[DreamSword]

I feel like I know what a few of you reading are thinking right now.

"Okay DS, we get it, you didn't have a good time with Kamen Rider Build. But how in the heck does it at all compare to Samurai Flamenco?"

Look, I get it. You're probably sick of hearing me whine and complain, and I don't blame you. But I honestly think that there is a point of discussion to be had here in terms of how both shows handle their various themes.

You might not think a story about the terrors of war and a tale of how media and stories influence our mindsets would at all connect, but after seeing the endings of both shows, and the more I thought about it, my brain ended up connecting some rather interesting dots.

Will it at all check out as well to you all as it does to me? Well, that's for you all to decide. And I really won't blame anyone who manages to read this entire thing and comes to the conclusion that I'm full of it. But, even so, all I can do is maybe offer some insight into how my mind works when it comes to these comparative reviews, and I hope you atleast have a decent time reading.

So, with that out of the way, allow me to present...

Saying You're a Friend VS Being a Friend

or

The Darkness in People and How to Handle It

How's that for a title?

Anyway, before we dive deep into it... yeah. To my surprise, some big aspects that both stories share is the idea of evil coming from within, conflicting ideas coming together to create something new, and most importantly, how friendship is one of the greatest aspects to life and something that everyone needs and should have. Believe it or not, I actually did do my best to pay attention when watching both of these shows!

And while those things are the core of what this review will be about, I'll still be covering the other aspects of the shows as well in the interest of fairness. Though I will be honest about it upfront: A few of these will be very much of a "different flavor" sort of variety in terms of comparison. If you feel that's unfair, then that is entirely valid and you're free to voice it. But regardless of that, I'll do my best to explain why I stand the way that I do in each category, so even if you don't agree with my mindset, hopefully you'll atleast be able to understand where it is that I'm coming from.

With all that out of the way, let's begin.

Action and Visual Flair

I hate the PirateTrain Best Match. To me, it stands tall as a symbol of everything I don't like when it comes to Build's' action sequences. Not only is it one of the more commonly used forms for Build, but almost every time it shows up, it signals that the oncoming fight scene is going to be one of the laziest in the show in terms of choreography. It headlines the sort of complaint I've seen some lob at modern Kamen Rider, but to me, Build is the absolute worst about it: And that's CGI spam.

It's a real problem I noticed with alot of Build's' fight scenes. And it's not the CGI in and of itself that's the problem, no. But rather how it is very rarely used in service to any sort of physicality for stunts as well as degrading many a fight into simple beam spam. You can use CGI and still have it be stylistic: Take a look at Kamen Rider Wizard for a great example of that. I mean hey, even Zero-One, made right at the start of the COVID era, managed that. That's not to say Build never had any good action scenes. Heck, alot of the fights involving Evolto during the third act of the show are rather good. It's just that those examples are too few and far between to at all notable compared to the many, many lackluster fights that the show is plagued with.

As for Samurai Flamenco;

It's no secret that the show is not only far more of a slice-of-life affair than what Kamen Rider Build is, but I also really wouldn't doubt if it was made on far less of a budget than what Build was also. But despite those factors, the action really really works and is totally engaging in terms of everything going on in the story. When Flamenco really wants to wow you, it succeeds via making almost every action sequence its own unique beast. I actually find it pretty ironic that the show which points out that many a Toku show can have formulas to its fight choreography in turn has some of the most variety. And I mean, super flashy or not, at least at the end of it all characters are actually hitting eachother.

Points goes to Samurai Flamenco.

Music and Atmosphere

Oh, well, case closed right there, right? Afterall, Be The One is one of the most famous opening songs in any Rider show, and thus this is a slam dunk in favor of Build, right?

Not quite. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to sit here and tell you that Kamen Rider Build has bad music, because it doesn't. Infact, looking up alot of the various songs and listening to them on their own, they're rather good! The problem is more in how exactly they're utilized.

During my time actually watching Build the show, it was very rare that any of the songs actually stood out to me in terms of the scenes and context of which they're used. They never registered in my brain in such a way that there'd really be any difference between had the songs been there or if the scene itself had no background music at all. Not once did the sound design feel like any sort of major enhancement. And ya know, if you wanna argue that that means that the team is doing its job, then ya know what, fine, that's totally fair.

But you wanna know what I think the best song in Samurai Flamenco is? It's not any of the openings or endings, and it's not even any of the insert songs which are also great. No, it's this:

The song that plays whenever the characters are doing mundane stuff and just interacting with one another. I can easily hear the first few notes of the song so clearly even when not watching the anime itself, and every scene that the song was used it managed to strike just the right balance of both the song itself standing out, as well as complimenting and enhancing the general tone and atmosphere of the scene it was in.

