Manga / Shimeji Simulation

Due to the numerous amount of spoilers, all of them will be unmarked in this page. For those who haven't read the manga, You Have Been Warned.

Just your average Slice of Life story.^note Until the first Wham Episode...^note From left to right: Mogawa, Majime, Shijima and Sumida

"A world stretching far and wide, lying just one step beyond"

— The first page of Shimeji Simulation

Shimeji Simulation is a seinen slice-of-life four-panel comedy manga, which is written and illustrated by Tsukumizu, the same author behind Girls' Last Tour (2014-2018). It was published by Media Factory and serialized by Comic Cune from January 26, 2019 to November 27, 2023.

Centring on Shijima Tsukishima, a Shrinking Violet societal outcast who left her closet after two years due to an unknown incident, where she later proceeds to begin her term as a first-year high school student. Due to being stuck in her closet for two years, Shijima later sees two shimeji mushrooms growing on top of her head.

Adding to the strangeness of all things is when Shijima encounters another girl, the resident Pollyanna Majime Yamashita, who is within Shijima's class, who happens to have a half-fried egg sitting on top of her head.

Together, Shijima and Majime both cross paths and later become friends, where they proceed to encounter and interact with various characters of the story.

An official voiced narration of the manga's first chapter was released from Kadokawa's official YouTube channel, with cast featuring Naomi Ozora, Yumiri Hanamori, and Mai Fuchigami as Shijima, Majime, and Sis, respectively. In January 2024, it was reported that an anime adaptation was being considered, though time will tell if it will happen.

On August 23, 2023, it was confirmed the manga would be ending, though an exact date was not given. The following month via the end of the penultimate chapter, it was announced that it would end that November. The manga ended with Chapter 49 on November 27, while the final volume released on January 26, 2024, exactly five years after the manga's debut.

Following the conclusion of this series, a new manga by Tkmiz is currently in development.

You can watch it here: LINK

Due to being a spoiler-heavy work followed by a First-Episode Twist, it is practically impossible to discuss anything about this manga without spoiling major plot points, so it is advisable to read this page and its character page at your own risk if you haven't caught up.

