It’s Final Boss time, and the battle with Gil takes on a decidedly Final Fantasy flavor, in no small part due to everyone’s outrageous costumes and the fact that Gil remains one tough customer even outnumbered nine to one. There’s a lot of bullet-dodging and slicing and Xialian and Al hitting nothing but the air around the speedy Gil, but thanks to a well-placed firecracker Gil is sufficiently softened up for a final showdown with Dylan and TJ, the latter finally revealing his steely gaze!
While the Thousand Three go at it, the others chase down the runaway train packed with explosives headed to Chicago. Al and Xialian leap aboard and take out the guards, but the train has no brakes and Al can’t break Sofia’s chain. Their only hope is for Appare’s ramshackle boat-car to take a position in front of the train and give his hybrid engine everything it’s got, slowing down and stopping the train just in time to avert disaster.
Like the anachronistic outfits and music, you just have to suspend disbelief in terms of physics. If people can dodge and slice bullets, it’s not a stretch for a car to stop a train without derailing it. Dylan and TJ end up defeating Gil but spare his life, giving him to the police like their Claudia would have wanted. Two months later the race is back in operation, and Appare & Co. narrowly beat out Xialian, Al, Dylan and TJ with a thrilling photo-finish that involves going airborne in the final corner.
With the race won, the racers go their separate ways. Kosame is all ready to return to Japan, leaving Appare and Hototo in NYC, but at the last second decides to simply send a letter instead. When Appare does the rom-com last-minute chase for his love and sees the ship has already sailed, he gives a very uncharacteristically heartwarming monologue about how building an airplane and moon rocket won’t be as much fun without Kosame…only for Kosame to sneak up behind him, having never left.
Back in Japan Kosame and Appare’s relations learn that not only are they okay, but thriving in America. All’s well that ends well, and so ends a wonderfully quirky fun adventure series that captured both the thrill of a race on a grand stage of sprawling America and the way the racers grew into a family that banded together to defeat the super-charismatic Big Bad. It truly was…[puts on anachronistic sunglasses]…a gas.
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