English Dub Review: APPARE-RANMAN “short break”

Overview:

This was a gag episode mostly, but honestly… I don’t mind at all!

Our Take:

Seeing as they’re in the middle of America, there is no beach, so instead of a beach episode, a hot spring episode it is. Honestly, the crew has really grown on me. Seeing them all put their differences to just have fun for a while really makes it. While it took each individual person a lot to actually get here, once they’re on the road, they don’t really seem to have much against each other. The two brothers, once they abandoned the idea of being Gil, really mellowed out so you can tell that it was an act they were putting on. Even the characters that the main gang isn’t really close with, like TJ and Dylan, still have enough of a good camaraderie with the cast that them hanging around is no big deal. Honestly, I like it a lot.

Also, the gags were good. Appare and Kosame being used to Japanese hot springs, where going in nude is the norm, clashes greatly with everyone wearing swimsuits to a jacuzzi was really funny. The culture clash makes sense and it’s a riot. Also, Appare being so single-mindedly focused on his tasks that he loses track where he’s going, even picking up trash on his person along the way? Hilarious. In a plot twist, Appare… meets Thomas Edison? And helps invent the lightbulb? Well, that’s not something I saw coming but I will take it?

Sophia!! She always came off as a high class lady with spirit, but now we can see she can hold her spirits as well. Her being able to outdrink TJ by a lot and still be mostly fine afterwards was great, I love her. Contrast with Al who’s an absolute lightweight and it’s even funnier. Xialian and her training is also something I won’t turn down, I really like the girls in this series.

A thing I didn’t expect was a backstory on Carter. He seemed like a stuck up snob before, but now we know he climbed his way up from an engineer to his position. Appare being himself fires him up in his old passions, and while I don’t feel much for Carter, the extra info is a nice tidbit. This series does a good job at showing people through small moments.

Granted, this is a fragile peace; we still don’t know who Gil’s true identity (or if there even is a Gil) is, and there’s still a lot riding on who will end up being the victor. Still, this was genuinely cute and no objections there.