---

Shimeji Tropes

Trope Subpages

• Walking Spoiler
• Wham Line

Tropes #-M

• Acid-Trip Dimension: Shijima and Majime seemingly travel from various parts of West Yomogi through the "rocks" and various other but often ridiculous means, where most of them becomes an increasingly bizarre dimension that defies all form of logic. However this does not cause problems to the people who still inhabit the town.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Shijima is called Shimeji by Majime, which is often attributed to the two namesake mushrooms growing in her head.
  • Mogawa calls both Shijima and Majime "Shimejime" in one chapter, which is a blend of the former's nickname and the latter's name.
• Afterlife Express: The train that Shijima enters at the end of Chapter 47 is extremely mysterious in nature and it brings passengers to some unknown destination. As an added bonus, it also floats in emptiness. It becomes the principal focus of Chapter 48 when Shijima travels across many worlds through it. And ironically enough, both Chito and Yuuri, the characters of Girls' Last Tour, are in the train, who were presumably dead after reaching the highest layer of the megacity whose consciousness had been uploaded into the simulation.
• Age-Gap Romance: Yoshiko falls in love with her teacher Mr. Takahashi, who is slightly much older than her.
• All for Nothing: While the Gardener has great power, she couldn't stop Sis from completing her objective of giving everyone the ability to alter the world according to their imagination, and thus the town was destroyed (at least from her perspective) and rendering her struggle to keep order meaningless.
  • In Chapter 40 Sis couldn't stop her duplicate from giving everyone the power to change themselves, thus causing a feedback loop that results in the free world that she made falling into chaos.
  • Overall, Sis' attempts of creating her boundless utopia was all for nothing when the entire world and West Yomogi collapsed for real, making it impossible to revert any, if not all, of the damage whatsoever without resorting through extreme methods.
• All Just a Dream: Invoked. The start of Chapter 47 shows a montage of Shijima seemingly reuniting with her Only Friend Majime and the rest of the Hole-Digging Club members as they took on a trip to Nara. That is until Shijima wakes up, realising that everything about it is all just a dream in the first place and she's actually all by herself in her very isolated world.
• All There in the Manual: Specifically the bonus chapters, where it details the characters and various objects shown within the series.
• The Aloner: The future fate of Shijima, as mentioned by Sis, if the town and its people are returned back to normal. Chapter 47 shows Shijima's fate exactly, as she is now living in another world that is virtually far more distant than Majime's.
• Animorphism: Shijima goes into this after being alone for thousands of years in her own planet far away from her home, causing her to slowly transform into a slug-like creature. Averted in Chapter 48 when she transforms back to her human form.
• Anthropomorphic Personification:
  • Shijima: Isolation and quietness.
  • Majime: Optimism and cheerfulness.
  • The Gardener: Natural order, idealism and balance.
  • Big Sis: Chaos, freedom and straightforward thinking.
  • Yomikawa: Knowledge.
  • Mogawa: Apathy.
  • Ayaka: Communication.
  • Sumida: Connection.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Sis is capable of using the Fish with Names to do a lot of different things.
• Artistic License – Physics: Not only the school building was seen standing 90 degrees vertically in Chapter 21, but even the people inside it are standing horizontally, rather than vertically, which is virtually impossible. But given the eldritch nature of this world, it is always a surprise that it is of normal occurrence.
• Artistic License – Space: How the Moon within Shijima's Dream World is portrayed in Chapter 18.5. The gravity and the breathable atmosphere is completely similar to Earth's, as well as having water that is caused by a big fish that turns into a giant water pool covering within one of the Moon's craters.
• Bait-and-Switch: The panels in the first few pages seen in Chapter 47 gives off the impression that everything goes back to normal and with Shijima reuniting with her old friends. Until it is revealed that it is just another of her dreams.
• Big Damn Heroes: During Shijima's venture into the Dream World, she later comes across a giant crab, after she got wounded from a shard of glass. A last-minute intervention by Majime, who was seen riding what looked like a giant Yoshika pencil case, later saved the injured girl by slamming it into the crab, knocking it out, before she took it further by knocking the crab out with a giant frying pan that appeared above it.
• Bittersweet Ending: The simulation collapsed and many of Shijima's friends she had known for were either long gone or dead for the past 1000 years including her big sister. However, Shijima finally reunites with Majime at the end of the manga.
