won't be able to see you again. Dad, Mom, Kaori, Midori...I wish you the best." This, of course, shatters the family, and they set out to try to find Sara before it's too late.

Jin and the others are surveying Flash King's damage, figuring out their next move, with six hours remaining. Elsewhere, the Tokimuras are driving around in order to find Sara. Sara reveals to the others that she's confirmed she's the Tokimura, and when the others ask her why she didn't let them know, she says she felt guilty that she was the only one who was able to accomplish their dream. Dai tells her it's silly, they would have been happy for whoever of the team got to find their family, even if it was just one team member. Demoss approaches and Jin makes a decision. "OK, team. Let's get this over with so Sara can meet with the Tokimuras. If we beat Mess by sundown, you can at least see them one more time before leaving Earth." Sara's touched, and the others are genuine in their desire to fulfill this goal. "There's four hours remaining," Bun says, "Sara, everyone, let's put the last of our powers to use and win!" Motivated, with no time to spare, they call for the Flash Titan and go back to battle Demoss.

Demoss proves to still be difficult with Titan Boy's usual attacks, with Pink noting that it keeps eating energy. If it's energy he wants, Red thinks... And he forms the Great Titan. He gives Demoss a big helping of the Titan Nova, knowing that it should be too much energy for even Demoss. But Demoss still stands. Not giving up, Great Titan just keeps on pumping Demoss full of the Titan Nova until he finally overloads and dies. Keflen's in disbelief -- the Flashman have a shot at winning. Happy to have this victory, but knowing there's no time to spare, Red Flash urges the others to next invade the Lab and deal with Keflen. Two hours remain.

The Flashman have to fight their way through gangs of Zoros before they can reach the Lab's main room. It must have taken them quite a while to break into the Lab and fight their way through, because they're down to an hour now. At the same time, Keflen is causing explosives to erupt from the pillars throughout the Lab and detain the Flashman. Time's getting tighter and tighter as they finally reach the main room to confront Keflen. (It's the first time the Flashman have been face to face with Keflen. And the Flashman actors never get to share any scenes with him, which is unfortunate. The actors only ever talk of getting to see Koji Shimizu when it came time to do voiceovers, when you know they were probably looking forward to working with an actor of Shimizu's esteem.) Neferu is in full bodyguard mode, she chops the Flashman down right away with a strike from her baton, allowing Keflen to keep focused on playing the synthesizer and attacking. Desperate, Red Flash tries to get to Keflen, ready with the Prism Sei-ken, charged for the kill. A panicked Neferu warns Keflen, but places herself before him, taking the hit. There's an unnerving close-up of Hagiwara in pain, Neferu then stumbles, weak, smoking from the attack. She falls into Keflen's arms and she weakly addresses him as father for one final time, before falling to an explosive death. For the first time, we see Keflen show some genuine concern and care for anyone other than himself. He's shocked at Neferu's demise and turns his anger towards the Flashman, using his staff to give them a nasty electrical attack.

I feel like this scene is basically confirmation that Neferu IS Keflen's actual daughter, that it's more than Neferu just looks at him like a father since he created her or that he cares for her only because she's the one who showed the most allegiance. I feel like, at one point, Keflen had a daughter, and ended up experimenting on her. But I think the show goes about it the way it does, kind of dancing around it because that's just a little too twisted. But it's there, it's brought up, the connections can be made. That's my take, anyway.

The Flashman blast Keflen with Prism Shooter and Red Flash gets a Super Cutter in. Keflen collapses onto his Synthesizer, it making random, ugly, unmusical sounds for probably the first time. Red goes in for the kill, but Keflen spins around, holding a hand up, asking him to wait. He makes them an offer. He knows their time is running out, and he tells them that a cure is possible with the Gene Synthesizer, that he can heal them so they can stay on Earth forever and meet their mothers and fathers. I always thought this was an interesting moral quandary for our heroes. Because, while Keflen might be trying this purely to save himself, he probably is capable of healing them. He has the skills -- it's not like if Koutarou Minami was dying and a Crisis member offered to save him, where you'd know he'd be like, "No thanks, quack." The problem, I think -- for me, if I were one of the Flashman -- is that Keflen's no Kaura. He's going to have an ulterior motive, he's not going to honor his word, so what would the catch be? Would he "cure" them by turning them into a monster, or even just puppets, the new officers he'd need to rebuild Mess?