Shoot, to me, Build was never great about handling its tone or atmosphere as it was. Most of the time it was really gunning for this serious drama, but every now and then would blindside you with really unfunny comedy out of nowhere to the point that it began to actively annoy me.

Meanwhile with Flamenco, for all the reputation that the show has for being crazy, I think that those who actually watch and pay attention to all that it does will find that the anime actually manages to balance various methods to its madness. For every super crazy sequence, there's an equally mundane and down to Earth one. For every incredibly dramatic story beat, there's wonderful character comedy that, even if I personally found a given joke to fall flat, it at the very least didn't annoy me.

These key things were major players in terms of what helped draw me into Samurai Flamenco and keep me there, whereas the opposite was true of Kamen Rider Build, which managed to always find a way to take me completely out of the show at many, many points.

Point again goes to Samurai Flamenco.

Plot, Messages, and Themes

This is understandably where the primary disconnect is gonna be for some. Afterall, Kamen Rider Build is a dramatic war story about divisions of philosophy leading to conflict and what role morality plays in conflicts of interest. Meanwhile Samurai Flamenco is a postmodern tale about the influence media has on the human psyche as well as how the handling and mishandling of superhero media, Toku especially, plays a big part in that. So the big question is, what do either of those things really have to do with one another?

On the surface, the answer might seem immediately obvious: Nothing. If you stopped there then these two stories are not at all alike.

But then I saw the final episode of Build, wherein it's revealed that the entire show that the audience has been watching was an extremely biased account by the lead character of what events actually transpired, and the hamster wheel in my head began to turn ever so slowly.

Now, the meta aspect of Build is absolutely light compared to that of Flamenco, but the more I took a close look at both shows, I was surprised to find that they both shared much more in common than what I initially thought. They just go about them in different ways. Such topics include how one defines true heroism, the division between what's lawful and what's right, and more importantly, how everyone has a dark side, and the way in which to handle it when it comes to the forefront.

Build certainly has alot that it wants to say, but it managed to misfire on those topics and ideas alot. There's so many inconsistent plot details such as what made the Rider System and what for, or who exactly is responsible for the war being waged across Japan, as well as other details outright standing against what it's going for, such as many an evil character acting in such a way due to a very external source despite the "evil from within" theme, made me overall just really confused on the entire story. What starts as a war story with some sprinkling of fantastic elements ends up turning into an entirely fantastic affair, where almost all of the world's' issues can be attributed to external forces.

As for Flamenco, it's a very opposing take on the various subject matter. Despite all of the fantastic elements that the show introduces over the course of its run, one thing made clear is that no matter how many enemies the world defeats, people can and always will be a root cause of many of the world's' problems. Everyone has their own baggage, and it's by facing yourselves and helping others through their hardest things that things turn out for the better. The final opponent for Samurai Flamenco to face isn't some egotistical alien out to blow up the world, it's just a regular human being who ends up being far scarier than any of the extraterrestrial threats that Flamenco has had to face up to that point. Combine all of this with a very clear roadmap for the plot itself and you get a show that feels complete and confident in what it wants to say.

So, yeah, point yet again goes to Samurai Flamenco.

Characters

I'll be totally honest here, I don't like almost the entire cast of Kamen Rider Build. Many of the characters to me came across as obnoxious at worst and boring at best. But, ya know, I could maybe look past that somewhat it they were atleast utilized in a smart and/or interesting way. So, were they?

What do you think? My answer is no. The main issue I have is one of many characters attributes being informed. Case in point:

Characters in Build are constantly talking about what a selfless, wonderful, all around great guy that Sento is, whereas in my eyes, he rarely if ever had anything to actually showcase that. He spends most of his time acting condescending towards everyone he's meant to be friends with, and more often than not his wants and needs are put before everyone else in the cast's'. Heck, when Katsuaragi comes into the picture, the fact that the two barely act any different only cements how all of the villains' accusations of Sento being the "Devil Scientist" was actually completely true.

It doesn't stop there either. If a character doesn't have attributes that are almost entirely informed, then they instead end up more and more flanderized as time goes on. The biggest example I can think of being Kazumi's' simping for Misora turned up to 11 starting with the final act of the show. Yes, he was always a simp for her, but it never got in the way of his other aspects nor was it nearly at the forefront of his personality as it is starting in that last leg.

