 The story is set at the end of the 19th century on the eve of the next one. After a certain mishap, the brilliant but socially inept engineer Sorano Apare and the shrewd but cowardly samurai Ishiki Kosome find themselves drifting on a boat from Japan to America. Broke, the two decide to compete in the trans-America wild race to win the prize and return to Japan. Hey everybody, welcome back to another First Impressions video. This time we're talking PA Works' cool new series Apare Ranman. This is one of my most anticipated shows of 2020. I was very excited to watch the first episode and I love how crazy the premise of the story is. You have all these characters basically doing an anime version of wacky races. You have these eccentric characters racing across America. I love that it's set in the U.S. so you can have different settings. You know, the topography is not going to be the same in LA over at New York. Especially in the late 19th century, early 20th century, it's going to be vastly different. So I'm very excited about that. The character designs are very cool looking. I love the main duo. One of the things I was really surprised when I started watching the series, the first episode I should say, is the character of Sorano Apare. I thought the character was a girl, but it turns out he's a very eccentric guy. But he is a character that reminded me of Senku from Dr. Stone in that he is moving at his own beat, the beat of his own drama I should say. He is very interested in how mechanics and steam powered stuff works. He's a scientist through and through, or a mechanic I should say, or an engineer. And that doesn't sit well with his family, which I thought was really interesting to see. We've had this plot point before in different stories and it's an effective way of showing a character breaking the tradition from a family and a family accepting someone in their household who's different. Will that pay off in the end? Well, we still have a lot of episodes to go, so we'll see what happens. But with the start of the series, I was very surprised that we got an early look at these characters and what makes them tick. Now it's not the most exciting start to the series, because when you see the trailers, everything looks so bright and colorful. The color palette is off the chain with this series and you sort of just want to jump in there. It sort of reminded me of things like Red Line, the anime movie. I wanted to see something like that at the beginning, but instead we do get the start of the race and it goes back into our two main leads and how they got there in the first place. Sordano being part of this very strict family and they not coming to terms with his eccentric nature and his disinterest in the family business and him just wanting to explore popular mechanics, if you will, and dreaming big, which is something that every teenager can relate to, wanting to reach through the stars and construct everything and see how everything works and literally travel across the ocean to other lands, travel to the sky, the stars, the moon, all that stuff. He gets appointed the samurai Ishiki Kosame, he's supposed to be his caretaker to keep him in line, but he gets entangled with his shenanigans and the two suddenly find themselves in America and they're going to take part in this race. I don't want to spoil everything about the episode, but it's quite interesting. Again, the colors and the animation are fantastic. PA works, I love the stuff that they do, and this doesn't disappoint in my opinion. Sure, it might not have been the best or the most action-packed start to this series, but I'm confident that good things are coming and the following episodes will surely deliver on the craziness of this race. Every car is different, there's some really wacky designs and the characters seem to know each other from the get-go or at least on a name basis, so I'm very interested in finding out how all the racers come to learn about each other and of course the actual race. The music is great and the characters, they look fantastic. I love it, I am really excited and hopefully the series does deliver. It's a very, it's a unique series for an anime. We've seen races across the globe before in literature and movies and all that stuff, but to have it in anime form, I can't help, but be giddy with excitement. I love when a series takes a bold, strong look at something and they construct something fabulous for viewers to enjoy, if you know what I mean. Apare Ranman! First episode is out, let me know in the comment section what you thought of the series, if you've watched it, if not, what are some of your favorite anime or manga involving racing and race cars? Very interested in finding out. Thank you everybody for tuning in. As always, thank you for liking, commenting, subscribing, being a part of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube. I couldn't do it without you guys. Follow me on social media if you can, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that fun stuff. I've got to go, I've got more stuff to view, I've got more books to read, and yeah let's keep the ball rolling. Thank you everybody, I will catch all of you on our next episode.