The Flashman all freeze at this proposition. It's everything they want, but it would probably be a Faustian deal. Their hesitation says they're weighing the idea. (This is where it would be nice if they had untransformed, say after Keflen's attack; it would not only give the five actors a chance to work with Shimizu, but you could also see all of their reactions to this proposal.) Time's getting low now, twenty minutes remaining. It ends up being Yellow Flash who answers for them, as she Prism Shoots the Gene Synthesizer. "That Gene Synthesizer has manipulated and hurt so many lives, I'd never want power from something like it," she says, shooting the Synthesizer more. Alarms sound. Keflen, knowing the battle is lost, turns his attention to the Synthesizer. He plays, the broken instrument sending bursts of explosive energy throughout the Lab. "Farewell, Flashman. Farewell...Earth!" he plays. Red Flash orders them to evacuate as the Lab begins to explode, Keflen continuing to play as he laughs in madness, uncaring of his demise. He's not unlike his hated nemesis Kaura -- he's going to go out on his own terms.

About Yellow Flash making the choice. It's easy to joke "Hey, it was easy for her to decide, she got to meet her parents." But not really, if you ask me. She's spent time with the Tokimuras, and most of that time with the thought that one of the guys was the Tokimura. She finds out they ARE her parents, but she never gets to meet them again with that knowledge.

The Flashman exit the Lab and it explodes. They cheer at their victory, but untransform and collapse in pain -- they only have five minutes left. Jin seems to accept their fate, relieved that they at least accomplished their mission and saved Earth, while the others are in tears. (Bun sadly begging for just a little more time.) Magu flies overhead in the Star Condor, beaming them aboard. Nearby, the Tokimuras notice the Star Condor, departing. (They had been spending the entire episode looking for Sara, and were in the vicinity of the Lab during that final confrontation. So sad that they were so close.) The Tokimuras are heartbroken, they're all tearing up, realizing that Sara is on her way "home." (Kaori and Midori quickly yelling a tearful "goodbye" at the departing Star Condor is just so kid-like and sad. It hits.)

On the Star Condor, the five look down at the Earth via a porthole. Jin apologizes to Sara for not being able to keep the promise of beating Mess in time for her to meet with the Tokimuras. She'll have none of that, vowing to one day return to Earth. This inspires some hope in the others, Jin optimistic that they'll all be able to return one day, with Dai noting that the science of Flash Star should make anything possible. (Bun and Ruu look pretty doubtful, though. They'd like to believe, but I'm not so sure they do.)

Our five heroes are then seen each lying in their own sleeping chamber, with Magu looking over them. Our last words are left to the narrator (which I'll quote below) while, rather than having the usual ending credits, Flashman begins the tradition of showing some past clips amidst new footage and different music. Obviously, this bummer of a finale couldn't just lead into the bouncy "Fighting Pose Flashman" as usual, with our heroes happily waving you "goodbye" while riding a carousel. That would hurt almost more than seeing them flee their own planet, riding back to the Flash system in these coffin-looking sleeping chambers. When I was a kid and didn't know what the hell was going on in this show, I DID think they were all dead. And I have to wonder if that's somewhat intentional, you know? Maybe it's just another way to soften a potentially too dark and twisted of an end. Maybe the Flashman ARE supposed to be dead. Isn't it weird that these look like Prism Coffins? Why wouldn't this process look like what we saw with Miran, where he was put in a cryogenic chamber? Why didn't the Flashman arrive at Earth in these things? (From what we were shown, they just sat at the controls of Round Base just fine.) I suppose they resemble what Baraki had been sleeping in, but I figured his contraption was special since he was meant to sleep for centuries...

And another thing that unnerved me when I was a kid was, in the narrator's final speech, talking of nature and spring restoring life to Earth, we see a shot of La Deus' broken mask in the dirt, before the camera decides to bring the focus into flowers in the foreground. This shot, frankly, confuses me still. Because when I was a kid, it reminded me of the way episode 49 ends with the fallen and broken mask still moving on its own. So I'd get to this finale, see the La Deus mask and just feel like that's a bad thing! Like there's still a possibility of him returning in some form. Like he's Jason Voorhees. "He's still out there." What a damn traumatic final episode!

