A group of rough-and-tumble space outlaws. A criminal organization with a team of android assassins. A hard-as-nails female detective and her airhead sidekick. And a planet packed with treasure scheduled for demolition.
Shove them together, and you've got Coyote Ragtime Show.
The twelve-episode series basically follows the misadventures of Mister, the leader of a branch of outlaws referred to as 'Coyotes', and his adopted daughter-thing Franca, who holds the keys to a massive treasure that's the legacy of her father, a legendary Coyote. However, they are not only being pursued by a sexy, gothic woman named Marciano, but her band of '12 SISTERs', a band of robots dressed head to toe in Goth-Loli. Really.
The first two episodes can currently be watched for free on the FUNimation video portal, here
This series provides examples of:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Angelica developed feelings for Mister after seeing him pull off a caper while she was a traffic cop.
- Alternative Calendar: The series uses the G.C. calendar, though it's unsure what it stands for.
- Amazon Brigade: The Twelve Sisters.
- Ambiguous Innocence: All the Sisters, especially the young-looking ones. They treat mass murder like a game and are more interested in clothes, and it's not clear that they really know what they're doing. May gets a redemption arc when she has little choice but to follow along with Angelica, and April definitely knows the weight of her actions, but those two were more mature.
- Anachronism Stew: Where did they get those seventies-cop-show AMC Matador police cars from?
- And the Adventure Continues: The Coyotes end the show talking about the next capers they want to pull off.
- Badass and Child Duo: Mister and Franca, a hardened criminal known for over-the-top heroics and a little girl. See the page image above.
- Big Eater: Angelica is constantly eating and Mister and friends can pack in just as much.
- Blackmail: While Angelica spends the series being the more lawful counterpart to the criminal Coyotes, she ends up contributing in the end by threatening to expose the President of the Federation as a Guild member if he doesn't help her stop the bomb.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!: April has a gold Luger.
- Board to Death: Marciano is being scolded by the rest of the Guild's council for causing an undue disturbance. Her response is to smile like a psycho; the next time we see the board, they're in the process of being slaughtered by the 12 Sisters. One of the board members that hasn't been killed yet grumbles that this is a bit of an over-reaction.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Nearly all of the Twelve Sisters carry WWII-era firearms, and seem to especially favor German guns like April's Luger.
- Butt-Monkey: Bishop is the butt of nearly every joke in his Cast Herd.
- Church Militant: You've gotta wonder what's going through people's heads when they ask a fully armed ex-criminal to be the head priest in a local church.
- Cool Old Guy: The main character!
- Cute Bruiser: Four of the SISTERs are little girls. August usually uses bombs, but the triplets — Oct, Nove, and Dec — prefer to throw things around.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: The super-heist Bruce pulled off in the backstory, and which is central to the whole plot, had him infiltrate the bank that runs all of the galaxy's finances and climbing its ladder to obtain the CEO authorization to its main vault. Along the way he revolutionized the bank's mangement, earned it billions more, and would have remained with a very good settlement for him and his daughter for life had he remained a loyal employee. Mister muses that in the end, Bruce wanted the rep of pulling off the heist much more.
- Cute Mute: June, unlike her sisters, generally doesn't speak.
- Daddy's Girl: Franca towards her father, Bruce, back when he was still alive. Bruce was also known to dote on her a lot too.
- "Day of the Week" Name: The 12 Sisters, named for the 12 months.
- Determinator: Shot twice? Has to chase after the Big Bad's battleship? The only vehicle available is the unarmed flying car being used by the detective who's been chasing him for four years? Yeah, that's not gonna stop Mister from rescuing Franca.
- The End... Or Is It?: Sure, Mister and the crew were able to defeat Marciano's guild and save Planet Graceland from being destroyed while contributing to the end of the civil war there. But some of the 12 Sisters are still alive. April shows the ability to cry when Marciano dies, even though we know she's a robot. Angelica and Mister also both leave hints as to what they'll be up to next.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Evil as they may be, the 12 Sisters seem to genuinely love and care for each other. They also seem to think their mother, Marciano, cares for them, though she sure doesn't seem to show it; in the end, she even reveals that she calls them her daughters because people belittled her for not being able to have children. Which would be great if she actually treated them like her children.
- Eyes Always Shut: July. It doesn't make her aim worse than anyone else, somehow.
- Fair Cop: Angelica and Chelsea. Both are commented on fairly often, with Angelica "beautiful" and Chelsea "cute."
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Franca wears one of her stockings all the way up and lets the other lag down.
- A Father to His Men: Coyotes in general aspire to be this, with their principle being that they never betray their True Companions.
- Fun with Foreign Languages: An accidental case that may count as Bilingual Bonus: Marciano means "Martian" (as in, an alien from planet Mars) in Spanish. With the added cultural hilarity that in some places it's used as a term for either 'weird' or 'flamboyantly gay' (to avoid the use of the actual derogatory term for an obviously gay man).
- Genius Ditz: Chelsea is an airhead and struggles with reading, but she has Photographic Memory.
- Gratuitous English: Marciano commands her troops with "It's showtime!"
- Hand Cannon: According to the title sequence, Mister's favored revolver is chambered in .500 S&W Magnum. No wonder armored mooks go down in a single shot.
