I had a hard time with this show, owing to so many mid-course corrections, until I just reached the point where you could not take this show seriously at all. It pretends to be dramatic, but it’s not. It wants to be serious, but it can’t commit to it. It strives to be important, but it undercuts itself. So, just sit down with a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy all the oddness that ensues.

The initial idea was a fine one. Masayoshi Hazama is a male model and that is a rather dull world for him. But he grew up watching all those Japanese superhero shows, believing that good can overcome evil. One night, he decides to go out and be a vigilante for justice, as Samurai Flamenco. Well, it doesn’t go too well for him as (a) he has no physical strength, (b) he has no physical presence and (c) he has no physical commitment, so he ends up getting the tarpaper smacked out of him.

He turns to Hidenori Goto, a neighborhood cop, who is against this foolish idea, but Hazama is committed to doing this. After a while, he does start to make a difference, as he is being taken seriously and this is where things start to go astray.

He is joined by Mari Mara (the pink one), who also shares in his dreams. However, he becomes a stooge for her so she is the heroine, while he is endlessly captured. This is not what he wants and they split. This is more than mere theater and/or street performance for him, but something quite serious.

Mari Mara is part of an all-girl J-Pop group, called Mineral Miracle Muse. She enlists the aid of her friends and bandmates, Moe Morita (yellow) and Mizuki Misawa (blue) and they fight crime as the Flamenco Girls, being Flamenco Diamond, Sapphire and Ruby.

The show takes its first odd turn when Hazama is approached by a boffin, Jun Harazuka, who works for Monster Stationery. He tells SF that he can be killed, as he has no super powers or defensive weapons, and so gives him a utility belt…..filled with office supplies! So, he uses stapler nunchuks and super sticky binding tape to immobilize his enemies.

The real mid-course correction occurs when Hazama goes on a police raid to a drug lab. In the middle of a standard fight, one of the felon turns into Guillotine Gorilla. This is a 10-foot tall gorilla with a working guillotine in his stomach area and proceeds to kill four officers before he, himself, is dispatched.

At this point, the show goes stupid. We now encounter King Torture and his minions of doom, but when he is defeated, that becomes a battle with the Four Kings, then the 256 Evildoers, then the 26,000 Villain Brigade, then From Beyond, who are alien invaders. Hazama himself is reformed as part of the Flamengers, a group of five Power Rangers….I mean, five heroes of justice, needed to defeat this evil menace and make the universe a peaceful place.

The show started out so well: what does it mean to be a hero? But it got silly just to be silly and a lot of the story got discarded along the way to fall into the Dragon Ball Z Syndrome (endless fighting amid endless fighting, when we are not endlessly fighting) as since it lost its focus, you had no idea where you were going to where you were ending up.

This was half of a good show, so take it up to the drug bust, turn it off and move somewhere else with your viewing; you aren’t missing anything.
On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 7 (Rather goofy characters)
Plot 7 (The alteration damages the show)
Pacing 7 (Slows down at the end)
Effectiveness 7 (Too many cliches)
Conclusion 7 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but doesn’t really end)
Fan Service 3 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)

Overall 7 (Too much fizzle and not enough sizzle)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. A true hero never backs down.