• Bizarrchitecture: The town of West Yomogi is no stranger to this trope, given the bizarre and surreal nature of this manga.
  • The family restaurant, Restaurant Heaven, is a building that is mostly supported by a group of I-beams being used as a support. Underneath the restaurant is the parking lot.
  • In Chapter 21, Shijima and Majime's school was seen standing vertically.
  • The entire town eventually becomes like this after Chapter 30.
• Blank White Void:
  • A black-coloured variant at the end of Chapter 43. After a rather failed romantic rendezvous between her and Majime, Shijima is sent to an empty world where her own home disappeared, where the only thing remained is a chaotic and silent world in front of her.
  • A black-coloured variant within the end of Chapter 45 shows Shijima falling down into it, just moments before time is reverted back during the events of the school festival.
  • The first half of Chapter 46 starts with Majime falling down into a black void, before transitioning into a white, empty area of vast nothingness where she was seen roaming around it. That is until she becomes a Physical God and turned this void into her new realm.
  • Another black-coloured variant is seen in Chapter 47. The vast expanse around Shijima's own world is virtually empty and desolate to the point that the only thing situated within it is just her, her own planet and nothing else.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine:
  • The main dynamic between Majime (the boke) and Shijima (the tsukkomi).
  • At one scene in Chapter 18 Sumida becomes the tsukkomi to Majime's boke, when she whacked the latter's head with her sketchbook for clumsily tripping, after it caused a mess inside their own clubroom.
• Bookends: Chapter 1 starts with Shijima encountering Majime for the first time after her reclusion within her own school. Chapter 49 ends with the former reuniting with the latter in the same location, a millennia after being separated by her.
• Bottomless Pit: Chapter 19 shows what looked like a huge hole close to the Hole-Digging Club's clubroom in West Yomogi High School, which has been excavated by Big Sis' drill excavator. This is later revealed to be the endlessly descending passageway that leads to the Gardener's Pocket Dimension.
• Brain Uploading: Many of the residents in West Yomogi are revealed to have been created by the simulation, with Shijima and Big Sis being the case as they were created next to the danchis and not born from their absent parents, who are also non-existent. Through Yomikawa's reveal regarding the true nature of the simulation and connecting two key events of Girls' Last Tour through the story she read to Shijima — the Robot War and Chito and Yuuri's visit to the space station after seeing the third rocket going to the end of the universe — it is revealed that humans actually continued existence by uploading their consciousness inside of it in order for humanity to survive after the Robot War and launching the said supercomputer through space inside a space shuttle to prevent it from being destroyed.
• Break the Cutie: Chapter 43. The "cutie" part is where both Shijima and Majime are seen sleeping altogether in a bed in a slightly romantic, risqué way with a single scene with both of them having sex. That is until Shijima gets mad at Majime for that unexpected moment, prompting Shijima herself to angrily leave Majime for a good measure. What she gets is nothing more than an empty, barren stretch of land with their home gone. To make matters worse Shijima is virtually alone by herself in what felt like a chaotic, empty world and Majime is nowhere to be seen, signifying the ironic metaphor of her trying to shut others out from her life.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Unlike tkmiz's previous two works who both have No Antagonists, Shimeji Simulation has three antagonists, in the form of The Gardener and Big Sis and Big Sis' duplicate.
  • The manga also features some fantastical elements to it (not counting his webcomic Flan Wants to Die), but they become full-forced in Chapter 30, where Shijima and the citizens of West Yomogi are now given the abilities of Reality Warping, a concept that is unheard of in his previous mangas.
  • It is also the first of the author's works to write it in Yonkoma, short-story format with chapters averaging 10 to 11 pages total, in contrast to his previous work where it would take 20 to 30 pages on each chapter. However, it also broke some trends of its own, particularly Chapter 48. Rather than having the 10 to 11 pages for each of the volume's penultimate chapters, Chapter 48 breaks that trend by having 19 pages, which is usually reserved for each volume's finales of the manga.
• Call-Back:
  • Chapter 42 has both Shijima and Majime wearing what appeared to be suspiciously identical helmets that Chito and Yuuri wore.
  • Chapter 45 shows a vastly snowy world with Shijima's mushroom growing into a shiitake. This was a call-back to the same scene that happened in Chapter 22.
