Recap: A bounty is put on Samurai Flamenco’s Identity. Everyone and their mom thinks it’s Hazama, but instead an old hero comes to steal the spotlight.

This is starting a worrying trend. I loved the past few episodes of Samurai Flamenco because it was basically a clash of ideologies. Hazama wasn’t having his identity prodded. That wasn’t the focus. Instead most of the time we spend talking about Sentai and variety TV. While having an inside look at the TV industry in Japan might be an interesting angle, I fear what this might take away from the overall story.

I feel they really dropped the ball on the whole “fake Samurai Flamenco” thing as well. The only moral really taught here is simple: lying for one’s personal interest is bad, nomatter the good intentions. While this is admirable, there are so many more themes you could have tried using the idea of anonymity and the consequences, or lack there of. If there were a Samurai Flamenco causing problems under the name, I feel that would make a more compelling counterpoint to Hazama’s unshrinking principles. Perhaps there is still some time to have this kind of story, but that is one of the biggest topics when it comes to morality and anonymity and I just feel like that is an opportunity missed.

I know some of you may be sick of me constantly musing on production values, but this weeks animation was just horrendous. I feel like they must have hired the people from SNAFU or something. What’s most jarring is when Hazama or another main character is on screen looking somewhat decent while everyone around them just has disfigured joints and limbs. It’s not like this show has a huge amount of action to eat up the budget, so seeing this level of quality is just disappointing.

Once again, our idol friend is included at the very end of the episode, but I still havn’t a clue what her role could be. Is she really going to hunt down Samurai Flamenco until she identifies Hazama as the real deal? Now that Samurai Flamenco is so far in the public eye, will Hazama even have the time to stop the petty crimes that had started his quest, or will we see him dragged off for public appearances and more TV segments? The answers to these questions may decide whether I want to stick with this show any further.