OP2 Sequence

OP2: 「愛愛愛に撃たれてバイバイバイ」 (Ai Ai Ai ni Utarete Bai Bai Bai) by FLOW

「ドキュメント!これがフラメンジャーだ!!」 (Dokyumento! Kore ga Furamenjā da!!)
“Document! We Are The Flamengers!!”

After a long break from Samurai Flamenco, we are back!
And… it continues on from pretty much where we left off. No huge revelations, and new bosses to fight. If you ask me, these “bosses” aren’t very boss-like because they’re so easily defeated and there’s no end to them! Now we’re talking about 64 new ones? You’ve got to be kidding me. To quote a reader – I’d go nuts if I was taking this show seriously, but I’ve learned a while back that this show is completely crazy! It’s better to just accept things at face value than try to explain it.

So where does that leave us now? Well the Flamengers have their hands full fighting off monsters and everyone else… is kind of just living life as usual. Is it sad to say that I miss Mari now? Just a few episodes ago, I downright hated her, but now I kind of just feel sorry for her. She was a pretty bad person, but this is where all the character development should come in and show how much she’s grown into a better person. Am I surprised that she’s hidden in Hidenori’s closet? Hell yes! If I was his girlfriend, I’d totally flip out for hiding a famous, hot, celebrity in your closet! Hidenori is quite the honest fellow though and being in a long distance relationship, you have to have that level of trust in your significant other. Hidenori’s mysterious girlfriend aside, I do think Mari still makes for a more interesting character than the new members of Flamengers. She’s pretty crazy in her own ways, but sometimes that’s better than being predictable and stereotypical.

Speaking of the new Flamengers, I didn’t mention them too much previously because for all I know, they could’ve been easily written off. Like I said before, I’m pretty indifferent to them because I don’t see them having much depth or personality other than the “stereotypical” ones that were handed to them. Momoi Sakura (Tamura Yukari) is just the token female who talks a lot; Kuroki Ange (KENN) is the one that’s obsessed with gadgets and weapons; Aoishima Soichi (Morikubo Showtaro) is the wanna-be Red, and Midorikawa Hekiru (Toyonaga Toshiyuki) is the smart one. No I’m not impressed… but hey! At least their names go with their ranger color! I’d be more thrilled to watch Masayoshi single-handedly defeat these monsters himself. Perhaps if they didn’t bombard the audience with so many new characters at once, each individual would actually have more screen time.

The only piece that stood out this episode was probably the latter half. I liked the storytelling with the narration and “interviews”. It makes it seem like the whole setup is just a television show and nothing’s for real. However, I doubt that’s the case anymore and it’s more like the creators attempts to try and make the story different. Even with the new monsters and added characters, I’m honestly not that entertained by Samurai Flamenco anymore. It’s different and definitely stands out, but it’s lost the ability to keep me enticed and interested.

TL;DR – @RCCherrie: I’d never thought I’d say this but… I actually miss seeing Mari. The new characters just aren’t as fun to watch =S #samumenco

 

ED3 Sequence

ED2: 「フライト23時」 (Huraito 23-ji) by ミネラル★ミラクル★ミューズ (Mineral Miracle Muse)

46 Comments

  1. I believe the villain name was mm34 but I know everyone saw the one with the Miku hair lol
    Also I’m glad to see Mari but I definitely wasnt expecting her to be in Goto closet, he is gonna have a lot of explaining to do lol
    But that new ending, I actually liked the song a lot.

    1. What Stilts and Zephyr said.

      I choose what I want to blog and I’ve been blogging this since the beginning so I’m going to finish it. What I blog has nothing to do with whether or not Zephyr drops Kill la Kill. If you have a problem with that, you can go talk to him directly. I don’t understand why you’re leaving me messages unless you intend for me to blog KLK. o_O

  2. This show is so hard to make sense out of. Can we take things at face value and assume this is all real and the show just took a really bad turn? Or is there some amazing explanation underneath it all?

    I tend to be a little pessimistic, but if it’s the latter, and this show pulls something out of its sentai helmet…

    Tre
      1. Look, it’s the third time they bringi it up; I don’t really care about foreshadowing in that poster: the first opening showed Masayoshi fighting giant robots. At first, it was difficult to tell what was foreshadowing and what was simple shout-out.
        It’s not that this show is doing wrong in parting from a normal-world setting; the King Torture episodes were good, all in all. It’s that the execution is awful. It’s neither funny nor entertaining.

        lorenzo
  3. samumenco and its flamengers are back after quite a break.
    but nothing seems to have been changed during that break. this is still crazy and going too much without control to the super-sentai stuff. not that I have a problem with the affinity of samumenco to super-sentai or something,I am well aware of it, but it’s expressing that kind of stuff too much freely, with no control.