But you have to believe in the Flashman's belief, their hope in returning. They've always been optimistic, it's what's gotten them through a rough life. You have to believe in the words of the narrator, who leaves us with these final words:

"Bidding farewell to Earth, our heroes are now returning to the Flash planets, dreaming of the fun and beautiful times they've had on Earth. Thank you, Flashman. Goodbye, Flashman. We'll wait for the day you return. Spring has come to what was their battlefield, life being restored to the Earth. One day, when you can return, Flashman, this beautiful Earth will welcome you back." ~THE END

Even without the paranoid fears I had as a kid -- the Flashman dead in coffins! La Deus still lurking! -- this is still a damn sad finale. When I try to think of other Sentai finales that went for downbeat ends, I still think the Flashman one outdoes them. Yeah, it sucks that Gai dies in the Jetman finale, but look at how upbeat that last scene and montage is! It basically looks like nobody cared about Gai dying, not even Gai! The Timeranger returning to 3001 (or if you're like me and think they're actually being erased from existence, Back to the Future-style) is emotional, but things end bright for Tatsuya when he sees doppelgangers -- he has a hopeful outlook for the future they all were supposed to make brighter. Besides, the Timeranger made a choice which led to that result, and they were going back to where they belonged, anyway. The Flashman didn't have many choices, man.

It's also strange when you think back to how Flashman started compared to its ending. Despite the backstory of our heroes, it was a very upbeat show. Our heroes were innocent, enjoying small things people take for granted with a child-like wonder. Remember how growing up on the Flash planets was a positive thing, in that it gave each of our heroes fun and unique abilities that all of the kids wanted? Too bad, the Flash planets are also responsible for causing our heroes to flee their home planet in the finale, barely clinging to life! I don't want to say Flashman began its run as "comedic," but it's certainly more lighthearted than it ended up being. And this wasn't a twist for the sake of seeming cool or twisty -- Soda had introduced this idea when the episodes were in their teens. The show gave our heroes a death sentence. It's basically like they had a terminal illness, and I feel like that's a pretty unique dilemma for a superhero.

And the Flashman, thanks to their unique upbringing, never gave in to hopelessness or depression. Would it have been interesting to see someone have that kind of reaction to this situation? For dramatic reasons, for reasons of "realism," I'll say yeah. But that's just not who the Flashman are. And that doesn't make them unrelatable or unbelievably goody-goody as it could have -- it makes them good, inspiring superheroes. And their whole situation DOES cause them pain and sadness, so they still feel like breathing, bleeding people, not vanilla cartoons who can turn their frown upside-down with an insipid catchphrase. Their tragedy hits all of them, and they think it's sad and unfair, but they also know they have to just keep pressing on to the best of their abilities. And you know there's not going to be an easy out for them.

Flashman's the rare toku that really feels like it grows and just keeps getting better. Changeman, for example, had a pretty low-key start, but built into something great. Or Liveman had an amazing beginning, but began to stumble. To overly simplify it: Changeman ended a better show than it began, Liveman began as a better show than it ended. When I'm at the end of Changeman, I can look back at those early ones and be like "They're not quite there." Liveman, I get to the end, think of the beginning and am like "What the hell happened?! It seems like two different shows!" When you start Flashman, you're like "Damn, this is good, and it only gets better!" And at the end you're just looking at it all and thinking "Damn! It had its act together from the word go." Flashman starts big and fun, rarely misses a step, and the story and world just keep expanding. The show might break away from some of its quirkier, lighthearted elements, but it replaces that with a meatier, more dramatic story. It's only natural the show became more serious, because it's a very personal battle for the Flashman. And not to be even nuttier about it, but I thank Changeman for Flashman's smooth sailing -- it wanted to ride its popularity, but it obviously learned some lessons from it.

Adding to the darkness, what's Soda saying with this ending? Keeping in mind the origins of this show -- as a metaphor for the Japanese orphans abandoned in China, returning to Japan as adults and having trouble adjusting -- is Soda acknowledging that that is a futile effort for those people? You can't go home again? It doesn't matter if you're of that place, or what good deeds you do, or how kind you are, you're still going to be rejected? Forever the outsider looking in, as the Flashman are in that last scene aboard the Star Condor? Damn, that's dark.

