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Choushinsei Flashman

  • ️Fri May 10 2013

Choushinsei Flashman (Series)

On one fateful day, five children from Earth were kidnapped and sent to the far reaches of outer space. Twenty years later...

Chōshinsei Flashman (Supernova Flashman) is the tenth Super Sentai show, airing from 1986 to 1987. The Title Theme Tune was sung by Taku Kitahara.

In 1966, the Reconstructive Experiment Empire Mess authorized the abduction of five kids for the purposes of their experiments, however, benevolent beings from the Flash Galaxy saved the kids, and took each of them to a different planet of their solar system. Twenty years later, with the abilities they gained from the training on these planets, the now-grown kids return to Earth as Flashman, as they fight to protect their home planet from the menace of Mess while searching for their true parents.

Not related to the Flashman series of novels.

Recurring Super Sentai tropes:

Tropes specific to Choushinsei Flashman:

  • Amnesia Missed a Spot: The Tokimura's receive a partial memory wipe from Mess but it didn't completely take as they remember enough to figure out that their son had been taken by aliens 20 years prior which is almost correct but Tokimura's amnesia removed one critical detail. It wasn't a son they lost but a DAUGHTER, Sara.
  • Ant Assault: The Zolors, given they appear to be humanoid ants.
  • Birthday Episode: Episode 38 takes place on Jin's birthday, or more accurately, the day they celebrate as his birthday because the rangers don't know when they were really born.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Their years on the Flash planets have altered the Flashmen's genetic makeup, giving them superpowers but making it impossible for them to stay on Earth for more than a year.
    • Also, Lou has the ability to float in the air, and Bun can climb the sides of walls.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Sara finds her real family, she and the other Flashmen destroy the bad guys, but they have to leave the Earth for the sake of their lives.
    • It was never stated that they couldn't return after recovering for a year or two, though. Thus, making it not as quite as bad. Sara even swears she'll return someday.
  • The Boxing Episode: Episode 27.
  • Dead All Along: Episode 20 introduces Sumire, a teenage girl with a strong connection to Dai, making him think they could be siblings. 17 episodes later, it’s revealed that Sumire died 8 years ago, with her appearing as a ghost to Dai thanks to finding a fragment of the Green Star where he grew up.
  • Deal with the Devil: In their final confrontation Keflen tries to cut a deal with the Flashman to let him leave in peace with his Genetic Synthesizer to continue his experiments away from the Earth and in exchange he'll use it to repair their genetics making them full Earthlings again and no longer be affected by the Anti-Flash Phenomenon allowing them to live on Earth forever and find and return to their missing families. They consider it, especially since Sara had just found her family but then Sara herself makes the call to destroy it as Mess has done too much harm for her to ever allow it.
  • Don't Think, Feel: How the team deals with Dai's sight being turned upside-down in Episode 4, despite Mag wanting him to undergo Training from Hell on a handstand.
  • Dub Name Change: Dai is called "Dan" and Bun is called "Go" in Brazil.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: The Anti-Flash Phenomenon. To wit: You touch fellow humans? You get electrocuted. You touch flowers? The flowers gas you. You try to drink? The water chokes you. You stand around in the open? The sun burns you.
  • Evil Will Fail: Keflen and Cowler despise each other over differing views on using Beast Warriors. After one offense too many, Cowler goes third-party, eventually exposing Ra Deus's true nature, which in turn amplifies Keflen's god complex as he takes over Mess and gets two final Beast Warriors out of Deus, while Cowler and the remaining generals die out before Keflen finally bites it.
  • Expository Theme Song: Downplayed; the theme merely mentions that Earth is in danger and that the heroes have returned from space.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: Every single member of the Flashmen.
  • Fountain of Youth: Dai ends up a child because of a monster attack in episode 41.
  • Fusion Dance: Several of the Deus Beast Warriors are created by parts of Ra Deus being fused with other characters. The Alien Hunters are all also fused into a singular being to create a Deus Beast Warrior. The Demoss, the final one, is a fusion of Deus's remains and Kuragen.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Baraki used to work for Mess, until his life was saved by Titan the Hero.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Cowler & Gardan.
  • Homage: The general theme of the show seems to be 1950s B-movies; The Mess base is a flying saucer, they abduct and kidnap people, and even the insectoid design of the Zolors could be an homage to movies like Them! (which involved attacking ants); they also have walking tripod machines a la The War of the Worlds. As a counterpoint to this, the Flashmen's uniforms resemble fighter pilots; the Starcondor looks like a massive jet fighter, and the mecha it releases are two smaller jets and a tank.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: The names of the members of Mess are highly inconsistent from source to source. For example, is it Ley Nefer, Ney Nefel or Leh Näfel? The latter spelling is officially used by RangerWiki, but the other two are also used without any attempts at correction.
