Appare-Ranman! – 13 (Fin) – Crossing the Finish in Style

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.

Appare-Ranman! – 12 – Showdown at Stone Hill

Holed up in a ghost town chapel, Gil once again demonstrates how ridiculously EEEEEEvil he is by forcing two of his three hostages to shoot the other if they want to go free, then shooting the “winner” in the back anyway. That leaves Sofia as his only hostage, warning her he’s the only thing standing between her and his men making sport of her. Meanwhile, the cars are all repaired thanks to a sharing of resources and skills.

The race as it was has been postponed, and the rules have changed: the ten of them vow to go into Stone Hill, rescue Sofia and take Gil out come hell or high water, which means they’re all on the same team until that’s all been done. Kosame’s wound is still tender but he decides to join the others, but it won’t be easy: Gill has one hundred men in that ghost town.

Even so, there’s never any doubt that the numbers advantage would be irrelevant, especially with two of the Thousand Three as the vanguard. For some reason Gil has his hundred men scattered randomly throughout the town, or his numbers would have worked a little better for him. Instead, the Ten Braves split up into complementary pairs and fight smaller groups of Gil’s men. Chase is the first to reach the chapel after pretending to be shot dead.

Everyone else gets their chance to shine, although it’s clear Al Lyon is the worst of the fighters in both firepower and good judgment. He allows Gil’s one woman fighter to goad him into charging her and almost gets killed. Thankfully that leads to an absolutely badass martial arts contest between Xialian and Gil’s henchwoman, a bout that’s sharp, focused, and simply fantastic fun to watch.

Appare has to use his trump card (an electrified net gun) early and Kosame’s wound reoopens, but most of the henchmen are dealt with by the time Chase sends up a flare, indicating where the others should head. But when they hear gunshots, they fear the worst as Gil learns the ransom is fake. He ordered his men to “slaughter” the racers, and the fact they didn’t obey him makes him extremely cranky. Hopefully the climactic rematch will go a little better for the good guys!

Appare-Ranman! – 11 – A Break in the Clouds

The Bad Brothers managed to survive having a train car derail on top of them, meaning they have the one working car with which to rush Kosame to the hospital. The bullet is removed and bleeding stopped; all that’s left is for him to wake up, but the doctor cannot say when or even if he will.

Appare simply cannot fathom why Kosame lunged in front of him to take the bullet; it defies all logic to him. But with Kosame possibly out of the picture, Appare also loses all will to fix his car or continue the race. Declaring himself useless, he wanders the town, unsure what to do.

Al knows what he must do: get his car fixed at all costs so he can rescue Sofia. Typical youthful hot-headedness; he does remember how Gil utterly owned everyone’s asses, right? No, it will take a plan, not mere passion, to defeat Gil. Also brakes. Gotta be able to stop your car!

Hototo stays by his savior’s bedside, while Dylan and TJ recount their rivalry over the heart of Claudia, which ended for TJ when she chose Dylan. It only takes a couple of stills to learn these two were once friends and partners in noble crime.

As clouds gather and rain starts to fall in sheets, Appare’s mask of numbness falls away, and he bawls like he’s never bawled before. The blood on his clothes washes away, and then Hototo locates him and tells him to come back to the hospital.

There, Appare finds Kosame with a cloth over his head…but then Kosame, who has woken up, blows the cloth off his face. The preview was a complete fake-out! I assumed the show wouldn’t go so far as to ax him permanently. While getting his ability to use his sword marked the end of a character arc for him, he I still want to see him return home to his family someday.

Thanks to modern medicine, he can. Kosame tells Appare that the new idea of blood transfusion defied Gil’s will to kill him. They’ll defy him again, but not alone. The drivers meet to discuss how dire the situation is, but the clouds part just as Appare returns, back to his old self.

He tells Al he’ll help him fix his car (including making him new brakes) and they’ll get across the Missouri no matter what. GM exec Seth Carter decides to deploy his mechanics to assist everyone, as teams don’t matter right now. This is about saving the hostages and foiling Gil’s attempts to stop the race—their race.