Fortunately, for the maintaining of quality and story integrity, there weren't things like versus movies or crossover events at the time. This finale wasn't going to have to keep an escape hatch in mind, leave an easy out of "Hey, the Flashman took some Aleve and are ready to return to help the Maskman fight Deus Dogler in Maskman VS Flashman!" But then crossovers became all the rage, and you have old heroes coming out of the woodwork -- too bad Japan caught on to this trend so late that they only ever bring back crappy, undeserving heroes -- and it makes you wonder. Gokaiger made me wonder. The Great Legend War might seem like nonsense to you -- dead heroes were there fighting, FFS, what sense does that make? -- but we saw the Flashman there. At one point, presumably, Basco stole the Flashman's Great Power away from Dai. The mind wonders...

What has happened to the Flashman in the thirty-some years since they fled Earth? Are they still on Flash? Did they ever find a solution, a cure, even if just temporary? If you want to presume they did in order to participate in the Great Legend War, were they able to spend time looking for their families, or did the sacrificing of their Flash powers somehow interfere with any cure they might have had, so they had to leave yet again? How did Basco get the powers -- did he go to Green Star? (If so, can we hope he's got a bit of Anti-Flash?) Let's quadruple down on this downer of a finale -- do the Flashman even still have living relatives on Earth? What have the Tokimuras been up to? Let's get a new Flashman movie, Toei! Flashman's the rare show that would reward a new project. Like, who gave a shit what the Go-onger were up to 10 Years After? Still being stupid, what a surprise!

Flashman's a very ambitious, rich and creative show. It was my favorite as a kid, I loved it. It's a show that means a lot to me, and for a long while I just basically considered it my 1.5 favorite Sentai -- cheating, giving it the top rank along Changeman. (Maybe I should go back to that thinking, even if it is a cheat. Kid Shougo would find it hard to believe that he grows up to rank Maskman over it.) Again, to reiterate: to me, it is the closest a toku has come to seeming like a sweeping sci-fi saga like Star Wars. The heroes' civilian designs, the set-up of the show, our heroes getting accustomed to Earth, THE SOUNDTRACK. Flashman's songs and BGM have gotten criticized by fans, but not only have I always liked it, but I always thought it was strange and out-there by design, to further create such an alien-seeming show. It's just a bigger show and more successful at conveying a larger universe than so many of the other sci-fi-themed tokus. Flashman TRIES to create the feeling of a bigger universe. By design, by sound, by the way its setting is presented. The Flashman being fish out of water, who isolate themselves, the villains being freak experiments of alien lifeforms, the often unique and bizarre situations that will be a result of one of these things...it gives Flashman a life of its own.

The show gives you enough of the imagery and enough of an explanation, a hint of a character's trait or past, and lets your imagination run with it. You can picture what life on the Flash system was like for our heroes. Flashman's staff is putting in the effort, and the show goes the extra length in also giving the viewer the chance to build the universe that the show can't afford to provide. And it's a better, more genuine attempt than something like the Space Sheriff shows, which cynically wrapped themselves in the popular sci-fi trappings and let that do all of the work for them. Flashman's a case of something being inspired by something else in a good way. It took all of the interest in sci-fi at the time, the scope and adventure of Star Wars, the heart of the Spielberg movies, and did something entirely new and unique with them -- dare I say, filtered them through a different prism.

You get the feeling so many involved with it -- from producer Takeyuki Suzuki to writers Hirohisa Soda and Kunio Fujii, from designer Yutaka Izubuchi to the wardrobe department, from the actors to camera crew -- had a belief in the show, had a love for it, and they wanted to put on a good show that was rewarding and could stand with a Star Wars or an Amblin work. Don't you miss when these shows were treated with care and professionalism? With creators who just wanted to tell good stories and put on a show? I know I've said similar about Changeman, but there's so much Changeman in Flashman -- Flashman picked up the level of quality Changeman had built toward and grabbed that baton and kept running. The show makes the most with what it has and still aims for the top. And I think it's the perfect way to send out the sci-fi flavored henshin heroes of the time. I think it's a special show, a big blast that captures the imagination. YUKE, FLASH!