  • LEGO Genetics: This is how the Mess creates their monsters. It's also how Ra Deus even started — he's a living mass of genetic material.
  • Meaningful Name: Ra Deus. With a name like that, do you think he considers himself a god?
    • The name "Tokimura" means "time village". Dr. Tokimura is a time machine inventor.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Episodes 15-18 have a mini-arc where Flash King's blown to pieces and they get a second mecha. In 29, Flashman's powers start to weaken, so they upgrade their prisms to power up their attacks, which coincides with the Mes officers getting super modes to be more of a threat.
  • Mythology Gag: The very name Chou[blank] [Blank]man, without Sentai in the middle, echoes Choudenshi Bioman, as well as reusing the Goranger colors for the Five-Man Band while sticking with Two Girls to a Team, the Robot Buddy and having the codenames use the color as a head word rather than the tail.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Compared to most Sentai, the Flashman helmet design is unique; instead of simple helmet shells, they're designed presumably to mimic helmets worn by pilots; they also have, in a first for the franchise, visors that can open and close (though this was never used outside the henshin sequences).
    • Following the example of the previous two series, the female Rangers suit have Leotard of Power design rather than skirt or Minidress of Power like most other female Rangers. This design won't be seen again in Super Sentai until the appearance of Zenkai Magine, more than three decades later.
  • Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The fourth and final Sentai not to use the word "Sentai" in its title.
  • Only One Name: The first Sentai team to have its members lack surnames, though we find that Sara's last name is Tokimura.
  • Only the Leads Get a Downer Ending: The Flashmen defeat the Mess Empire for good, but almost succumb to the Anti-Flash Phenomenon and have to leave Earth as a result.
  • Precursor Hero: the Hero Titan, the one who the Flash Aliens based the Flashman technology on.
  • Power Crystal: Their prisms, which are contained in their Prism Flash braces. One episode had them get damaged, then repaired, leading to their Mid-Season Upgrade. They also have small prisms in their helmets.
  • Power Incontinence: The first stage of the Anti-Flash Phenomenon is the rangers' powers mysteriously giving out on them in the middle of fights.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: "Ride of the Valkyries" plays during Dr. Tokimura's time-jumps in Episodes 8-9.
  • Race Against the Clock: The final episode. The Flashmen have only 10 hours left to destroy what's left of Mess and get the hell off of Earth before they die of the Anti-Flash Phenomenon. Every break in the action comes with a chyron saying how long they have left.
  • Rainbow Motif: Especially noticeable when they fire the Rolling Vulcan, which is a giant rainbow death beam.
  • Red Herring: Detailed above under Dead All Along.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dai is the hot-blooded red while Jin is the cooler blue. Rather ironic given Jin is the Red and Dai is Green, which is made from mixing blue and yellow.
  • Shout-Out: The interior of Round Base looks an awful lot like the TARDIS, down to the hexagonal console.
  • The Speechless: Ley Galus and the other monsters can only growl.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": All Mess monsters have names preceded with that article. Including the other members of Mess once Keflen starts using Ra Deus' genes to tamper with theirs and turn them into MotWs.
  • Super Mode: Wanda and Nefel get them later in the show, whereas Flashman power up but keep the same uniforms as before.
  • Taking You with Me: The Flash King is crippled when one of a pair of monsters blew up on it after being dealt the death blow; this necessitated the need to get Great Titan. It does get better a few episodes later.
  • Theme Naming: Several of the Mess have Egyptian-inspired names, including Ra Deus, Lee Keflen, and Ley Nefer.
  • Tie-In Novel: My Heart's Flashmannote , written by Azusa Nakajima.
  • Time Stop: Ley Wanda later gains this ability.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The strong but compassionate Lou and sensible and thoughtful Sara.
  • Touched by Vorlons: The Flashmen gained their superhuman powers as a result of growing up in the Flash System.
  • The Voiceless: The Alien Hunters, with the obvious exception of Sir Cowler.
  • We Can Rule Together: Invoked by Lee Keflen at the very last episode to the Flashmen. Much to everyone's surprise, it's Sara who's the first to call shenanigans on it.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: When the Flashmen head home to the Flash system at the end of the series, they only take the Star Condor back- both the Round Base (which brought them there) and the Flash Titan seem to have been completely forgotten about. Justified, though- they needed to leave Earth before they died, and either they or other denizens of the Flash system could always go back and retrieve the base and mecha later.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: As the team finds out about halfway through when it turns out being away from the Flash system is killing them.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Toward the final episodes, as the Anti-Flash Phenomenon harms our heroes further and further. Episode 46 is even called "Only 20 Days to Live!!".