Flashman Episode 42

This one picks up the thread from the previous episode, with the Flash heroines now knowing one of them is the Tokimura. This gets mixed up with the bizarre (but, IMO, cool) villain plan of luring the Flashman into video games after kidnapped kids, which kind of clashes with the seriousness of the hero half of the episode. I guess this is the show's attempt at kinda having a "goofy one before the serious shit goes down," but...it ain't easy to do when things are getting so emotional for our heroes, and we're also just a couple of episodes away from them finding out the Earth is killing them, so...there's not a lot of room for holiday shenanigans or palling around with a villain! Flashman has real shit to contend with.

You've gotta feel bad for Ruu in the first scene of the episode, when she's giddily preparing to meet Setsuko Tokimura, with a bouquet of roses, only to see that Sara's beaten her to the punch in getting to her and asking her stuff. It's twice as sad when you're familiar with the series, knowing how overlooked Ruu's been and know that she's not the Tokimura daughter. Sara spots her and she tries to BS her way out with some excuse that she was on patrol and was just stopping to say hi, but...yeah, poor Ruu. This leads Sara to wonder how they can find out for sure what happened on that day 20 years ago, which leads her to going to check out an Earth observation center for reports of odd occurrences and UFO sightings at the time. Too bad that the computer she's researching this info on is overtaken by the latest monster, who can enter machines and take over its circuitry, but she manages to save the info on a floppy disc before getting into a Mess battle.

She pins all of her hopes of finding out the answers to her questions on this floppy disc, which ends up just quickly being destroyed by Kaura. "You think I'm going to let you find any answers?" He's a bastard, because...he knows! Chances are, Sara wasn't going to get much out of that disk, but he breaks it, anyway, and just laughs his ass off. Meanwhile, the nitpicker in me is wondering why Sara or one of the others didn't think to look into something like this episodes and episodes ago, but...I guess, maybe, emotions have been running so high lately that they're at a place where they feel they can ignore their initial vow to not spend time looking for their parents (when there was work as Flashman to be done).

The big action of the episode is the Flashman choosing to enter a computer to save a bunch of people Mess has kidnapped; they try to depict this, as best they can, as like a video game, first starting out as a sidescroller fighting game, but then it just gets increasingly crazy. Ideally, the show would have had 8-bit animated Flashman and make this all look like a video game, but...they make the best of it when it's just meant to be a nutty little bit of fun. They totally convey the completely random and bizarre feel of '80s video games, though, in what the show throws at the Flashman -- climbing up poles to save a victim, swinging from vines, being attacked by giant oni and tengu masks. There's so many times I'll revisit a video game from the '80s and just be like "What the hell were the programmers smoking to come up with this?" A very unique Japanese wacky tobaccy which was outlawed after the Famicom was dunzo. The heroines are the ones to save the day, bringing back their twinning attacks from 35 (which I think is cool) and breaking everyone out of the game.

Keflen's main plan with this monster, though, was for it to get information from the Lab's main computer. Kaura catches him and outs him in front of La Deus -- with the added thought that perhaps Keflen was trying to discover secrets of La Deus' -- who punishes him. It's quite a sight to see Keflen lying in pain on the Lab's floor, Kaura standing over him and chuckling. Despite the way this looks, Keflen won't take it lying down, and this will lead directly to the next episode when Keflen takes the silver gloves off and gives it back to Kaura. I like the idea of this episode being that both the Flashman and Keflen are making attempts at finding the answers to their past.

All in all, this episode is kinda uneven. But, like I said, I think it's really trying to fill the role of the goofy/silly/weird one before the final episodes, which is hard to do when things aren't really turning out for our heroes. It stays true to the characters and what they're going through; so I give the show credit for not dropping stuff just for the sake of putting them in a completely comedic scenario. As wacky as the video game stuff, as humorously as some of those scenes are directed, it's still an urgent situation -- the Flashman are racing to save the hostages. No room for a musical number there.

I'd also like to note that, after it's made giant, the monster of the week successfully jumps into Flash King and makes it go amok and send attack blasts throughout the cockpit. The Flashman's solution to this problem is the solution given to me by every single tech support person I'd call for computer problems in the '90s -- shut down/restart the computer. But unlike then, this solution ends up working out for the Flashman.

Flashman Episode 41

People will be like "Oh, the turned-into-a-kid trope, that stock plot," or whatever, but...this was the first time a Sentai had done it, and it's not done for laughs or as a gimmick as it typically is, but in a more meaningful way that brings together a lot of the show's themes. AND this episode solves one mystery, creating another.