  • Chapter 48 shows a suspiciously similar Chito and Yuuri from Girls' Last Tour inside the train Shijima rides. This Yuuri's hairstyle is a Foreshadowing as to why she is not the same as her simulation counterpart, who always have a ponytail and sometimes unkempt hair.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Ghost-looking fish converted from a regular fish within the Raw Fish Converter are called Fish With Names.
• Canon Welding: There are hints of the manga being loosely connected to its spiritual predecessor Girls' Last Tour:
  • The wheat farm. The first volume's cover shows a suspiciously identical wheat farm to the one that Chito and Yuuri stood in for the last volume's final illustration (one immediately shown after their Big Sleep in the last chapter, implying that they died). At the same time there is Chito and Yuuri also standing within the wheat farm in the same cover art.
  • The infamous arithmetical, linear-shaped machine language, which firstly appeared in GLT, comes back in ShimSim. The language seems to have evolved, as fish symbols are now seen in it.
  • The strange black cube with a "modern feel" that Shijima and Majime see outside the former's apartment looks almost identical to the black cube that Chito and Yuuri encountered on the highest layer.
  • In Chapter 44, Yomikawa was seen reading out an excerpt of a book to Shijima regarding a human civilisation that was ravaged by an epidemic, as well as a huge war and the various civil wars after it that destroyed countless settlements. This is similar to the past of Girls' Last Tour where the Robot War completely annihilated all of human civilisation, as well as civil wars that destroyed the remnant civilisation.
  • Shijima's next-door neighbours bear a striking resemblance to Chito and Yuuri, but they wear casual clothing. It is unknown if this is the result of what looked like a case of Brain Uploading the moment after their "death" from the Big Sleep in GLT. Averted in Chapter 48 when it is revealed that the neighbours are not the same as the ones that Shijima saw inside the train and are instead the same Chito and Yuuri from Girls' Last Tour with their consciousness transported into the simulation, as they only vaguely recognize Shijima and don't remember anything their simulation counterparts did including them being neighbours within the same danchis. Ultimately, this throws all speculation out of the window as it is revealed that the manga shares the same universe as its spiritual predecessor.
• Central Theme: Everything is not what it seems.
• Cerebus Syndrome: It starts off as lighthearted in the first few chapters until Chapter 9, which is where the story gradually picks up the pace with the creation of the Raw Fish Generator. Chapter 29 changes the landscape of the manga forever, when Big Sis proceeds to alter West Yomogi, marking the permanent shift in tone. Chapter 43 pulls this yet again when Shijima becomes fearful of being merged by Majime after she kicked her out, leading her to a more drastic series of events. From there on, Shijima feels far more existential and negative than in the previous chapters, dealing with the consequences of choosing her decision to be alone again.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • While fish was a common Animal Motif for Sis, which seems to be absurd at first, they turn out to play a huge role, with example being the Fish With Names, which are ghost fishes converted from the Raw Fish Converter. They also turn out to be a key power source as means to visit the Dream World, which was used by Sis in Chapter 9 when Shijima visited the said place itself. That said Fish With Names was again used in Chapter 30 by Sis to dismantle West Yomogi and radically alter it. The said fish is later shown in Chapter 45 which is now infused with the soul of the dying Big Sis.
  • The shell that was attached from a fishing line through a piece of wood in Chapter 2 is later revealed to be the driving force behind the Raw Fish Generator's creation in Chapter 8.
  • Yoshika, Shijima's pencil case, is later used in the Dream World by Majime, albeit a larger version of it, which was ridden by her, when she fights off against the giant crab within one of the Dream Danchis, thus saving Shijima from the jaws of death. The same pencil box also appears in Chapter 49, where it follows Shijima to the empty part of Majime's world where it reveals a long stairway that leads to the classroom.
  • The sea urchin-like device that was put outside of the Danchis by Big Sis played some significance in Chapter 30, when it was revealed that it was used by her, in order to read anyone's thoughts, as well as interfering within the town's natural order.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The Gardener starts out as a comic relief character in the series, who is seen as some random passerby, of whom which Shijima encountered. Turns out that she is the the overseer of the town, as well as being the world's deity herself.
  • Yomikawa initially was portrayed as a comical high school repeat in Shijima and Majime's school, as well as the member of Hole-Digging Club. That is until Chapter 44 where she becomes a Walking Spoiler, as she reveals that the world they are in is a simulated reality within a fusiform-shaped computer presumably floating in space.
