The story's strength shines most brightly when it is paying tribute to shows like the Power Rangers and Kamen Rider with wacky monsters, team dynamics, and world shattering threats. However, this is where I found the story to drag because it was too much like the monster-of-the-week shows of my childhood, lacking any real substance and I have since outgrown their appeal.
The parody-ing of superheroes was mixed in with all elements of the story, though I thought it was most prominent in the first few episodes. I found it provided me a good chuckle, was relatively harmless, and felt natural to the tone of the story... in most scenes.
The proverbial dark cloud looming over this anime is when it tries its hand at deconstruction. By the most technical definition it is not deconstruction, it goes to dark places with the theme of obsessive fandom, but in my opinion the show does not let these plot threads play to their logical end. Furthermore, the deconstruction seems to be less focused on superhero tropes, and more on fans and obsession.
As a result of the whiplash tonal shift, the story feels disjointed and flows poorly. The combination of several different set pieces for Samurai Flamenco to fight doesn't help; adding a cluttered and rushed feeling to the disjointedness. I like that the story tried some new things, but I think it failed to execute all of them (5/10).
I found both art and sound to be average and enjoyable. There was some small use of CGI which felt a little out of place, but it was not overly egregious. The fight scenes weren't bad either, the use of speed lines in certain places felt appropriate given the shows inspiration.
Voice acting was good as far as I'm concerned, the stand out voice actress portrayed a pop idol who can emote selfish rage at ear splitting decibels, and I though she did an admirable job of getting me to dislike her character. There are plenty of cheesy "Stop Right There Criminal Scum" lines delivered with the appropriate amount of love and irony which I believe was intended for this anime.
All in all, there was nothing mind blowing about the audio or visual talent, but it looks and sounds competent, and in no way detracts from the overall product (7/10).
Overall I rated Samurai Flamenco a 6 out of 10. I am a fan of superheroes both North American and Japanese and I thought there were moments in the story which really provided me with a comment or critique I had not considered. However, the over ambition and loss of focus in the story really damages its final result. If you are a fan of superheroes I suggest giving it a try, but if you are looking for either a fun, colourful action series or a more thought provoking story or if you don't like superheroes, I suggest you pass on this dance.
