Flashman's 27th Episode Somewhat Predicted Red Mask's Future

Before Kazunori Inaba would become Red Mask -- he did have a guest role in Flashman with a person known as Ryu Wakasa, a boxer who runs a ramen shop. Flashman was a year before Maskman. He would have a reunion with Blue Flash's actor Yasuhiro Ishiwata when the said actor would play as a monster in Maskman episode 34.

The episode had him side by side with Kihachiro Uemura (Dai/Green Flash) who would later play as Fiveman's later arrival villain Chevalier. Dai himself was interested in learning boxing. It was almost a preview of Maskman's one technique known as the God hand fist -- something that Maskman didn't use that much probably because it was too cheesy and powerful! I love how the two did some training scenes. Was it that the writers wanted to test Inaba on whether or not he was worthy of becoming their next red ranger in Maskman?

His role here was that he was temporarily changed into a monster but lived to tell the tale about it. That's strange considering that Toshiki Inoue was its writer. Said writer is really notorious for writing tragic stories! Dr. Lee Keflen decided to mutate said person but it failed. This also gets creepier to think because Inaba himself would later play as villains too. He was a twisted game programmer in Solbrain and a mad bomber in Exceedraft. In Dairanger, Inaba acted as the Media Magician who fell for Rin in Dairanger episode 33 -- an episode written by Naruhisa Arakawa. Inaba's roles involved a man who temporarily became a monster (but lived to tell about it) and as a monster wanting to become a man but didn't live to tell about it. 

Years later, Inaba would retire from acting and be focused on entrepreneurship. I wonder why he didn't get big roles unlike the other Takeru (Tori Matsuzaka) who not only overshadows the true Shiba head but even the original Takeru! Inaba currently runs a ramen restaurant in Japan with his wife Georgette Inaba.