  • The fish that Shijima saw in the empty building is revealed to be Big Sis with her soul inside it, acting as a Soul Jar.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • The things Shijima and Majime learned in the Hole-Digging Club, most notably including digging holes, was used in Chapter 22 when they created a snowy hole to keep themselves warm, after losing in the middle of the road during a snowstorm in a sudden winter weather.
  • The Mosasa Dogs' musical skill later plays an instrumental role in Chapter 40, when Big Sis orders Shijima and Majime to quickly end the concert, as soon as possible, due to it blending within the world's code.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Majime initially attempted to befriend Shijima, to the latter's great annoyance. First, she attempted to boop Shijima's shimeji mushrooms, which caused her slight discomfort. Then, she attempts to pester Shijima yet again by shaking her own desk, in a rather annoyed attempt to befriend her.
  • Majime describing herself as being diligent, due to her glasses, but Shijima simply points her out that it is only her glasses.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: Its spiritual predecessor, Girls' Last Tour, is set in a futuristic city where it is completely dead and artificial-looking due to a Robot War that previously destroyed all of it. Contrastingly, this manga is set in West Yomogi, an idyllic but surrealistic and nigh-empty town where it is a Thriving Ghost Town.
• Conveniently Empty Buildings:
  • The entire Danchi (apartment) complex that Shijima and her sister currently living in. Not only they are located in the middle of nowhere close to a wheat farm, but the entire buildings themselves are run-down and eerily vacant. In fact, the only residents of these buildings are Shijima, her sister, and Shijima's unnamed neighbours that look like Chito and Yuuri from Girls' Last Tour. Later Played Straight on Chapter 31, when Sis disappeared, and with Shijima moving to a new house, making the Danchis virtually empty.
  • West Yomogi High School is large in nature, but nearly all of its classrooms are considered to be vacant. The only room of the academy that is possibly occupied is Class 1-D and the faculty room.
• Covers Always Lie: The first volume's cover art shows a school setting with Shijima and Majime, as well as others in the backdrop. While that is true in some aspects, it is very deceiving in nature since the manga itself hides the most spoilery aspect that this manga is not your average slice-of-life school story, let alone a very standard interpretation of "cute girls doing cute things" stuff. Later volumes however immediately subvert this trope, accurately showing what the manga actually is all about, especially when the Cerebus Syndrome moments start to kick in.
• Cyberspace: While The Reveal in Chapter 30 shows that the world that Shijima and Majime in is a simulation, Chapter 44 shows that not only the entire world they live in is, in fact, a simulated reality, but it also unveils another revelation from Yomikawa's hypothesis that the reality they are in is within a computer no larger than Shijima herself. Yet another bombshell is shown in Volume 5 Extras (49.5) where Western Yomogi is not a town but a name for the computational device used to preserve humanity inside the simulation, thus checking out Yomikawa's theory.
• Damsel in Distress: Shown in Chapter 10, when Shijima was injured by various glass shards, leading to her almost near-death encounter with the giant crab.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Both the Tsukishima sisters went through this in separate ways.
  • Shijima, during her first-year in junior high, became a recluse after her friend committed suicide, leading to her locking herself inside a closet for two whole years. Even after going out of her reclusion, Shijima reluctantly converses nor interacts with other people including Majime, at first.
  • Big Sis, meanwhile, is revealed to be a social pariah in her elementary years, who was often shunned and ostracised for her differing hobbies and talents. This left most of her time having a Friendless Background, as with her befriending Yomikawa, her only Best Friend, came much later in her life during her high school years.
  • Both Shijima and Big Sis are considered "unwanted" in the past by the town they used to live, making them both orphans as they have no idea who their parents were. That is until the truth of their "birth" was revealed...
• Darkest Hour: After Shijima kicks Majime out in Chapter 43, she goes into this phase, as she was thrusted into an empty part of the world without her. In Chapter 44 she breaks down in tears over her actions in the previous chapter. Chapter 45 reveals that Big Sis (as a fish) is dead, as she is now a soul. She grimly reveals to Shijima that she has to go back in time during the school festival to undo the massive damage from the unlocking caused by her clone, but at one cost: Shijima has to permanently isolate herself from others once it was successful so that the changes would not be interfered.
