What They Say:
Masayoshi Hazama: a man who has become a superhero “by himself” with no superhuman powers or any sort of high-tech conversions, NONE!! Hidenori Goto: a cop who found out the true identity of “the superhero” by a strange twist of fate and thus constantly gets in trouble thanks to Hazama, the superhero. This is the story of the birth of a true hero featuring these two young men with a touch of comedy and serious drama, while they come face to face with hardships as they search for the true meaning of becoming a hero of justice in this world!
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The next EVIL that faces Sam Flam and his jolly group of Flamenco followers is a fish dude, Branding Piranha, that’s handing out free tissues. You see, the tissues are poisoned and will infect the mucus membrane. Humorously, Sam Flam gets a text saying that Flamenco Diamond can’t make it.
It cuts to a news program that’s covering the incident, brushing it off as an everyday thing rather than an evil mastermind trying to take over the world. For the level of worry people should have, it’s played very lightly, as it should be. The show’s been about a model who dresses up as a superhero and I wouldn’t expect Samurai Flamenco to be taken seriously basically at any point in the show. That’s what the show’s about. It’s punctuated by a training session between Masayoshi and Joji, in which Masayoshi is completely confident in his skills as a fighter now. Joji throws him across the room and says, “You never know what happens in the final episode.” foreshadowing to, well, the final episode.
Furthering the mundane-ness of it all, Goto gives a report in which he calls the villain at the beginning “Burned Piranha.” Goto wasn’t at the scene to see the piranha and Masayoshi doesn’t remember its name. It’s completely lowering expectations of the superhero, who is supposed to have some sort of eidetic memory when it comes to villain names.
The entire situation of superheroes versus supervillains keeps getting played further and further down. Flamenco Girl goes on a fan website and gives an interview with them, saying that it’s not exciting to fight the grunts anymore and she wants to fight King Torture now. She goes off on an entire rant that playing down the situation given her disposition toward it. It’s ridiculous how flippant she is, but that’s what she’s brought to the show the entire time. Even during her tirade of ball kicking, she was making Sam Flam look serious.
Contrasted with the first half of the episode, the second half is almost completely serious. King Torture even gets his first major scene, where he shows himself to indeed be the king of torture. He’s got the guy who had a bounty out for Sam Flam’s unmasking and he makes a call to Masayoshi’s manager, asking for her hand in marriage. The scene is played for laughs, but it becomes much more serious when she says, “DIE!” and throws the phone down, revealing that he may very well die. And we may really find out how King Torture turns people into Branding Piranha and Whipping Walrus, if he does that at all.
We even get a speech from one of the grunts, who literally all have the same face and outfit, saying that they’re just as dedicated to evil as King Torture. And even if they are considered expendable, they fight just as hard as anyone else. It’s a little touching, seeing these pawns in the plan be pushed aside so easily after giving such an impassioned speech. In the end, even fighting against a sidekick and not being defeated by Sam Flam himself.
In Summary:
This episode did a lot of things I wanted the show to do, namely end that monster-of-the-week shtick quickly because that would get old very quickly. I purposely left out the most important part of the episode, and will continue to leave it out, but know it is not ignored. The second moment Torture shows up on screen is a turning point in the show and I’m super excited to see where it goes from here. After a man who turned into a gorilla with a guillotine as his stomach and then exploded, yelling out “VIVA TORTURE!”, I was prepared for anything, especially for the show to suck after going in such a tangential direction. And I make fun of that moment a lot, but it was a great moment between Samurai Flamenco and Goto and its own turning point in the series.
But a lot of stuff is going on in the show now. Internally with Mari and between her fellow idols, between Masayoshi and Goto, and Goto and his girlfriend, who we have yet to meet. These relationships have been built brilliantly throughout the course of the show and are only still rising to a presumed climax and end at episode 11, the halfway point of the series. From here, it looks like an epic showdown between Samurai Flamenco and King Torture. I expect Flamenco Ruby and Flamenco Sapphire (still don’t know if it’s a Pokémon reference) to show up on the scene at just the right moment and I can’t wait for any of it to happen.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24 in. Vizio 1080p HDTV, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