Appare-Ranman! – 10 – Snakes on a Train

Their respite over, it’s time for the racers to get back to work, this time racing a train out of Nebraska with Big Boss hoping to prove the era of the automobile has come. Richard is Sofia’s companion aboard the train, and every moment they chat is skin-crawling, because we know Richard is Gil T. Cigar just waiting to strike like the snake he is, and Sofia has no idea, thinking she’s pegged “Richard” as too kind to stay in the race.

When the train baron calls Gil back to his ornate caboose to lecture him like an employee, Gil casually throws him and his chair out the side of the train before returning to the car and telling Sofia her prayer for a safe race won’t be answered. With that, his henchmen rise up from among the passengers and slither through the train, killing the crew and marshals, tossing bombs, and taking hostages.

Gil brings the train to a stop on the bridge over the Missouri River, then runs out to confront the racers he’s blocked. He runs towards them in a fake panic as “Richard”, but Dylan & Co. soon realize something’s not right. They’re too late, as Gil reveals who he is and produces Sofia’s hat, stained with blood, to indicate his cruel intentions.

Nobody, not even TJ and Dylan, can hang with Gil long in a fight. His demands are simple: he wants the 1.51 million in prize money for the winner of the race, and he’ll let the hostages on the train go. Chances are even if they get him the cash, more if not all of them will die anyway; we’re dealing with a butcher, after all. When Appare tries to voice his outrage at Gil’s villainy, Gil shoots him—but it’s Kosame who takes the bullet.

After trashing all of the cars, Gil and his crew take off on the train. Al chases after Sofia in vain. Xialian tries to stop the bleeding, and Appare tries to start his car, but both fail, and a very wan Kosame passes out after declaring proudly that he’s glad his buddy is okay.

You could scarcely ask for a more extreme shift in mood and stakes than from last week’s joyful rest episode to now, when Kosame may be dead, Sofia is a hostage, and the racers have nothing to drive. But like Kosame, I’ll put my faith in Appare: surely he can use parts of all the damaged cars to build something that can get them moving again.

Appare-Ranman! – 09 – Taking a Load Off

The car companies decide that despite the threat of Gil, the race will go on. The route to the next supply point is adjusted for the safety of the race staff. That means all of the racers have a day off, and this episode is all about how they spend that day, which means it’s all about Appare-Ranman’s colorful cast of characters.

This episode features a formidable number of character pairings and groupings, from Hototo an Dylan to Appare and former engineer Seth Carter to Hototo and the Bad Brothers. Appare spends much of the day lost in deep calculations about his hybrid drive, but everyone else basically kicks back.

We learn a lot of little details during this slice-of-life excursion: TJ and Al have a drinking contest, but Sofia easily drinks both of them under the table. Xialian and Kosame spar, and the former brings up how her father taught her kung fu to protect herself. Little things here and there that bring the ensemble cast to life.

Naturally there’s a fair amount of comedy in the episode, from the lost-in-thought Appare collecting objects until he’s riding on a donkey’s back in a barber’s smock with display pennants and a ragdoll hanging from him and his foot in a bucket.

The donkey eventually bucks him straight into a building occupied by one Thomas Edison. There’s even a hot springs session with the whole gang, and Kosame and Appare learn about American modesty the hard way. Sofia discusses Al with Xialian while the boys play an increasingly spirited game of jan-ken-pon.

It’s all a lot of fun despite the fact there’s no racing, and by sunrise the next day Appare’s hybrid system is in good working order, such that he deems the “real race” about to begin. But as Sofia boards the train that will follow the route of the race, she’s accompanied by Richard Riesman, whom we already know to be the real villainous Gil. No matter how much liquor Sofia can hold, that can’t be good!

Appare-Ranman! – 08 – Cutting Through the Past

Appare, Xialian and Al leave Eli, Nevada at dawn in pursuit of the lead pack, only to find them massacred on the road. Only Rich Riesman survives, and describes the bandits as having snake tattoos. Hototo, still seeking revenge for his father’s death after the other Gil turned out to be an impostor, tracks the bandits’ horses to a post town.