• Dawn of an Era: The unlocking of the ability to change reality to one's whims in chapter 30 and the unlocking of the ability to change oneself in chapter 40. Reality Warping is now considered to be the new normal.
• Deconstruction: Like the rest of Tsukumizu's works, Shimeji Simulation is a deconstruction of existential crisis within a seemingly innocuous slice-of-life setting, as Shijima has shown fear of disappearing and her ability of going out in her shell during Chapter 43. It also explores the idea of "how far humans can play God as long as consequences be damned", which is shown when Big Sis was able to alter reality according to her whims, as in the case of her altering West Yomogi and with humanity being able to change themselves on their own accord, but not without the damage it can cause to an already Acid-Trip Dimension.
• Deconstructed Trope: In what is a seemingly Slice of Life manga, the manga deconstructs these tropes in particular:
  • Reality Warping in both Chapters 30 and 40, with Big Sis and her clone, respectively. Both want to change reality by breaking the limits of the simulation, with Big Sis did to break the Gardener's imposed rules of it and with her clone wanting to improve upon Big Sis' machinations. Their reality warping only brings MAJOR consequences to the table—with both of them pushing the limits of the simulation, not only have people been granted its powers, but they also dramatically destroy the very natural order of the simulation, with the Gardener in Chapter 39 even claiming that it's her (Big Sis) own world that she created in the first place, before the clone dealt another major blow to the simulation's natural order when she gave humanity the power to change themselves. The most extreme change did not happen until Chapter 45 where everything is on a state of utter collapse and Shijima has to go back in time to reverse it, at the cost of distancing from the people she knows, making Big Sis' previous attempts at making a limitless world to her specifications rather futile.
  • It also deconstructs the Arcadia. While West Yomogi is an epitome of a quiet, idyllic countryside, the town is later revealed to be nothing like a countryside as what it is initially purported as the story goes on. Things like strange rocks popping in and out, Bizarrchitectures, randomly-bending roads and empty buildings all point to a much bigger picture: the town is part of a much bigger simulated reality. Neither of the protagonists know who or what goes on initially, completely unaware that Big Sis is the reason their world is like this.
• Decoy Antagonist: Both The Gardener and Big Sis are initially set up as part of the Big Bad Duumvirate, due to their differing but hostile goals for West Yomogi: The Gardener who wants absolute order of her world at the cost of plucking death, while Big Sis wants to destroy the town's illusion through her inventions as means of freedom, at the expense of turning their world into a World of Chaos. They are demoted to this trope when the true Big Bad, the Evil Doppelgänger of Big Sis, shows up in Chapter 38, who wants to drive the world into chaotic insanity through feedback loop by using the Mosasa Dogs to broadcast the code to allow humanity to change themselves. Destroying West Yomogi and its people are a part of thatr goal.
• Dénouement Episode: Chapter 48 and 49 aren't very intense chapters, but they serve as a palette cleanser after many, if not all of the manga's loose ends have been dealt with, primarily including the simulation's connection to the past of Girls' Last Tour's history and the mystery surrounding Majime's disappearance for millennia. The chapters also serve to provide closure on Shijima and Majime's relationship, allowing them to finally reunite after a millennium of separation and have Shijima overcome her fear of merging with Majime.
• Digging to China: Revealed to be Mogawa's goal. She does this by getting a perpetual-motion powered digging machine made by Sis.
• Disappeared Dad: Majime's father. Majime is only seen with her mother for most of the time, while her own father only appeared at a flashback scene when she was an infant.
• Disguised Horror Story: The manga initially is what you would expect for other Slice of Life yonkoma; a story about a girl who leaves a two-year reclusion and tries to find friends played out in a traditional comedy format. The next few chapters start to peel that disguise away: it is an Existential Horror, surrealism story about Shijima, despite her friendships with Majime and the rest of Hole-Digging Club members, struggling from her inner crisis after her reclusion, giving away from her apathetic and quiet nature. There's the fact that the town, West Yomogi, is extremely empty and unusual, which is a Thriving Ghost Town, a product of the world being a simulated reality, which is only one-half of what this trope embodies. The story takes a very dramatic, if not permanent turn when Big Sis battles the Gardener, reads through the minds of humanity with a machine and altered the simulation by giving humanity Reality Warping powers