Samurai Flamenco is a failure on all fronts. It is not a parody but is aware of it's own genre. With it comes this misunderstanding by it's audience. Simply because a work is self-aware does not mean it is a deconstruction. To be a deconstruction Samurai Flamenco would have had to do something new. Something that would innovate the many genres it was all too often burdened with.
Between it's goal to create a serious and inspiring vigilante-filled universe and it's majorly flawed execution, the most mediocre result is achieved. We have neither an entertaining superhero series nor a psychological exploration of vigilantism. Was Samurai Flamenco a buddy-cop series in the light of Tiger & Bunny? Was it an action-thriller like Darker Than Black? What was it and what is it? It's an unique work, but unique only because of how poorly the tone of the series shifts throughout. There's a difference between uniqueness and quality that Samurai Flamenco can't seem to separate.
Samurai Flamenco is illogical. It creates and sets characters for a few episodes at a time to later remove all traits from them in a jolt of narrative-based absurdity. Full of "plot-twists" that are not properly foreshadowed or explained and then quickly disposed of, Samurai Flamenco comes across as extremely disingenuous. The series wants you to be shocked at how many curveballs it can throw you before landing on a classical Hollywood ending every time. Yes, Samurai Flamenco, "Hero will never give up, never hide, never be defeated" but sometimes it just doesn't make sense for him not to. When the writing collapses on top of it's flimsy groundwork the most unremarkable deus ex machinas occur ad nauseum. The characters are used merely as avatars to deliver uninspiring tripe about justice and mankind. The level of depth found in Samurai Flamenco's exploration rivals that of children's programming. All characters succumb to this boring dialogue and really just begs the question "what could have been?"
Do not watch Samurai Flamenco. Despite it's offbeat premise and charmingly realistic character designs, Samurai Flamenco is an overindulgent children's series bereft of plot-development and bereft of a good idea.