At the poor, dusty, remote town, no one is in the mood to talk except those folk who bear snake tattoos—including the sheriff. A standoff ensues, but when the time comes to fight, Kosame freezes up—again—unable to unsheathe his katana. The others are taken away to be hung at sundown, while Kosame is allowed to go free; marked as a coward not worth killing.

The initially surly bartender invites Kosame back into her tavern for a whiskey, sensing there’s more to him than plain cowardice. He tells her the story of a cold winter’s night when he was a child powerless to protect his mother from a bandit’s blade. The chill from that night has kept his blade stuck in its sheath ever since, but the bartender tells him he shouldn’t regret his inaction back then—he was just a kid—and in any case no one can change the past

Bouyed by the bartender’s words, Kosame spends the rest of the day training aggressively for the moment his sword must not fail to come out of the sheath: when he approaches the gallows where his friends are about to be hanged. It’s a beautifully-lit and colored scene with all the requisite western panache as he emerges from the rolling dust, one man with two swords against many men with guns.

For the first time, Appare, Hototo, Xialian and Al witness Kosame’s true swordsmanship as he first slices the apparition of the bandit who killed his mother, then proceeds to dodge bullets and cut the ones he can’t in half until the enemy has been defeated and his friends are safe. Hototo’s opinion of Kosame immediately shifts, while Kosame insists kids like him simply be kids and let adults protect him.

As the five stroll into the sunset to rejoin the race, Richard Riesman, who presumably went ahead to Denver to seek help, is instead revealed as the true Gil T. Cigar, meaning that a Appare’s completed hybrid system and driving skills won’t be enough to survive this race. They may need to call upon Kosame’s steel again, but now that he’s shaken off the winter frost, they’ll be able to rely on that steel.

Appare-Ranman! – 07 – People Aren’t Machines

From what I gather, Gil’s car catches up to the others, mows through the debris, and detonates rocks in the valley, forcing everyone else to take a detour. But thanks to some highly questionable editing we’re shown events out of order, and in some cases more than once, adding needless confusion to the sequence.

Appare’s car manages to make it through the explosion only to break down; eventually Xialian and Al either catch up to them or backtrack and offer to take turns towing him. Neither want an easy win, which leaving Appare behind would cause.

They end up camping for the night, with Appare proving useless at hunting, fishing, and cooking. Kosame dreams of his mother being murdered protecting him and wakes up screaming. Appare is starting to act more human as he realizes people aren’t engines driven merely by logic and science.

By the time the three drivers make it to Eli, Nevada, Gil has already been their eight hours and is ready to go, but they block him. Hototo wants answers about what happened to his father.

When the crowd starts to stone him, Appare, Xialian, Al, and even Sophia shield him with their bodies. Finally, Gil removes his mask and speaks, revealing he and his big brother were merely impersonating Gil, which means they had nothing to do with Hototo’s dad.

 

 

Appare-Ranman! – 06 – Outside the Box

At the start of the rave, favorites Dylan, TJ and Al are in the front, with Appare’s thrown-together contraption just barely keeping up with the second group of Xialian and Richard Riesman. Al stops at a railroad crossing, but daredevils Dylan and TJ jump the track a moment before the train crosses, showing they’re willing to put their lives on the line for this race. Since they’re the first into the first supply town of Lancaster, they’ll be the first allowed to leave.

As teams rest and resupply, Al finds himself feeling discouraged and insecure. He wonders if it would be better for Sofia to go ahead by train and meet him in New York, since the race will only get hairier.

Sofia reminds him that he’s not supposed to be putting his life on the line for the race; he has a future with her and the company to think of. After Kosame spars with Al (and continues to exhibit a kind of “block” keeping him from his best swordsmanship) he buys Appare, Hototo and Xialian a nice dinner.

Appare’s team is scheduled for a 12:07 am departure from Lancaster, but Hototo, having seen Gil’s henchmen all over town, decides to split off in order to “take care of something.” He overhears Gil’s team planning to sabotage the entrance to Death Valley via the Valley of Despair and dynamite the entrance behind them.