to give them the freedom to warp everything to their own imaginations. Another ten chapters later, the rogue clone of Big Sis carbon-copied the same thing as what her prime did, except this time she wanted humanity to use the same power to change themselves, destroying the world's natural order and freefalling it unto chaos. After that, the fabric of reality takes a massive downturn and begins to collapse that it's barely recognisable and Shijima's attempt of kicking Majime out triggered another Darkest Hour, before putting her into an unforeseen dilemma where it echoes her reclusive past. And Yomikawa, the Plucky Comic Relief of the manga, is an Ambiguously Human who is no stranger to the simulation's mysteries, as she spouts a major reveal regarding how their world is just a byproduct of a simulation, meaning everything that happened through the entirety of it just happens inside a fusiform-shaped Cyberspace. And the reveal regarding Shijima and Big Sis being mere creations of it hits the nail hard, such as the fact that their orphaned life was not because of their missing parents, but because they were a creation in the first place, along with many others in this world.
• Down the Rabbit Hole: After Mogawa lost her footing in Chapter 19, who was seen sitting at the edge of the excavated hole, she and the others including Shijima, Majime and Sumida all fall down into the Bottomless Pit that leads to the Gardener's world.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Shijima and Majime are unaware of their world's true nature being anomalous from what it is initially seen: an illusion of an Arcadia. The audiences are already aware of it in just the first chapter with a Freeze-Frame Bonus of a black obelisk behind the duo in one of the panels to drive the point about this world's surreal nature. On the other hand, it took Shijima, upon meeting the Gardener, at least eight chapters to realise that there is more to her own world.
  • Sis's rather murky and nebulous motives of altering West Yomogi is not known by Shijima, Majime, and even the Gardener, who is the town's overseer. But various scenes of Foreshadowing (the appearance of Raw Fish Generator, the Fish With Names, and several anomalies happening in West Yomogi) seen by the readers slowly reveal that Sis has been causing problems from the inside out ever since the Dream World arc in Chapters 9 & 10, leading up to The Reveal in Chapter 30.
• Edible Theme Naming:
  • Inverted. Shijima's fish-looking pencil case is called "Yoshika".
  • Shijima's nickname is Shimeji, as it is the name of the mushrooms that grow on top of her head.
  • Ditto above, Majime is called "Egg" at one point in the story, attributing to the egg sitting on top of her head.
• Eldritch Location:
  • The entire town of West Yomogi itself. The town, as a whole, is full of run-down Danchis from one area, with desolate wheat farms and various Bizarrchitectures on the other, including the family restaurant "Restaurant Heaven". It later becomes apparent, when the whole town was revealed to be under The Gardener's watchful eyes.
  • Sis's Dream World is also like this. It almost looks exactly the same as West Yomogi, but far more deserted and haunting in nature, as well as a variety of strange encounters inside the Dream Danchis.
  • The Gardener's own room is a strange Pocket Dimension where it is home to the namesake character with an environment of its own. Around the area are what looked like metal, circular rods sticking into the ground, as well as a highly mysterious structure that is shaped like a cigar, standing in the ocean.
  • The Rock World seen in Chapter 36 is also eldritch in nature, with strange patterns seen within the skies (Which is controlled by Sis for her own algorithm), various rock structures, an abandoned temple without a roof, as well as statues of philosophers including Socrates. The only residents seen are Yomikawa and Sis.
  • The donut-shaped space that is contained in a painting that is contained in the donut-shaped space that is contained in the painting that is... etc. How the main characters managed to wander in and out of this recursion is not explained.
  • The library that Yomikawa is seen in Chapter 44 is a giant library full of bookshelves, where some of them are even seen hanging on the wall.
  • The eventual fate of West Yomogi and the simulation becomes this, as it is now a snowy wasteland where it is utterly warped and altered to the point that it barely has resemblance to it at all due to humans reality warping it.
• Exotic Eye Designs: In line with the author's Signature Style, each and every character shown in the manga all have eyes without pupils.
• Eyes Out of Sight: In the flashback scene at Chapter 14 with an elementary schooler Shijima, her unnamed friend's eyes are blotted out in scribble.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Both Shijima and Sis have the same eye colour.
• Family Honor: The Mogawas, as revealed by Officer Mogawa, all work in civil service type jobs as part of their family tradition.
