Anime Feminist

Content Warning: Discussion of misogyny/gendered violence, maladaptive trauma response, queerphobia, queer erasure, and transphobia.

Spoilers for all of Samurai Flamenco.

Samurai Flamenco is infamous twice over: what started out as a grounded slice-of-life series about tokusatsu addict and male model Masayoshi Hazama dragging local cop Goto Hidenori into living his lifelong dream of becoming a superhero took a sharp turn into the supernatural halfway through its first cour, hurtling through genre parodies at the speed of sound against ever-decreasing production values. It became the very definition of a hot mess, with the remaining viewership predominantly tuning in just to see what weird thing would happen next. So poorly received was the series that its production house, Manglobe, would make only one more series over a year later (and, at that, it was the likewise troubled production Gangsta) before closing its doors.

What finally got eyes on the show, for a brief and shining moment, was its finale: the series climaxed with an impassioned marriage proposal between the two male leads. It gained a second life of notoriety as queer fans who’d stuck around for the subtext rejoiced at an overt declaration of love between two male characters in a non-BL series, and cis male-dominated fandom spaces like Reddit and TVTropes drummed up endless excuses for why this Didn’t Count as Gay. Yuri!!! On ICE fans may be familiar with this cycle.

Samurai Flamenco is a story about the intersection of community and justice. The main character, Hazama Masayoshi, is intent on living out the ideals he learned from the hero stories that captured his imagination as a child. Their values guide his actions, so much so that he decides to become one himself, under the moniker Samurai Flamenco. As he navigates this choice, he begins to learn that heroes and villains are parts of their community, not forces outside of it. This causes him to re-evaluate what justice means to him and how he wants to practice it. This process closes the gap he sees between himself and his community, has him reject violence, and roots his sense of justice in love and empathy rather than punishment.

According to the logic of the story, the world around Masayoshi is being shaped by his unspoken desires (at least until the final arc). This means a viewer can retroactively read revelations about Masayoshi as a character onto how the narrative develops. To put it lightly, at the beginning of the story, Masayoshi is a highly privileged individual. He was scouted as a model in high school and lives in a nice apartment at the top of a building, with sufficient wealth to have an extensive collection of hero paraphernalia. This distance between him and the street is a very literal barrier that serves as a metaphorical one as well. Masayoshi is well-meaning, but his wealth, fame, and isolation from his community restricts his empathy. He sees his role as a hero as distinct from being a normal person.

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