Sure this was a string of massive cliches, but they’re good cliches.  I don’t really think there was an ounce of original content to this episode of Appare-Ranman, but these are genres where original is a hard commodity to come by.  “New” takes are basically all riffing on the same themes, but as with jazz, success comes down to how good the riffing is.  And Appare-Ranman has gotten pretty good at it.  A succession of samurai, western movie, and Sergio Leone can be very entertaining if it’s done well.  And anime does seem to have something of an obsession with Sergio Leone.

One reason why things are working better, I suspect, is that the series has now openly acknowledged that Kosame is the real protagonist, not the titular Appare.  He’s just a lot more interesting – Appare is basically more the plot driver (and driver generally) than the protagonist (a division of labor you often see in anime).  There’s not much subtle or novel about Kosame’s arc, but at least he has one.  Hototo is more of a protag than Appare too, truth be told.  We’ve seen his story too of course, but it’s nice to see an anime openly reflect bias and prejudice against indigenous people (it’s much safer to do when you use Native Americans as a stand-in for Ainu).

So Richard Riesman?  Yeah, he’s Gil, but we pretty much knew that.  No way anyone could have been more suspicious than “Richard” was, especially when he was the only survivor of the attack on the leading drivers.  The ones driving this aspect of the story finally make their appearance, and while they aren’t identified my money would still be on the railroads.  Ironically this situation basically played out in reverse in Los Angeles, where auto-related companies (like tire and oil) paid off city politicians to rip up the city’s excellent “Red Car” tram lines to force people to drive.

As for Kosame’s heroics, well – yes, they were both cliched and ludicrous.  Mythbusters in fact did a segment on this very theme and no, katana can’t slice through the barrel of a gun..  But Westerns and samurai flicks (which are thematically so in-synch) aren’t meant to be realistic, they’re meant to be allegorical and epic.  So give Kosame his moment in Leone fashion, and don’t sweat the details.  If “it’s been done” was a disqualifier, not a hell of a lot of fiction would ever see the light of day.

I like the place the story has taken Kosame and Hototo, its two most interesting characters.  Kosame has framed this around the idea that he can leverage his own tragedy to benefit Hototo – that he can be there for Hototo when there was no adult there for him.  But the real Gil is still out there – the sheriff and his henchmen in Calico Town were just zaku – and I can’t help but think that in the end, Hototo will need to be the one to confront Gil himself to feel any sense of closure.  That, more than the direction of the race itself, strikes me as the most interesting ongoing thread in Appare-Ranman.