Appare-Ranman!

Episode 1-2

There are few formulas better suited to animation than the Wacky Races rubric. You take a bunch of different characters with distinctly themed designs, put them in goofy looking supercars, and then just let things loose. Add some slapstick comedy, maybe some car puns to taste, and you've more than likely got yourself an entertaining cartoon. Appare-Ranman! hasn't quite gotten to the racing yet, but if the first episode's cold opening (Plus its energetic OP) is anything to go by we'll make it there eventually. That eventually may be further away than anyone expected, given the recent announcement of the series' indefinite delay after next episode, but what are you gonna do?

For now though, Appare-Ranman! is devoting its time to fleshing out the various colorful characters that'll be driving its suped-up 1900s racecars. The first episode follows the titular inventor, Appare, along with his reluctant bodyguard/babysitter Kosame through the series of events that leave them stranded in early twentieth century Los Angeles. Appare is your typical anime technical genius – prone to tunnel vision, great with machines but terrible with humans, you've seen this before – but what makes him work is a certain softness to how he carries himself. Appare isn't convinced he's smarter or better than anyone around him, rather he just wants to follow his passions and has run out of patience for people telling him to do otherwise for most of his life. Similarly his straightman foil Kosame is less a stickler for The Rules as he is a person driven by practicality. He doesn't resent Appare's inventing, but rather finds his dedication to it above all else frustrating because people have to eat before they can design superpowered steam boats.

That dynamic, with enough friction to keep their dialogue snappy but not so antagonistic as to beg why they put up with each other, is key to carrying these opening episodes with a sense of laid-back fun as the pair navigate this new and foreign land. Said setting is...interesting, let's say. I'm not one to quibble about historical accuracy in this kind of show, but there are a number of logistical questions that more exacting viewers might find niggling at the back of their mind. How can Appare and Kosame communicate with anyone? Do they know English? Why aren't they even questioned by authorities after winding up on US soil with no identification? These are questions that will probably never be answered, and the series is likely the better for it, but I can sympathize with folks driven crazy by the bizarrely convenience of it all.

That said, Appare-Ranman! isn't entirely divorced from the history of early 1900s American. Episode 2 introduces Jing Xialian, a woman who's grown up enamored with racing only to hit the low, low glass ceiling of “Chore Girl” at the racing team she works for. Considering this is smack-dab in the middle of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the US, this is still a relatively gentle and simple form of discrimination, but it works as motivation for Jing and gives us some interesting pathos when Appare comments on her situation. She may see it as impossible, but she has the passion and skill to be a racer, so why give up? It's a simplistic shonen-esque line of thinking, and Kosame is quick to remind him that not everyone can get away with following their passions against the grain of society at large, but from a character perspective it's a sign of solidarity. Appare recognizes Jing's talent and knows it's an illogical waste to keep her from behind the wheel, so he helps repair her team's car (that he helped damage in the first place, mind) and in doing so keeps her dream alive. We already know from the cold open that Jing indeed gets herself into the driver's seat eventually, but I'm very interested to see the journey she takes to get there.

We also get the seedlings of other characters set up near the end. Kosame rushes in to save a young Native American child named Hototo from a group of thugs, only to be saved himself by the gunslinging Dylan G. Ordene, another of their future racing rivals. The detail of Hototo's attackers calling his people “savages” is an interesting one, and while I'm a bit put off by the stereotypical nature of his design, the show's won enough goodwill that I'm willing to see what it might have to say about American oppression of indigenous people. It likely won't be deep, but if the show can at least clear the bar of tasteful I'll be satisfied.

Overall Appare-Ranman! is off to a pretty solid start. While I'm a bit impatient to get to the wild racing hijinks, the show's gradually building up a surprisingly human cast considering their garish designs, and if it continues with that it'll just make the high octane action all the better.

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Appare-Ranman! is currently streaming on Funimation.