What's strange about this episode is that I don't feel like we're entirely clear on what Mess hopes to obtain with this monster, but rather than feel like a plot hole or loose end, that's OK, because the episode chooses to instead focus on Dai's trauma and this week's big hero, Setsuko Tokimura. (I guess their plan was to turn all of the Flashman into kids to make them easy pickins, but they're only successful with Dai.)

It's just an ordinary day of patrolling for the Flashman when they get ambushed by a Mess attack. The latest Beast Soldier attacks Dai, wrapping him in a shroud which gradually reverts him back to childhood. (Props once again to, um, props/costumes, for recreating Dai's outfit in kid size. Both his current Earth outfit and, later in a flashback, the funky get-up from the Flash planet.) Dai doesn't recognize the Flashman, his memory apparently being set back to the age he's been turned back to. He doesn't recognize Earth, expecting Green Star. Seeing a small dog scares him. Nothing the Flashman say helps him, and he runs off in pure terror and confusion. Being told by the others that he's on Earth, he becomes totally focused on the idea of finding his mother. (In a pretty sad scene, he's looking in on a house where two kids are being read a story as they fall asleep by their mother; Dai ends up spending the night in a junkyard, sleeping in a pipe, alone and cold.)

The next morning, Jin's asked Setsuko Tokimura if she could pose as Dai's mother and comfort him and at least get him to stop running off and putting himself in danger. Dai awakens to her calls, joyful. She brings him food, and he's so overjoyed to have found his mom that he can barely even eat. The Flashman are grateful to the Tokimuras and relieved to see Dai calmed. And then...it all comes crashing down. Kaura appears. "Dai...that woman's not your mother." Words that echo and stab Dai like a blade, sending him once again into his panic. So, Kaura's just provided a piece of the series-long puzzle -- DAI IS OUT OF THE RUNNING for the "Who is the Tokimura?" game. Setsuko pleads with Dai to not listen to him, but he's soon running away once more, with Jin condemning Kaura for being so damn cruel. Setsuko has a point -- can they even trust Kaura? Probably, just because he's trying to be viciously cruel here. But he's also not a liar, which is something we'll find out in a few more episodes.

Keflen rips Kaura a new one for interfering, thinking the situation was best left to play out as it was. Kaura claims he did it in the interest of the plan succeeding, claiming that if Dai believed he found his mother, that their love might be enough to undo the monster's spell, as it were. Some of that might be true, but...c'mon. Kaura was just being a dick, too. And it's an interesting move on the part of the writers to remove one of the Flashman from the running so soon.

Kid Dai can't catch a break and is constantly grabbed by either Wanda, Ulk or Kiruto before managing to break away. (He retains his super strength, so he at least knocks off a few Zoros with ease.) At one point, he's knocked off a cliff, and is grabbed by...Setsuko! Injured and bleeding, she pours all of her strength and soul to pull Dai back to safety. After seeing her struggle, Dai comes to the conclusion that she HAS to be his mother after all, after putting up such a fight to save him. But before anybody can have any happiness, the monster appears and puts his shroud over the two of them, Mess threatening to revert both back to infants. Dai's frightened, while Setsuko tries to comfort him, telling him not to be afraid even though she visibly is. She begins to cry and...her tears, falling upon Dai, break through the monster's shroud and undo his work, turning Dai back into an adult. (So, Kaura was telling the truth at least about one thing -- that love could be the monster's undoing. Keflen and Deus laughed him off, probably because they're typical villains whose only concept of love is how much they love themselves.) Setsuko's unconscious, with the Flashman entrusting the professor to get her to safety as they go off to fight the monster.

Surprise turn number two...after the battle, we're shown the next day, as Setsuko's being wheeled out of the hospital. She claims that the shock of enduring the monster attack has caused her to regain her memories of 20 years ago, and she knows now that it their baby that was kidnapped was female. The Flash guys are shocked in a bad way, the Flash ladies shocked in a hopeful way. The Tokimuras have come to be an important part of the Flashman's life on Earth, but you can tell Sara and Ruu always felt kinda left out in the previous Tokimura adventures, because of the professor being so sure it was a son that was taken. (Why can't they give the professor a first name, dammit? I'm tired of typing "the professor.") The professor, by the way, it a bit of an oddball in this last scene. Jin and Bun are obviously pretty heartbroken to hear Setsuko's news, and he's just kinda laughing off his misremembering like "Eh, what can ya do? All y'all babies look alike!" You can't hate the guy, though, he's supposed to be somewhat kooky. He just seems easygoing. And he gets a nice bit earlier in the episode when Jin's thanking him and his wife for going along with his plan and the professor's like "Of course we'll help with this kind of thing, don't be silly."