In contrast, when it comes to Samurai Flamenco, the anime does a great job in showcasing what every character is about rather than simply stating it. It didn't need characters to constantly talk about how Masayoshi is a kind-hearted idiot because Masa himself showcased that with his own behavior in almost every episode. And all while feeling much more organic in how he has his own ups and downs compared to any character in Build as well.

But then, all of the characters of Flamenco are like that. Even the ones who don't get as much screen time as say, Masayoshi or Goto, still all feel very organic and interesting to watch without being reduced to just their most exaggerated trait. And I ended up finding that these characters were also the centerpiece that drove the plot, rather than the other way around like how it came across to me with Build. Heck, even Flamenco Diamond, who I can't stand ends up being utilized in really interesting ways in relation to both the plot and other characters.

Even when it comes to the very things I used to create the header for this review: Build Hazard and Samurai Flamenco Darkness, the execution of both couldn't be any more different without just being different subject matter entirely. Both are meant to show the very real threat of the main character losing themselves and bringing harm to those around them, but whereas Build Hazard becomes a reality and is something which is easily circumvented, Flamenco Darkness is far more terrifying not only in just the mere threat of him existing, but also all of the events that would have to come together in order for him to be born. To me, that is a far more effective use of the concept and really details just how much of an impact such a thing has on the plot and characters as a whole.

But really, the most important factor to me in all of this, and it's something tied to both plot and character, is both show's' themes of friendship, and how they are contextualized in the male leads of both shows.

Being real here, I absolutely can not buy into the idea that Sento and Banjo from Build are friends, let alone a "Best Match." For a majority of the show it really seemed to me like the two hated eachother. Constantly being at eachother's' throats, always sabotaging the other's' plans, and just generally being unpleasant to one another. Heck, even during flashback scenes which are supposed to showcase the two's' time together, those clips are with no audio and are taken out of context. It's only when the third act kicks in that both decide that suddenly they're the best of friends because the plot needs them to be in order to remotely function. It comes across as incredibly forced, and had the show made the claim that Banjo and Kazumi were instead the Best Match of the show, I actually would've believed that because those two actually have far more scenes of them growing and enjoying being around one another.

All of this is standing up against the main duo of Samurai Flamenco: Masayoshi and Goto. Like Build, the two couldn't be more different, with Masayoshi being the dopey idealist who rushes headfirst into situations whereas Goto is far more level-headed and down to Earth to the point of often needing to be the one to bail Masayoshi out of a given situation. But here's the thing. What is one of the first things that the two do upon meeting and getting to know one another?

They sit back in Masayoshi's' apartment watching Toku and generally just be comfortable around one another.

That's it. That's all it took for me to buy into these guys finding a connection. And the anime has a handful of scenes like this between the two. Meanwhile, Sento and Banjo, due to the show they're in being far more concerned with constant existential dread and drama, never really found the time for the two to grow or be around eachother in a really endearing or organic way. For a show that wants to be all about opposites attracting it is such a misfire!

Friendship is a wonderful, valuable, and beautiful thing. Something I feel everyone should treasure deeply and is a subject that I myself feel very passionate about. And that's why it annoyed me so much to see a Kamen Rider show, a franchise that's usually pretty good about handling it, make it a focual point and then fumble so badly. Meanwhile, an anime that has a reputation for being crazy nonsense had the sense to put so much effort and focus onto the very human and warm elements of its cast, and made a friendship that feels very real, whether or not you take the interpretation of it becoming romantic or not, like how many see the relationship between Sento and Banjo.

Needless to say, the final point very strongly goes to Samurai Flamenco.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, I don't know if I adequately explained what I was ultimately trying to get at with this, so I'll put it in as simple of terms as I can here: I ultimately feel that, with almost everything that Kamen Rider Build was trying to do, Samurai Flamenco not only did it, but did it better. And I'm in no way trying to talk in any sort of "objective" terms here either. Simply highly why the latter appealed far more to my tastes than the former.

If you wanna argue that I completely missed the point of Build and that I speak way too highly of Flamenco, that's fine. That's totally within your right. But for me, despite how much the two surprisingly have in common in terms of concepts, the execution couldn't be any more different, and I know which one in the end appeals far more to me and my tastes.

I give Kamen Rider Build a 1/6, and Samurai Flamenco a 5/6. Two shows dealing with Toku shows and the people involved in them as a topic, but which ultimately weave them into their own stories in very different ways.

The winner is Samurai Flamenco.