This episode's always seemed bizarre to me. The only explanation I have for it is that the staff was just shell-shocked by the dark and disturbing tone of the previous episode and was like "Hey, guys. Can we make the next one be...I dunno, about some pretty magic bird or something? Can we go somewhere nice to film it, with a lot of pretty birds and light and fun things...?" and basically just needed a mini-vacation to shake the last episode off.
The plot is bare, and probably leftover from a Changeman comic from an issue of TV Land. It certainly would work better in a show like Changeman...
The Flashman get an SOS message from a space bird, referred to only as the phoenix, that's targeted by Mess. Why? Mess wants to use its genes in order to make an immortal Beast Soldier. This phoenix also has magical abilities which it uses to help restore planets that were ruined by Mess. The bird asks for the Flashman's help as it's wounded by the pursuing Mess. Jin, through a science group which monitors space activity, is able to discover that an object -- what he knows is the bird -- landed somewhere on Namegawa Island.
Namegawa Island! The defunct resort that wanted to create a tropical island experience for its visitors, featured in several Showa-era toku shows. I mentioned the place in more detail in my coverage of Turboranger's 24th episode, an episode that meshed being a commercial for the resort in the episode's narrative rather well. Here, it's just a setting, the only purpose of it being Namegawa, really, is for the sake of comedy: the phoenix can change into other bird types, and does so for the sake of hiding from Mess, which leads to confusion since Namegawa Island's filled with a wide variety of birds, down to the flamingo and peacock.
So, the episode is a light and action-packed episode with the Flashman trying to beat Mess to finding the phoenix and guarding it. There are some cool action scenes and a couple of nice touches -- like a bloodied feather of the injured phoenix being used against this episode's teleporting monster, which is a total Fujii moment -- but the episode feels a little plain and out of place to me. You expect a little more substance with a Fujii script. But, like I said, this episode totally seems to me like a quickly assembled "let's balance out the negativity of the last one" episode that's just supposed to be a fun adventure which will kick off a couple more lighthearted, summer adventure type episodes. There's still a dilemma to the episode, there's still some danger, but the action and heroics and touches of comedy are where the focus is placed. It's not a bad episode by any means, it's just a weird one to me. I guess it helps being an animal fan, even if the phoenix spends most of its time as one strange puppet.
The next episode is much more successful as a lighthearted tension breaker episode.
Yeah, it’s a bit too silly of a breather episode for the show. At least they’re not using the mutant bird puppet from Winspector.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing about that Winspector bird is that that puppet had to have been recycled from a lesser kaiju movie from about 30 years prior to Winspector.
DeleteThe other thing is they made the Flashman boys extra bumbling this episode. If they were so worried about the previous episode being so creepy that they had to follow up with a lighter toned episode, why even do that other one to begin with.
ReplyDeleteBecause episode 21 was a really good episode that utilized a lot of the show's themes and looked at the dark underbelly of its premise. You can't say any of that for this episode, but if they felt the need to make this episode a lighter piece of fluff in order to get away with episode 21, then this goofy episode is kinda worth it.
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