Hototo doesn’t do a great job of staying hidden, and one of those henchmen finds him. They tie him up and stuff him in a box. When the start time arrives, Appare pretends the car needs more work to buy Kosame more time to find Hototo.

Hototo finally breaks out of his box prison by the side of the road and runs back into town to reunite with Kosame. Appare betrays a brief smile at the sight of their return, and off they go. Fortunately, all the cars that left ahead of them were stopped in their tracks by Gil’s men blocking the entrance with junk, so the delay doesn’t hurt them.

Appare is confident his newly “reborn” engine, improved during the downtime in Lancaster, can catch up to the group, overcome the junk and the dynamite, and remain in the running for the win. He’s tired of relying on shortcuts; he wants to win with his machine, not in spite of it, or all of this is for nothing.

Appare-Ranman! – 05 – Jockeying for Position

Kosame gathers up a sleeping Appare and Hototo for the pre-race banquet, where they are immediately turned away for not abiding by the dress code—something Xialian is doing thanks to her classy new dress. The code suddenly becomes more flexible when Thousand Three member TJ arrives in an outfit even more outlandish than Appare’s, carrying a turntable boombox playing anachronistic music.

Thanks to TJ the others gain entry (once Kosame puts on a necktie), and we soon learn that when it comes to fashion, Thousand Three members are extremely extra, judging by the arrival of the ruthless Gil and his lieutenant Chase. Hototo only came in order to ask Dylan about a snake tattoo. Dylan tells him it’s worn by Gil’s henchmen, but suggests that if he wants revenge (and not to die), he’ll have to be patient.

There are introductions of the B.I.G. BOSS car companies, the race cars, and their drivers (Kosame’s name is mispronounced and they’re given number 0), and then the pre-race lottery for pole position begins. TJ breaks up the ceremony by shooting the raffle box and declaring pole position for himself, which leads Dylan to challenge him. That sparks a very weird pistol duel, complete with unlimited ammo and acrobatic bullet-dodging moves.

The other drivers hash it out with duels ranging from kicking  to cucumber slicing. It’s all a little nutty and arbitrary, and it’s a miracle not one person was shot or even wounded by all the stray gunfire (though if the show takes such liberties with tech and fashion, it tracks that it doesn’t have a problem taking them with normal human ability and gun lethality as well).

That brings us to the next day and the start of the race, which we first saw in the first episode back in April. After five episodes of setup, the race has finally begun, and Appare has a steam-powered car in a race that favors gasoline-powered cars. No matter; he declares the car will never be finished because it will always be evolving, including during the race.

With Hototo as a guide and Kosame as…er, captain, they’ll no doubt take routes and make moves other racers are either too afraid or too sane—or both—to attempt. But even as the racers speed off into the wild, there are conspiratorial elements committed to turning the race into a “tragedy”.

Appare-Ranman! – 04 – Win With Something Else

While working diligently at the diner, Kosame learns how expensive automobiles are, and gets the idea to simply sell the car they won from Al Lyon. Even with just his half share he’s sure he can book passage back home. Alas, Appare has already dissected the BNW down to the last bolt, and is already preparing to integrate its components into his custom racer.

Meanwhile, Xialian’s boss turns her down simply because “women don’t race.” She just wants a chance to prove she’s capable, and thanks to getting into a fight with lead driver David, the team owner decides to allow an informal race before practice Wednesday. If Xialian loses, she’s fired.

The owner also lends Xialian the team’s infamous Number 0 car, which has engine gremlins so bad it doesn’t even make it to Appare’s garage. The odds are certainly stacked against her, but all the elements are present for an vital upset against the sexist good-old-boy club of racing.

When Xialian arrives pushing Number 0, laughing in the face of those odds, Appare recommends giving it acceleration mods so she can easily win the race, but she just wants it serviced normally. Appare, an engineer first and driver second, doesn’t see the point, but he has Al Lyon’s team work on the car.