I just like this episode. It could have been goofy, but it's far from it. (Like I said; the hero being turned to a kid is something that IS played for laughs in most of the subsequent shows that use it.) It's a nice, strong, heartfelt episode with big reveals, great Kaura moments, and finally gives Setsuko Tokimura more to do, and she really delivers. Tamie Kubota gives a great performance in this episode, and Noritake Kohinata is also pretty good as kid Dai. The character's state is a constant panic and he's often crying and that could have easily turned out annoying, but he never is, and you really feel bad for him.

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.

Flashman Episode 39

A nice, but bittersweet episode for Sara, and a kind of episode you'd never see nowadays. (There's no toy to sell to fix her emotional pain! She's not going to get over her problems by just going "SMILE, HAPPY!")

It's autumn and Sara's strolling down a leave-covered path, lost in her thoughts. She's down in the dumps, lonely, connecting the start of this feeling to the season. She sees couples happy and feels a bit envious. She thinks thoughts and feels feelings everybody does (male or female), but is always embarrassed to admit. So, it's far from the best time for Neferu to be testing the latest monster's abilities, which is creating goggles that let you "read" thoughts, but Neferu's a villain and that's what she does...and then she, Ulk and Kiruto taunt and torment Sara's feelings of loneliness, her wanting to live life and fall in love. Sara's mortified to have her private thoughts known, least of all by the enemy!

Mess' plan is to distribute these goggles/glasses and have the city erupt in arguments, distrust and hatred once everyone learns each other's true feelings. I have to say...that's a cynical take that's pretty surprising for 1986. It's in more recent shows and movies where there will be something similar, with a character who can read minds, and everything that's heard is always just negative. I think people can be easily judgmental, and there's times where they can have a negative thought easily surface and it will actually horrify them, but pop culture really goes overboard with just what absolutely horrific shit they think people are thinking nonstop. Says something about these showbiz types, eh?

Anyway, once Sara sees the goggles in action, she successfully tracks down and fights off a Mess attack. When the others end up joining her, she just grabs Pink's Flash Hawk and takes off after the villains on her own. Red's worried because he hasn't seen her behave in such a way, which leads up to the heart of the episode, which is when Jin finds Sara and saves her from an attack, Sara's once again taunted by Mess for her secret feelings, and you can see her just shrivel and die inside since, this time, someone else is here to hear about it, and it's Jin. Later after they escape, Jin shows genuine concern for her being unusually hotheaded. I always think of Sara as melancholic and an introvert -- she doesn't bring other people down with her sadness, but she keeps it private and suffers in silence. So, to see her show some anger has to be shocking to Jin, who as eldest pretty much knows everyone on the team best and is not only their leader, but is in the role of elder brother. She finally opens up, talking of how embarrassed she is to feel the way she does, that it doesn't make her feel like a warrior, and Jin corrects her. That she feels the way she does is just proof that she's a normal Earth girl. Isn't that their goal? For their hardships, they just want back a shot at a normal life on their home planet? (At this stage of the game, writer Hirohisa Soda obviously knew the endgame, and so this episode becomes twice as sad.) Jin's happy for her, congratulating her, offering her words of kindness, when maybe she expected to be scolded or ridiculed, and that breaks through her feelings of shame and motivates her to face off with Neferu...

Since Sara's deepest, most personal and private thoughts are violated, since she was preyed upon in such a vulnerable time, it becomes a personal battle for her. She wants to put a stop to Neferu's plans herself, for the sake of everyone else who is suffering like her -- maybe even worse. And what's great is that she uses the goggles against Neferu, when Neferu becomes Neferura and starts sending illusions Sara's way, she uses the goggles to discover Neferura's plan of attack and just walks 'em off. When Neferura causes a fiery explosion, Sara knows it's an illusion and charges through. When Neferura splits the earth, Sara just runs right over the supposed crevice. So much for those nifty illusion powers, eh?