    yet of course, this episode tried to manage some control. was it successful?not exactly. but we can’t deny that it tried some character development, both new and old cast.
    first of all, we are seeing our Masayoshi and Hidenroi one-on-one (well almost, but admit you thought it was like that). and I truly love this chit-chat talking between the two, it’s a very important part of the series.
    as for Mari, still trying to find herself. and indeed, I kinda feel sorry for her, but not exactly. she had some wrong actions and perceptions back there, and she must understand that, change herself, and move on. this is essential part of life.
    but still, I am not 100% pleased with the way they bring that up – in Hidenori’s closet?she won’t find her answers by being pushy toward someone who has girlfriend..so she still sticks to those methods?too bad…I hope we will see a change in her.

    then we had the new flamengers. I like the way in which they were presented in some sort of a TV article or short documentary, but too quickly it became full-time super-sentai. again – control. overall, this group of heroes starting to create the chemistry needed to work in a team and all. yet, Masayoshi doesn’t feel them exactly as he wants to. and this is a problem. his idealism is important, now more than ever. and if he can’t truly convey this to the group..then that’s not good. but I believe they’ll make that work out somehow.

    one last thing are the secondary cast that are mentioned here and there.
    (1) Masayoshi’s scientist – now I feel sorry for him. he has done so much for Masayoshi and even fight to aid him. but in the end..he ended up with nothing. I expected from Masayoshi to put pressure in order to make him join the team..
    (2)Konno showing up in the end?what’s with him?is he planning something?I still suspicious about why he had fled from the country after Torture released him.

    random thought:
    1. Mari is in Hidenori’s closet?WOW. well, still, I don’t she really is coming out of the closet 😛
    2. Hidenori for the yellow flamenger?would be great to have yellow/gold. I wonder who is the black?there must be one..Konno?Red-Axe?maybe Hidenroi’s GF XDD
    3. last time I thought pink flamenger might be Hidenori’s secret GF (and also secret flamenger), but it’s the other way around, she is totally in Masayoshi LOL

    thedarktower
  4. Mari living in Goto’s apartment? That’s all he needs now is a tabloid to find out that an idol is shacking up in his apartment and his face smack dab in front of a cover with Mari where his gf can see. Ever since Mari fell for Goto there is bound to be some kind of misunderstanding sooner or later.

    mrdaftpunk
  5. Props to you cherrie for not trying to focus on the negative and taking what’s being handed to us as viewers. Though I got to say…I’ll just read your reviews and the moment some dark plot twist comes up like all the other rangers get mass murdered causing Samurai Flamenco to go full Iron Man solo on us, I’ll watch the show again. And I do hope they used stock footage for the opening because they didn’t finish the new op on time…-_- because that would be lazy if otherwise.
    At the moment…I’m just watching for Goto (along with if his girlfriend ever shows up) and Mari.

    SDFGS
    1. LOL! I don’t think there’s anything I could possibly say that makes up for this abysmal of a show though. Right now, I’m kind of just trying to finish it and hope that somewhere, somehow, it makes up for the past 6 weeks of catastrophes. Highly doubtful… but at least people (like yourself) are kept informed to stay away =P And you know you’re not missing much… maybe the unveiling of Gotou’s gf =O

  6. -I love that the new opening is sung by FLOW but I hated that they reused many of last episode’s scenes in it.
    -Masayoshi says “I will protect Japan” and then two civilians die from frozen ice breaking apart.
    -Masayoshi wearing an apron makes him look like their mother.
    I thought Masayoshi’s manager would have blown a fuse at him by now.
    -(I’m not a fan of Power Rangers since I didn’t watch it, but if Samurai Flamenco is any replication of it then I didn’t miss out at all.)

    random viewer
  7. I kind of missed Mari as well, so I’m glad we’re getting an update on her. Because while she’s a heavily flawed character, I do find her interesting because of it. Suffice to say, her scenes where the best in this episode.

    As for the rest, eh. Monster-fighting is pretty boring, to be honest, and I really do wonder how much further the show intends to escalate this. There’s probably some kind of point to this, but it’s not executed that well, in my opinion.

    Oh well, I’ll keep following this show even though it’s long since flown off the rails, because I want to see what kind of orphanage it’ll crash into. And I think my metaphor just up and died.

    Dvalinn
  8. This show feels like an abusive relationship. It goes from bad to worse, but I can’t stop watching.

    And it’s not even in the way an enjoyable trainwreck like Guilty Crown or Code Geass can keep you glued to the screen. I just catch myself thinking “It used to be such a great show, it has to get better again eventually”, so I give it another chance, one more episode. And it’s still crap.

    But I can’t stop.
    Help.