Then he shows that while he’s not a driver first, he knows what it means to drive, and win, despite not having the best or fastest car. In the previous episode he used his technical know-how and the terrain. With no time for prototypes, he must visualize test driving his racer in his head, and Xialian follows along until the two are steering and shifting in unison.

Xialian takes the creatively-delivered advice to heart on the day of the race. David has his usual sexist comments ready, but she’s the one who gets of to a better start, which the men chalk up to her lighter weight. That may be the case, but no matter the gender a driver must exploit every advantage.

As Kosame, Hototo, Al and Sofia watch and cheer for Xialian, she lets David maintain a slim lead without letting him pull away. Since she started ahead of him, he wore his tires out aggressively driving to take that nominal lead. That puts her in his draft, so his car is displacing air hers doesn’t have to, lessening her fuel consumption and tire wear.

Xialian re-takes the lead and David can’t get it back, so on the last corner he makes contact with her car in order to take the lead. Her car spins, but she never loses control, keeping her foot on the gas and keeping the car out of the wall.

At the end, David is ready to celebrate his win while Xialian is ready to slug him. But to her shock, it’s the owner whose fist reaches David’s face first. He saw exactly what he did, and it nearly got two of his cars wrecked in an exhibition race.

Meanwhile, he also saw how Xialian handled herself, both during the race and when David hit her, and he’s impressed. His “hate the culture, not the owner” stance regarding a woman pro racer is still a cop-out, but he won’t deny she’s a true racer. He also decides to lend her Number 0 for the Trans American Race, while the similarly impressed mechanics offer to help outfit the car for cross-country racing.

The scenes in which Dylan and his ambitious business friend discuss the players in the upcoming race, and in which the press only has time for one hasty photo of Kosame shielding his eyes from the camera flash, feel out of place at the end of this episode, and more like a prologue of the next.

Nevertheless, Appare-Ranman! emerges from its three-month hiatus having not skipped a beat. It was cool to see two conventional race cars go at it on a track, and I’m glad Xialian’s hard work paid off. Appare was mostly his usual passive self, but his “mind-driving” session with Xialian was beautiful. It looks like we’ll be out of L.A. and on the road soon!

Appare-Ranman! – 03 – Taking Flight

Thanks to Dylan, Kosame and the native boy Hototo are saved. Appare repays him by promising he’ll be in the car ahead of him one day, to which Dylan says bring it on. Appare makes a lot of promises to a lot of  people, but considering how far he’s come on his ingenuity, he’s yet to make a claim he can’t back up. Kosame is learning that he’s not as crazy as he looks.

As for Hototo, he’s on a quest of vengeance, aiming to find the man who killed his father. In him Appare sees someone with knowledge of the terrain to the east, which will be part of the race. Like Appare and Kosame, Hototo has nowhere else to go, so he accepts their hospitality.

Their ability to offer Hototo a place to stay is disrupted when the young, rich BNW scion Al Lyon arrives in town with his kind Chaperone Sofia (Orisaka Fumiko…RUKIA!) and buys all the storehouses from the sea captain, including Appare and Kosame’s.

Al says he needs all of the space he’s bought, so Appare suggests they race in their respective machines in 10 days. If Al wins, he’ll get Kosame’s prized swords—which you’ll remember he can’t draw when he’s in a pinch. If Appare wins, they get the storehouse.

Appare knows he doesn’t need to build a machine that will beat Al’s sleek BNW in every aspect of performance. Al let him choose the course, so all he has to build is something that will achieve the objective of the race, no more or less. It can crumble to dust immediately after, as long as they win.

Grateful that he was able to repair her company’s car, Xialian gives Appare access to spare parts, which he picks up in his hastily-built Segway-like self-balancing scooter. Still, Xialian hasn’t driven since the incident, her team has no intention of entering, and she is certain Appare can’t beat BNW.

The day of the race in the dusty, rugged outskirts of L.A. finally comes. Appare and Kosame arrive a bit late in an ungainly (and above all very slow looking) contraption, fueling the fires of doubt in Xialian. Al is certain he’s got this, and amends the deal once more: he gets the swords, the Segway, and the car.

