English Dub Review: APPARE-RANMAN! “WE WILL STOP YOU!!”

Overview:

The gang arranges for a plot to break out Sophia and the captives.

Our Take:

This is 100% the fight scene episode, and each person gets their chance to shine. It all comes together too, Appare using his boat-turned car as a boat once again to create a path for everyone, and everyone else using their fighting skills to break into the camp. Gil and his people have set up a base in a ghost town, where the captives from before, Sophia included, are being held prisoner. It’s a race against the clock, especially considering that Gil isn’t messing around at all.

Gil, as it turns out, doesn’t really have much of a motive. He is a chaotic character, and all he wants to do is prove that his mentality is correct, by sowing more discord across the land. He toys with his victims, such as forcing two of the prisoners to fight to the death for freedom, and then shooting the winner in the back. He’s also unmoved by the plights of others, and only seems to take note of the things that interest him personally. As such, it’s easy to think of him as a force that has to be removed, since Sophia is in danger, but it’s a lot harder to tell why exactly he’s doing what he’s doing. Chaos as a motive is fine and all, but there has to be more than just simply ‘being evil for the sake of it’. In that sense, I don’t find Gil really compelling, since he’s lacking a rationale to his actions, even when he commits atrocities.

On the other hand, the main team really bands together well. They split up into teams to scout the area and manage the situation (even Seth is there, although he is a non-combatant and much more scared than everyone else). It’s really cool to see everyone holding their own in different ways, Xialian using her martial arts, Kosame with his swordsmanship, TJ and Dylan as killer gunmen. Everything is well animated and the fights flow really smoothly, and considering how nearly everyone knows combat to some degree or another, it’s great to see everyone mesh together. It’s a cliffhanger ending, but I overall had a pretty good time of it. Next episode should be the last, and I look forward to see how they’ll wrap up both the race and Gil.