    Suomynona
  9. The only motivation for me to actually continue is to one day see this anime revert to the quality and the depth it once had many many episodes ago. Though I don’t think it would ever be reciprocated…

    Actus
  10. Apparently Samumenco is aired on the noitaminA anime segment of Japan’s Fuji TV, aimed at a wider target audience beyond the usual otaku viewers.Most shows that air here tend to receive a certain amount of prestige and are known for high production values.

    zztop
  11. This was better than last episode, but I still don’t know what this show is supposed to be. It takes itself too seriously to be a Sentai parody, BUT it’s too formulaic to be a deconstruction. It WAS a darker take on the hero genre as long as King Torture was driving the plot, but then it somehow transformed into a Super Sentai parody-homage-deconstruction-something.

    The thing is, this is not a tribute to something long forgotten and exotic; it’s supposedly a tribute to the Super Sentai genre, which is one the most parodied things in Japanese media culture. You can make a shout-out to it, parody it, deconstruct it, but how is it supposed to be interesting if it plays everything straight? Seriously, it’s so old that no show parodies it anymore!
    Hell, this is something that airs late at night! Will you please put SOME emphasis on the fact that two civilians were killed by monsters?!
    I’m seriously hoping that the secondary characters will save this show in the finale. Somehow. The new ones are so generic it hurts.

    lorenzo
  12. The cool scientist guy got all his inventions consficated, that’s bullshit. The government can’t just go around jacking people’s non lethal weapons!

    Mari is going to be the yellow ranger, but I still believe Gotou’s offscreen girlfriend is the final boss.

    Magoiichi
  13. Something about how things are progressing feels off. I don’t think this is because the show is bad, rather, I think this feeling is intended. Like the other Flamengers, they feel like they aren’t heroes, but rather people given the job of a hero. It’s almost like they were intentionally brought together only because their personalities fit into the roles of a stereotypical superhero team. Considering who recruited them, it’s quite possible this is the case. Another thing, if these aliens were really serious about destroying Earth, why didn’t they use any of the 64 super bosses until the big four were defeated? It’s like ordering a full show after the first season did so well. This world, these people, the monsters, they feel manufactured, like they are only playing roles in a production. This show seemed so serious that I can only hope that this means something beyond parodying a genre.

    Mekem
    1. I think you’re on the right track. So far Masayoshi is only one that is actively trying to live the hero’s lifestyle, while his fellow flamengers are not (as evidenced by how they talk in the flamengers documentary thing). It’s basically the same/similar thing that happened with Mari. Almost everyone that has worked with Masayoshi is caught up with ulterior motives that bastardize Masayoshi’s vision of fighting for justice.

      Not much happened regarding Jouji this episode, but he’s still a shady character whose true intentions are not clear yet. I am a little surprised that many people have not noticed this…the same goes with Konno, who is enjoying all this havoc from afar. Everything is too suspicious for me to look at “face-value,” which is why I’m kind of annoyed by the way this anime is being perceived by a majority of the viewers. It seems like all the ridiculousness of the plot is making it hard for some to see the bigger picture

      The ending was a little depressing, but ultimately showed that the show still had commentary on what being a hero is. For instance, the man who was smoking in the non-smoking area. At first he was very defensive about Masayoshi lecturing him, but quickly took it back when he realized he was talking to an idol-esque personality. This is the world we live in: we tend to listen to and agree with those with public presence rather than normal everyday people. I think Masayoshi realizes this, but this is not what justice is about. Which kind of relates back to the earlier episodes when Samurai flamenco was not some huge deal that warranted toy-making deals, but was some guy on a bicycle that served justice to the best of his abilities, even if it meant being underpowered in many situations. For Masayoshi, I think that time in his hero career felt the purest of all.

      What also made me a bit sad was how at the end, I felt as if the other flamengers didn’t really respect him as a “leader” but rather the guy that can take over a majority of the responsibilities (just from the way they treated him to a dinner he cooked them) so they gladly handed over the red suit to him.

  14. From Kamen Rider to Sentai.
    Reminds me of Saban taking solo heroes and putting them together as a team (via stock footage).

    Made me thing of SMAP’s Rolling Bomber Special too.

    Somehow the Flamenger arc doesn’t feel as good as the Flamenco arc.
    It feels rushed to me.
    Its like the 64 War Gods are all going to come out next episode.
    That War God announcing looks pretty weak and kind of reminds me of those graffiti baddies from Raijinoh.

    For now it feels like the Flamenger arc is like a struggling stage.
    Its a swimmer swimming fine then suddenly got a leg cramp and became grasping for air.
    Feels like a repetition of the 1st arc or is the campiness a tribute of sorts?

    Hope they are working on a proper OP sequence instead of using past footage.
    Or is the budget tight?

    And I want to see Gotou’s girlfriend 😛

    iron2000

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