It's just a nice little episode, with a great emotional performance from Nakamura, and some nice filming in the fall setting by Minoru Yamada. And not only does Nakamura bring a lot of emotion to her performance, but fearlessness later when she takes on a lot of action scenes -- swinging from a crane, running from a massive Yamaoka explosion that would make Dynaman squirm. And before anyone scoffs about an episode that deals with the heroine just wanting romance, I'll point you to the final scene of the episode, when the other Flashman are wondering if Ruu's anything like that. Does autumn conjure up feelings of romance for Ruu, dreams of dates? "Nah, I just think about the eats."

This episode marks the debut of the improved design for Neferura -- they don't even explain it, but it's so much better than the original. (They don't try to gloss over the original either; Neferu transforms into that cutesy-faced version and then does a Goranger-y spin and becomes the new, more fearsome design.)

There's also a bit on the Keflen v Kaura front. Keflen's going through his hopes for the plans for La Deus, as Kaura spies nearby. Kaura's just kind of thinking to himself "Eh, Keflen, that mook, *grumble*" and Keflen lets Kaura know he's standing there, not as stealthy as he thought. Keflen raises a pair of the monster's goggles as if he's putting them on, but tosses them at Kaura instead. He says something like "I don't need these to read your mind. And you're to refer to me as Great Professor Lee Keflen." How'd he know?! Kaura's a bad-ass, but Keflen's no slouch.

One small thing I'd like to note. When Sara's fantasizing about a boyfriend, she's with a guy whose identity is being concealed with special-effects -- but if you watch the episode preview at the end of 38, you can see the footage WITHOUT the effects. I can't tell for certain who it is, but I always thought it would be funny if it was Yellow Flash suit actor Masato Akada. (It probably IS just some JAC guy.)

Neferu Disguise Watch: She, Ulk and Kiruto -- for reasons unknown -- are disguised as schoolgirls at the start of the episode.

Flashman Episode 38

Inoue's final script for the series and it's a wild one. Not having the idea of infighting amongst the Flashman out of his system, he goes to the limit here. And not only that, but he practically has Wanda save the day! That's so Inoue.

In this one, Jin experiences the birthday from hell. It's not sad enough that he doesn't know his actual birthday, so they're trying to have this makeshift birthday (he was designated on Flash Star) be good enough, but Kaura has to come along with a Beast Soldier that possesses the other four Flashman members, who proceed to spend the day nearly beating Jin to death? And if that's not enough, there's a point where the four act like they're healed, and approach Jin when he's at a low point. He thinks the storm has passed, but...nah, they're still bad, and the fight's back on.

This episode looks like another "let's try to save some money episodes" -- there's pretty much only two locales, a park and a cave entrance -- but it makes up for it with an emotional punch. This episode kinda spooked me out when I was a kid -- maybe that's the point, and maybe that's why the Flashman never had any natural reason to argue. Because an episode like this comes along where they're made evil, and made to LOOK evil, and it's a total shock that messes you up. You feel Jin's pain. Tarumi's great in this episode; I especially love the hurt look he gives when he finally caves in and fights Bad!Dai and Bad!Bun back, punching them, after holding back for so long. All of 'em are great in this episode, especially Ishiwata and Yoshida, who seem to like playing villains. (It's a shame Yoshida never went on to play a regular Sentai villain.) Ishiwata's really committed and even puts on this creepy, growling voice, which he retains for Blue Flash's voiceovers.

It's getting tiresome to repeat, but Izubuchi delivers another great, fresh monster design in this one. All of his monsters in this show are pretty much great. But Flashman also takes great care and detail in bringing these designs to life, the costumes are usually just so well-made and look to have money and effort going into making them. This Beast Soldier is a five-faced, vicious-looking, furry bastard -- his extra faces separate from him, becoming masks that possess whoever's unlucky enough to have them fit to their face. Kaura's plan is nearly a success -- the four Flashman get the mask early on, with Red Flash slicing in half the mask that was targeting him.

This episode's also notable for putting even more cracks in the Keflen and Kaura situation. This monster is a find of Kaura's, this plan is his, and he's arrogantly boasting about what an instant success it is, that Keflen's a failure who's too damn old to be in the game. When Keflen catches the species of beast Kaura's monster is, he nearly lets Kaura in on a secret before catching himself -- it's info he'll use to his advantage, and Kaura's too full of himself to catch the slip up and just gets more insults in. But it's gonna cost him!

