Overall, the fight scenes are pretty intense and that's a good thing. But one thing that kinda irked me is the special effects. I dunno but is it just me or since Changeman's latter episodes until the end of Flashman, special effects just felt rather choppy? For instance, whenever Blue Flash uses the Prism Ball, the screen usually goes like it's generated from old-school computer rather than captured with camera itself? This problem seems to go away once Maskman airs, but it could be rather jarring for Flashman. But aside of that, I like the fight scenes. It helps that for the battle music, they give AWESOME instruments, sometimes even more intense than 'insert Flashman theme here'.
As for the characters, I'd say they give out quite OK. Jin does both the 'leader' and 'big brother' type, which is pretty good. And then there's the sometimes-rash but well meaning Dai, and also the young, bright Bun. I do agree when I said it's harder to pinpoint who's the tomboy or who's the girly one between Sara and Lou. Also by watching, I understand why Sara is popular, aside of her bits in the final times which I will talk later: She practically walks around in a skirt that pretty much shows off her legs, giving opportunities for panty shots. And her Flash Star outfit does show off quite on her chest (but not to the level of her boobs). So yeah...
Villains had quite the dynamic here; Lee Keflen and Sir Cowler constantly compete for 'competence' in the eyes of Ra Deus. Though I think Lee Keflen's reveal as a captured human could be revealed further. Also pretty cool that Ley Wanda and Ley Nefel takes active roles in battle and even their Scary Beast Transformation lives up to the 'Scary' part, gaining deadly skills like Time Stop or Illusion view.
There's one thing that kind of stand out, be it good or bad. Sara seems to take the main character spotlight from Jin in the very ends of the story, about the eventual build up that she's Tokimura's daughter, from being captured by Cowler to being brought to her old house. To top it all off, when they confront Lee Keflen for the last time, rather than Jin rebuking his persuasion, it's Sara who tells him off by shooting off his synthesizer. I dunno if people see it as awesome or the cream of the crop of Sara's character, giving her tons of fans. But once all is done, it got me wondering, "Maybe Sara should've been Red Flash instead..."
It's not my favorite, but I would say it's a solid season overall. And I was right that I picked Dai as one of my fave greens... he's awesome.
Maybe I'll talk about other seasons next time. Probably old school ones, because there's been so many who gives thoughts for the newer seasons. Later!
According to this blog...
ReplyDeletehttp://supersentaiseries954.blog77.fc2.com/blog-entry-378.html
Sara is the "girly-girl" and Lou is the "tomboy".
Much of Flashman's story was incorporated into another Super Sentai - Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, where another quintet of three boys and two girls grew apart from their parents. Except the Hoshikawas (not counting Ryuu Hoshikawa/Dyna Black because he's from a different Sentai era pre-dating even Flashman) are the first sibling Sentai ahead of the Tatsumis of Kyuukyu Sentai GoGoV and the Ozus of Mahou Sentai Magiranger. The Hoshikawas are Gaku (Five Red), Ken (Five Blue), Fumiya (Five Black), Kazumi (Five Pink), and Remi (Five Yellow). They are in many ways like their Flashman predecessors, except in Fiveman, Kazumi is more girly than Remi, while Remi became known especially for her drunken boxing scene in ep4 of Fiveman. Then there are the Silver Imperial Army Zone that probably parallel the Mess - Empress Medor (parallelling LaDeus), Captain Garoa (parallelling Dr. Keflen), Billion (parallelling Ley Wanda), Doldora (paralleling Ley Nefel), Zaza (parallelling Wolk and Kilt), and Chevalier (parallelling Sir Cowler), not to mention the Ginga Sentai Gingaman (parallelling the Alien Hunters while a completely DIFFERENT set of Gingamen from the heroic Seiju Sentai Gingaman!) and Dongoros. Garoa and Chevalier, like Keflen and Cowler before them, would themselves compete for 'competence' in Medor's eyes. Towards the end of the program, once the Zone went the way of Mess (defeated and killed), the Hoshikawas, now knowing their parents weren't dead after all, left Earth to rejoin them on Sidon. It's a pity the Flashmen never found their families, aside of Sara/Yellow Flash, whose birth family was Tokimura. And, yes, even the Flashmen were Earthlings, like their Fiveman successors. Yet not even Sara got to enjoy a full reunion with her birth family, any more than the other Flashmen ever got a chance to find theirs (blame the Anti-Flash Phenomenon). So, in some ways, the Hoshikawas succeeded where their predecessors failed in terms of family reunions.
ReplyDeleteInteresting note: in the same way Ley Nefel's actress in Flashman is none other than Sayoko Hagiwara, alias Rei Tachibana/Dyna Pink of Kagaku Sentai Dynaman, Chevalier's actor in Fiveman is the same actor (Kihachiro Uemura) as Dai/Green Flash. Later, Remi Hoshikawa/FiveYellow's actress (Keiko Hayase), the real-life wife of her screen twin brother Fumiya Hoshikawa/FiveBlack's actor (Ryohei Kobayashi), would return as one of the Hanarangers in Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, and seeing as the Hanarangers were an all-female ninja quintet, there could've been a "1-2-3-4-5-Fivewoman (Faibu-Onna in Japanese)" (a play on the Fiveman opening theme tune) if there wanted to be, except there wasn't. There were just five women actually created from stray cats, themselves Rei Tachibana/Dyna Pink's worst nightmare (just watch ep22 of Dynaman where Rei freaks out every time a cat, not to mention the monster Cat Shinka, goes near her)