Review: Samurai Flamenco

"If I let you go, this show is going to go turn into a complete clusterfuck!"

3ET: Samurai Flamenco

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Warning: the following review contains SPOILERS and what the hell did I just watch?


I went on one hell of a ride with Samurai Flamenco. What started out as a show about a crazy person in a suit who fights for an idealized idea of justice turned into something else. First, it was a Japanese superhero (tokusastsu). Then, it was a team of superheroes (sentai). Then, it was a tokusatsu again, but this time fighting the prime minister and aliens. Finally, it was more normal, except for a crazy kid who is obsessed with Samurai Flamenco and a best friend who still texted his dead girlfriend from high school. So, yeah, like I said, it was one hell of a ride.

Masayoshi meets the Flamengers. Don't worry, you don't need to remember their names either.

That doesn't mean it was a good show. Just it could surprise me from week to week doesn't mean it's doing anything special. In this case, surprising me isn't a case of good writing, it's the writers pulling things straight from their ass and slapping it on the page. The abrupt switch in episode seven from a realistic critique on media, celebrity, and heroes to a complete superhero show, complete with gadgets, an arch nemesis, and a plot to destroy Japan came out of nowhere. If there had been any indication that such a switch was coming, I could say that it was something other than a complete mess. Instead, it felt like one day the writing team decided, "well, let's do something they'd never expect!" And to make that work, the show needed to be a pure spectacle, and Manglobe didn't have near the budget required to pull that off.

I guess here is where I say something unpopular. I find that tokusatsu and sentai shows to be pretty bad. I mean, they are prime examples of "Monster of the Week" shows, a phrase that isn't exactly thrown around to mean praise. And while the first tokusatsu arc, the King Torture arc, was all right, the Flamengers arc definitely was. In a sentai show, I need time to get to know the characters to actually give a shit about them. And the other members of the Flamngers are not even characters, they're caricatures. And yes, that was probably the joke, that the blue guy is the distillation of all blue rangers in existence, and so on and so forth. I just didn't find the joke funny. Partly because people were dying horrible, violent deaths all around them. Partly because it just wasn't that funny. As for the later prime minister and alien arc, yeah, this is why we don't do drugs, kids. We might end up producing something like that.

How in the hell did anyone think this was a good idea?

And it's not like things got any better once things went back to normal. The last arc needed to be two arcs, because while both ideas were interesting in exploring what makes a hero a hero, they had no business being combined. The arc with a middle school student, Sawada Haiji, who was on the receiving end of one of Masayoshi's speeches about justice becoming obsessed was good. The idea of a hero causing someone to go bad, therefore forcing him to question whether or not he is a force of good has a lot of potential, and I would have love to have seen that arc fully fleshed out. The same thing goes for Hidenori's major baggage. The fact the Masayoshi could save so many people, but not help the person closest to him was a great idea, and one that needed its own arc to fully explore. Hell, they could have kept the Haiji arc the same, revealed that Hidenori was texting a girlfriend who was disappeared and presumed dead, and then segued into the second arc. That would have made the so-called "homo end" make even more sense, since Masayoshi would have realized he was doing all of these things because he loved Hidenori.

The other major problem of Samurai Flamenco was its droll supporting cast. The only character who did anything outside of their archetype was the leader of the idol group that turns into heroes, Mari. And Mari is a horrible person. She only becomes a hero to get out her sadistic impulses, specifically to kick men in the nuts as hard as she can. She was so repulsive as a person that I was actually rooting for King Torture when the villain had her in his chamber and was going to kill her. And the person I felt sorry for the most was Moe, another member of the group who gets tortured herself, only to say she'd take Mari's place if King Torture would let her go. That probably came from the fact that Moe has a crush on Mari, but still, that's probably the most heroic thing that anyone does in the entire show.

The yellow one is the sociopath. Know the difference, it could save your life.

And the worst thing is, after all is said and done, none of the characters really change. The Flamengers are the same people that are met at the midway point of the show, not that anyone cares about them. The idol group is still together, and Mari is still a psychopath. Hidenori is still texting his dead girlfriend. And Masayoshi still holds up his childish ideal of being a hero, despite all that he has seen. Amazingly, after the insane ride that was Samurai Flamenco, none of these people have acted like, well, people. And that, more than its insane plot, mediocre visuals, or poor pacing is what makes this show fall flat on its face.

Final Score: 4/10