The secret is that the species of monster has a weak reaction to gamma light rays. And what can cause gamma rays to flash? When Red Flash's Prism Sei-ken crosses blades with Wanda's Killer Saber. So Keflen sends Wanda to "assist" Kaura with his plan, with Wanda intent on fighting Red Flash on his own. Red Flash picks up on the monster's hold weakening, injuring the others as he fights Wanda, eventually grabbing the Killer Saber, luring the others to him and crossing the blades. The constant blasts of gamma rays free them, but his business isn't over -- he charges after the monster in that awesome scene that was used in the kickass sword-fighting montage in Gaoranger VS Super Sentai. (And it's not a good day to be a Beast Soldier, because when the other four are freed, they're all pissed off and transform just to get a vengeful hit in on the monster.)

After his failure, a PISSED Kaura faces Keflen, accusing him of sabotage. He figures out that the Killer Saber is made of crystallized gamma light particles, and that he only sent Wanda because he knew that. I love the way Shimizu plays this scene, just casually playing the Gene Synthesizer, with just a mocking tone of voice, unable to hide his satisfied smirk, just totally talking down to Kaura after all of the trash talking Kaura did about him. "You didn't know everything like you thought. You're too young, Kaura," Keflen says, leaving him with a taunting laugh, the way Kaura's done him. You know Kaura's not going to let this slide. Nakata's just so furious in this scene, it's great. You just knew he was going to end up playing a MAIN villain one day. (Who knew it was only going to be two years later, though? I remember the first time I found out Bias was Kaura and was like "HUH?!")

I like that last scene, of Jin and the others standing on a bridge at nightfall, Jin vowing to never forget that day. When the others apologize, he waves it off, knowing it wasn't their fault. They each are so happy that Jin's so forgiving, saving his anger as fuel to keep fighting Mess. Dai begins to say something starting with "We...we're," and Jin finishes for him, saying "Flashman," but I always liked to think he was going to say "family."

Flashman Episode 37

Kunio Fujii's last script for the series, which sees the return of Sumire, bringing her story to a conclusion. It's nice to tie up loose ends -- some other shows wouldn't have bothered -- but I always thought that this didn't come close to Fujii's original intentions with this character, her connection to Dai, and what her story was going to be.

It's revealed that Sumire actually died in 1978 and she's a ghost that's wandered because she doesn't accept her death; her connection with Dai, the telepathy, their ability to teleport places, is because she found a piece of crystal she found as a kid, which ends up being a piece of Green Star that once broke away upon its creation. She treated it as a treasure and ended up being buried with it, and its energy forged her bond with Dai. (She also confirms for Dai that she's not his sister.)

Sumire contacts Dai again out of the blue because the latest devilish Beast Soldier is gathering the souls of dead kids, turning them into vampiric mini-devils which suck people's souls. Since she's wandered and not been able to face her own death, she understands those souls who feel unfulfilled, with dreams unrealized, so she wants Dai to put a stop to this monster and let the souls return to rest. Once he and the other Flashman successfully put a stop to the monster, and with her secret revealed, Sumire takes an angellic appearance, bids farewell to Dai and goes to rest in peace. (I like that Dai tells Sumire she can watch over the spirits of those who were similar to her and those other fallen kids who couldn't rest because they didn't get to live their lives.) She accepts death more readily, telling Dai that, while she missed out on a lot life had to offer, she at least got to experience her first love. (Thankfully, Dai was only interested in her as a sister.)

It might not be the story Fujii had intended to tell, but I like it for its supernatural angle, the sympathetic nature of Sumire and the dark, otherworldly atmosphere from director Takao Nagaishi. It's a sweet storyline, but...pretty damn weird, I'll admit. I give it credit though for avoiding predictability -- if Sumire had just been some random alien species, that wouldn't work as well. (Not to toot my own horn, but I still like my idea of Sumire being Dai's twin who was left behind on Earth.) And it's a good case for the Flashman to work on -- they should be able to understand and relate to the feeling of dead youths whose spirits can't find rest because their lives were cut short.

Evidence that Ghost Sumire wasn't Fujii's plan? In Sumire's first episode, she was targeted by that Beast Soldier, whose M.O. was to drain people's warmth/life. Well, that monster would know if it was a ghost he had in his clutches, now wouldn't he?

The monster of the week -- The Devilub -- is crazy, formidable and creepy; green, devilish. Keflen strays from his usual methods and creates the monster from spirits and youkai genes! The monster absorbs souls and sends them to an underworld within itself! The suit makes the monster just seem tall and huge, really fearsome, and it's a well-made suit and another great Izubuchi design. The bad part? The monster has a mustache that just...it works in Izubuchi's sketch, but not in live action, on a suit. It's like he has Groucho glasses on.

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.