Anime Spotlight #3: Appare-Ranman!

Welcome BAWk, Weebotaks!
Last year in the Anime Spotlight, I bridged the gap between magic and science by covering A Certain anime franchise. This #AniMonday I'm all about the science. Or, rather, what passes for science in the fictionalized, anime version of 19th century America, as presented by P.A. Works, the same animation studio behind Fairy Gone. Don't worry, the CGI isn't bad this time!

As the title suggests, I'm talking about Appare-Ranman! (which translates to "Appare, in Bloom!"), a shonen racing anime--a rare combination that, while formulaic, works surprisingly well. In Meiji-era Japan, a samurai named Kosame has been charged with reining in the title character, mechanical genius, and all-around village nuisance, Appare. While testing out a small steamboat that he built himself, Appare finds himself and the unwitting Kosame stranded at sea. Before they know it, the odd pair (with the inoperable steamer in tow) are rescued by a freighter bound for America. With no money to pay their way back home, Appare and Kosame are left with no choice but to take part in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World by way of Around the World In 80 Days, a.k.a. "The Trans-America Wild Race." Originally sponsored as an automotive dick-measuring contest between Iron Motors, General Motors, and BNW (the "Big Three" auto-makers in the series), the Race is eventually joined by Jing Xialian (a Chinese, female auto mechanic looking to prove herself on the track because 1800s, racism, and gender stereotypes), Al Lyon (a rich pretty-boy with a cheesily awful "French" accent), the Bad Brothers (this series' Road Warriors-inspired characters), Hototo (a Native boy with revenge on his mind), Team Appare (comprised of Appare, Kosame, and Hototo, in an amphibious hybrid steampunk rocket dune buggy that Appare made from the remains of his steamboat), and "The Thousand Three," a trio of shonen-level gunfighters (each racing separately), so named because each of them have somehow killed a thousand men at once. The usual genre beats are hit in turn: character introductions, underdog stories, training sequences, qualification races, the Race beginning, hardships, plot twists, hidden potential, badass fight scenes, tragedy, renewed motivation, an overpowered villain with a world-shattering evil plan, and the misfit underdog main character doing what all misfit underdog main characters do in these kinds of shows, but without the really hard punching. I didn't care for the forced ending via time-skip in the last episode (Appare-Ranman! is only a thirteen episode series thus far), but the ending itself was done very well, all rom-com cliche's considered. As a couple of my favorite anime have done before it, Appare sticks its ending point while showing that there is more story to be told beyond its runtime. I will admit that the onslaught of COVID-delayed 2020 anime, combined with the release of new Fall and Winter series burned me out, and it took me almost a month to get back in the groove to finish the last three episodes, but neither that nor the predictable shonen plot mechanics (pun not intended) should detract you from seeing this particular race through from start to finish.

Next week, I thought I'd talk about a series that I omitted when I was doing the BAWklog list because I really want another season of it, and so don't consider it finished yet: Midnight Occult Civil Servants.

AniMeister,

Out.

PS: Jing is Best Girl.