Al gets off to a quick lead with his straight-line speed, but has to go around a cliff that Appare’s car can leap over. Still, Al is closer to the finish when Appare has Kosame pull a lever that launches half of the car—and Kosame—ahead of Al. All Kosame has to do is run to the tree and touch it before Al, which he does. Notably, while racing Appare’s personality changes completely, to something more in line with his appearance.

Impressed by the win and acknowledging his complacency, Al takes the loss in stride, giving Appare his car and use of the storeroom to his heart’s content. Appare in turn is a good winner, and offers Al the Segway so he doesn’t have to walk home. Al refuses, but Sofia accepts, and you can’t blame her—that’s a long walk in a stuffy dress!

The win over Al lends further credibility to Appare’s capability, along with stability, as losing use of their garage is no longer a possibility. He must now set to work on a much more complex machine that will endure over the myriad terrains and conditions America will throw at them. He may have also convinced Xialian not to give up on her own dream to race.

With that, our three-part intro to Appare-Ranman! is complete, and we’ll have to wait a while for the rest of the story. It’s looking like other drivers will be more traditional good-natured rivals, while all of them will share a common enemy: a steam baron intent on squashing the automobile in its infancy to continue his hegemony.

Whatever the case, it’s a well-made, entertaining show and I’ll be looking forward to its return!

Appare-Ranman! – 02 – Even if the World Won’t Allow It

Note: Due to covid-19 the broadcasts of Appare-Ranman after the third episode have been delayed indefinitely. We’ll be reviewing future episodes if and when they become available.

It dawns on Kosame that returning to Japan (something he’d very much like to do) is no easy matter, and could take as much as “ten years of toil” to manage. Fortunately, his fighting skills are readily street-applicable skill than Appare—his fighting skills—and Appare puts him to work showing them off.

Then Appare picks up a flyer for the Trans-America Wild Race and stumbles upon the speedway where state-of-the-art driving machines are pitted against one another. While drivers like Dylan enjoy celebrity status, “the cars are the stars” here. It dawns on Appare he’s exactly where he needs to be: in a position to do something people say can’t be done. He’s going to enter the race and he’s going to win it.

A win will net him a cool 1.51 million dollars—them, if Kosame sticks by his side in this crazy venture. As they sit in an anachronisitc Art Deco diner(!) the samurai can’t deny that his share of the purse could solve many of his problems—his fiancee won’t wait ten years!—but he’s still skeptical, and rightfully so. Appare may have a dream, but they both just got there, and barely earn enough at the moment for food. They’re staying in a storeroom for free, and have no budget for a race car, let alone one that can beat the big manufacturers.

But absent a viable alternative (and fearful of FOMO), Kosame follows Appare, who breaks into the racetrack that night to check out the machinery. There they encounter Jing Xialian is already racing there, and almost accidentally runs a fearless Appare over. She damages the car—whih isn’t strictly hers—and when Kosame approaches her she exhibits her own martial arts prowess. In an effort to de-escalate, Kosame lets himself get hit by her kick.

As he recovers in the garage, Appare and Kosame learn more of Xialian’s story: she’s always loved cars and racing and joined the team as a chore girl. She’s good enough to race herself, but due to the sexism of the time she’s told she can’t be, and has come to believe it. Someone like Appare is clearly a good influence, as he doesn’t let the world tell him his limits, and doesn’t see why she should either. If you can do it, do it; don’t worry about the world’s rules. It’s hard to argue with him considering how far that attitude has gotten him so far.

Xialian’s story is not a particularly original one, but she’s another fun, colorful character I’m compelled to root for, even if she becomes Appare’s competitor in the race. Then there’s the celebrity driver Dylan, who saves Appare and Kosame when the latter is trying to help a young Native American kid from a group of racists. Notably, Kosame cannot physically draw his katana due to PTSD from a bloody incident in his past, so he needs the save. Dylan may well only be intervening because his peace is being disturbed.