- Heel–Face Turn: May starts out completely Ax-Crazy in the first episode, but once she literally loses her head, she ends up bonding with Angelica and Chelsea, eventually helping them escape from Marciano in the end.
- Helping Would Be Killstealing: At one point, January wants to shoot Katana while he's in a knife fight with June, but August stops her because it would be interfering.
- Ignored Epiphany: Late in the series, Marciano wonders if all the corruption and death she leaves in her wake is the right path, but her yes-man Nilson assures her that she's fine, and she just keeps on going.
- I Have Many Names: Mister has so many false identities that he's pretty much Only Known By His Nickname.
- Improbable Age: Notably averted, which is surprising given that so many other anime use it. Mister is fifty or more, Angelica is explicitly thirty, and as a twenty-four-year-old detective, Chelsea's on the young side.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Mister drops a Guild soldier with a headshot... behind him, without looking.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Shots only seem to hit major characters when drama requires it or when a Sister needs to be hit, since they can be easily repaired. At one point, Franca parachutes out into a firefight and is completely unharmed.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Franca's father is supposed to be Blues, but ADV Films called him Bruce. Also, the last SISTER is called Dec, but some subs called her Diesse.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Mister with his crew. He's in his fifties, Bishop and Katana in their twenties or thirties, and Franca is a little girl.
- Just a Gangster: Used in a "heroic" fashion when Mister reminisces of Bruce's super-heist. Bruce could have earned a billion times more on a steady basis by remaining a bank CEO, but he started up in the company with the desire to steal from it and that's what he did, a Coyote to the end.
- Lady of War: Marciano, a dignified mobster who directs her children like a general.
- Losing Your Head: May is decapitated by a rocket launcher in the first episode and is still operational.
- Lovable Rogue: The Coyotes in general, being pirates with a skewed but strong moral code.
- Macross Missile Massacre: A lot of action sequences have these, as does the opening theme.
- May–December Romance: It's revealed later in the story that Angelica has a crush on Mister, despite him being at least 20 or 30 years her senior.
- Musical Theme Naming: There's a lot going on here. The planet they're chasing is called "Graceland" and the bomb deactivation code is ELVIS0821. The space gate they travel through midway through the series is Big Pink, the pirate king's name is Blues, and so on.
- Never My Fault: Marciano says "it's your fault for dying" when she monologues hoping Blues will hear from the afterlife. And who killed Blues, again...?
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: When Marciano finally actually fights on her own instead of commanding the Sisters or her soldiers, she's frighteningly strong and fast, able to dodge bullets and throw people larger than she is.
- Papa Wolf: Mister towards Franca.
- Precocious Crush: Franca harbours one towards Katana, which surprises him before he laughs. Kids, right?
- Pride: Marciano's main vice. She admits herself that she fights to keep her way of life as a respected Guild leader and for others to follow her, and everything she does is to prove that she's better than others think."I will not stand for any Coyote sullying my pride!"
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Mister has so many aliases that "Mister" is the only name he can reliably be called.
- Orphan's Plot Trinket: Franca's necklace, with the key to Blues's treasure.
- Old Soldier: Old Outlaw technically but Mister's gotta be in his fifties.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: The Sisters can eat regular food for some reason, and they have bones and muscle structure intertwined with electrical wiring but don't bleed. As shown in the last episode, they can also cry.
- Robo Cam: Bruce had a mechanical eye that recorded everything he saw.
- Robot Girl: Marciano's Twelve Sisters are life-like robots.
- Robotic Reveal: Marciano herself is later revealed to be a cyborg.
- Scary Black Man: Swamp Gordon may be a preacher, but he's a large, intimidating man with a criminal record.
- Shout-Out: "Don't call him Plissken", which is a slogan on a van seen in a flashback.
- A billboard for Wicked can be seen in the last episode.
- Soul Brotha: Super Soul and Brother Swamp Gordon are both black, religious, and very loud.
- Spoiler Opening: Subverted. You think that the opening is foreshadowing that Swamp will leave the group or die, since he doesn't appear at all. He lives to the end as a part of the Coyote crew.
- Strong Family Resemblance: While Franca doesn't look much like Blues, when we first see her mother in episode 11, she looks exactly like her.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Angelica plays this role, though we at first think she's the lead.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Mister and the 12 Sisters both get this.
- Third-Person Person: Katana sometimes calls himself "Katana-sama" to talk himself up.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: August likes big grenades.
- Time Bomb: The Graceland bomb.
- Treasure Room: The Giga Banks vault is a huge one.
- Tsundere: Franca is a child version of this, combative until someone proves they can be trustworthy.
- Wall Run: For someone who leaves most of the fighting to her troops and the Sisters, Marciano is surprisingly physically capable, able to run up the side of a structure that's at least three storeys high.
- Worthless Treasure Twist: The key to the treasure, Franca's Orphan's Plot Trinket, turns out to include Blues's home movies, fond memories of watching his daughter grow up. Subverted in that the treasure itself is still the stash of money we've been led to believe.
- Worthy Opponent: In the very end of the show, after killing Marciano in their final duel, Mister calls Marciano a Coyote, not to insult her (though she'd certainly take it that way) but to say that she is the same as him and, had things gone differently, maybe they could have been friends.
- Would Hurt a Child: Marciano chases, kidnaps, and threatens Franca regularly.
- You Killed My Father: Franca to Marciano, something she witnessed herself firsthand in flashbacks.
