Sit down.
What They Say:
“Flamenco in Space”
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)
Last we left Samurai Flamenco and his Flamenco pals, they had just defeated the Prime Minister of Japan and the other hero that helped them, Mr. Justice, revealed himself to be Alien Flamenco, an alien.
So yeah. I can’t make this stuff up.
In the inevitable fight to come, Alien Flamenco and Samurai Flamenco duke it out in the most epic way possible: on the moon. But they, of course, didn’t forget to have a talking scene between the two that seemed to espouse evolution. It was actually quite interesting to hear Alien Flamenco say that the end point of evolution was a single, united being (thus harboring peace in the world). The single united being thing reminded me of the Geth of Mass Effect fame, as Alien Flamenco was actually five billion Alien Flamencos.
Samurai Flamenco won by using the very thing that would evolve him and that he denied vehemently. It grew him to a tremendous size, and serves as more than just a power up piece. He’s denying evolution because of very human emotions: love and individuality. The humans of Earth will evolve through their own means and live by their own means and Samurai Flamenco fights by his own means. He just wins by a Space Galaxy Flamenco Uppercut, but it works. It feels good in the end only because of what follows.
What follows, by the way, feels like it was ripped straight of out a Mamoru Oshii script, or something, because it was incredibly talk-y. From the first part when Masayoshi wakes up facing the Universe’s will (disguised as Harakiri Sunshine because that’s an authority figure in Masayoshi’s memory) to the final part when he faces his manager it is incredibly talk-y.
Masayoshi, of course, is the harbinger of everything because the choices he made affected the outcomes of the world. He wished for everything that happened, so it happened. This is the most brilliant part…If Masayoshi wants to continue fighting, he can. The Universe can supply six trillion years’ worth of enemies. But if he doesn’t…his story will become a story. A myth or fiction or anime for another universe. And King Torture, who’s figure he’s talking to, puts a disc of Samurai Flamenco volume one on the shelf. That’s the kind of brilliant subversion that I like out of shows. Samurai Flamenco recognizes that it’s just this anime made up by some guys. But they’re also saying that the world we create for ourselves are out own fictions somewhere else that someone wants to live through.
Then we learn that it’s actually Flamwenco, which has a 0.000002 percent chance of granting a wish (Masayoshi’s wish to be a hero, fight villains, become a tragic hero, and fight aliens). They go further by saying that these two words, Flamenco and Flamwenco, just happen to be homonyms. The mundane becomes the spectacular and it’s both absurd and brilliant at the same time. I don’t even know how to put it in words, but just watching Masayoshi and Goto raise their heads to the sky at the end sums everything up pretty damn well.
In Summary:
Samurai Flamenco could literally go anywhere from here. We’ve got four episodes left and I have no idea what they’re going to do with those four episodes. We’ve reached a beautiful catharsis between all the characters here and I’m worried that what comes next could only ruin it. What I ask is that the other Flamengers and Joji are involved (I can’t imagine them NOT being involved…) in the ending in some way. They deserve an ending just as much as Samurai Flamenco and his Flamenco pals got their “ending” this episode.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24 in. Vizio 1080p HDTV, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II