There’s a lot of disbelief to suspend in Appare-Ranman from the total lack of language barriers, to the anything-goes dress code and futuristic technology/architecture. But once you let all that go, it’s a tremendously entertaining ride that’s just getting started. It’s just a shame we won’t be able to see much more of it due to delays. I just know I’ll definitely be tuned in when it returns.

 

Appare-Ranman! – 01 (First Impressions) – Across the Sea, Beyond the Sky

P.A. Works’ latest anime original focuses on the brilliant but eccentric engineer and inventor Sorano Appare, and Isshiki Kosame, his reluctant, timid samurai companion. We begin in Los Angeles as the two, along with a cute little assistant, are about to embark on an epic “Trans-America Wild Race” with an eclectic bunch of equally eccentric drivers from all over the world. It’s packed with anachronisms, but the spirit of adventure and getting movin’ is strong with this opening scene.

From there, AR! rewinds to a year ago in Japan, when Appare was in prison for crashing a steam-powered vehicle into the prized garden of the local lord. The lord appoints Kosame Appare’s “overseer”, assuming Appare survives a stay in the jail cell where major criminals are kept.

But it’s clear no simple cell lock can hold Appare, any more than his stodgy family business or his status as second son can keep him from setting out to find out how far his dreams and considerable technical skill can take him.

Kosame doesn’t realize how much bigger this is until it’s too late, as Appare escapes in his custom-made mini-steamship docked in a secret berth. Appare’s sister, who it seems is closest and most understanding of him among his family members, manages to bid him farewell with a good luck charm.

As for Kosame, the lord’s threat that he’ll share Appare’s fate should things go south, sticks by Appare, even though their little shakedown cruise takes them out to the open sea, with neither food nor water. It’s apparent Appare will need someone whose head isn’t always either in a mess of gears or up in the clouds if he’s going to survive his self-imposed journey.

When the ship runs out of fuel and the sea becalmed, Appare has time to finally explain to Kosame what he’s trying to do. It’s clearly around the turn of the century, when the steam engine have revolutionized industry and transport and Japan has been opened to the technologically-superior West.

Ever since first seeing steamships when he was four, Appare has never stopped absorbing the math and technical know-how needed to built devices of his own. He’s been tinkering for fifteen years, his own dreams fueled by the stories of Jules Verne which, as we know, would eventually become reality. Appare isn’t going to be left out. If anyone’s reaching the other side of the moon, he’s determined to be the first!

But first things first: surviving their current predicament. The ship is in need of repairs and fuel, but they’re getting nowhere fast, until Appare’s sister’s good luck charm pays dividends in the form of a passing American steamship. Even luckier, it’s captained and crewed by what seem to be kind, decent folk who are happy to tow Appare’s ship and even rap with him on some engineering problems.

I guess it’s time to talk about one of the most glaring problems with AR!, which is Appare’s look. I understand they wanted to give him a distinctive, eccentric look to match his personality and contrast sharply with the drab aesthetic of Koname everyone else, but IMO they went a bit too far; a 7 or 8 would have done fine, but they took things up to 11 or 12. Fortunately, he sounds far less crazy-goofy than he looks.

Also, that’s not a major problem here, and as more of those eccentric (and suitably weird-lookin’ for the timeline) racers appear, it will be less of a problem. Suffice it to say, Appare is Modernity Incarnate, while Kosame represents the old fashioned past being dragged along kicking and screaming. When they finally arrive at the port of Los Angeles bursting with technology and activity, it’s clear which of the two are now firmly in their element.

Appare-Ranman! starts strong and has a lot of potential for greatness, what with the odd couple, transcontinental road trip, and race-with-huge-reward stakes dynamics. Appare’s zany look is tempered by seiyu Hanae Natsuki, while Yamashita Seiichirou livens up a samurai who is clearly not your usual stoic warrior (though I wouldn’t quite call him a “coward” as the promotional synopsis did).

Evan Call (Violet Evergarden) classes up the joint with the score, and the animation quality you’d expect of P.A.’s better Works is present. Considering how sedentary most of us will be for the remainder of this year, I’m excited to live vicariously through the show’s enterprising, trailblazing characters as they embark on the adventure of their lives.