• First-Episode Twist: A case of a Dramatic Irony (as Shijima was unaware of it at first but the audiences already knew about it) where in one of the panels a black obelisk is seen standing behind Shijima and Majime. While it's just a Foreshadowing, it immediately spoils the overall nature of this world: a simulated reality.
• Fling a Light into the Future: In line with this manga being a Stealth Sequel to its predecessor manga Girls' Last Tour, the true nature of the simulation turns out to be this. Through the story that Yomikawa reads, which is suspiciously similar to the past of the manga, after humanity was ravaged by epidemic and later broke into a full-scale Robot War, it was revealed that surviving humans created a fusiform-shaped supercomputer designed to store human consciousnesses through an algorithmic formula designed to practically operate forever and Nobody Can Die within it, which was then added by Shijima herself in Chapter 45 as to how she, her sister and the rest were simply created by the simulation. Then it was stored to one of the space shuttles before it was successfully launched into outer space up to the edge of the universe in order to prevent it from being destroyed — with the third rocket's ongoing flight path that Chito and Yuuri seen in GLT's Vol 6. Ch. 42 adding to the reveal further — which, in a sense, allowed humanity to survive for another indeterminate amount of years inside a Cyberspace.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Chapter 1 Shijima contemplates how her closet is just a world that is nothing but herself while she's also inside her own closet. This foreshadows her eventual fate as The Aloner in Chapter 47.
  • The same chapter shows Shijima looking at the mirror wondering to herself how the mushrooms on her head is a metaphor "for something". Her existence is to sum it all up: she's not an actual human but a figment and a creation of the simulation.
  • Chapter 2 shows what looked like a seashell that is tied up from a fishing line up to a small piece of wood, which is being held by Majime. The shell is later revealed to be the basis of the Raw Fish Generator's design in Chapter 8.
  • Also in the same chapter, Majime asks Sis, who was "fishing" in the grass, before she reveals that she has been fishing for the "souls of fishes". This is, in fact, a foreshadowing of the Fish With Names that exists firstly in Chapter 9.
  • Chapter 35's final panel shows Big Sis using the machine language to increase the computational power of the current world within the simulation. That is later revealed to be the Key in Chapter 40, which further increases the power of Reality Warping by now allowing humans to change themselves, but at the same time with her accidentally uncovering the boundary between humans in the altered world. It also caused a clone of hers with her partially copied consciousness to be created in the process, revealing to be the same Big Sis clone that was first seen in Chapter 38.
  • The entire setting of the manga qualifies from this trope. There's a lot of foreshadowing about the unusual state of this world, as there's West Yomogi being a Thriving Ghost Town and littered with many strange phenomena including the sudden appearances of rocks and even unusual physical occurrences. The most startling piece however is the unusual zero deaths that are happening in this world, where no one died from all types of deaths including car accidents and even the usual deaths. This is, in fact, foreshadows the real nature of this world: it is a simulated reality created by the preceding humans during the Robot War that happened in the Girls' Last Tour history and later storing it into a supercomputer. This was done in an attempt to preserve the human race after a massive Robot War destroyed most of Earth's human civilisations by launching it through a space shuttle, which was corroborated with the scene of Chito and Yuuri watching at the hologram of the flight paths of three shuttles, with the third one fitting to how Yomikawa read the story to Shijima about the past civilisation.
• Freudian Trio: Yomikawa, The Gardener and Big Sis.
  • Id: Yomikawa. She is The McCoy who is cheerful and philosophical of her world's inner workings.
  • Ego: The Gardener. She is The Kirk who represents natural order, in her duty as West Yomogi's overseer.
  • Superego: Big Sis. She is The Spock who is an emotionless, insightful stoic.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Majime called a giant frying pan from the sky when she attempted to knock the giant crab out during her attempt to save Shijima from death in the Dream World.
• The Future: The final act of the story. In Chapter 46, after Majime's creation of her new world, it completely goes to a massive time skip, 1400 years later. At the same time with Shijima in Chapter 47, in over a thousand years of isolation in her own world, she even becomes a slug temporarily at one point.
• Genre Deconstruction: The manga deconstructs most elements of the Iyashikei genre. It does so as it deconstructs existential crisis in general alongside the limitations of playing against humanity. Yes, against humans that might just be figments of a reality simulation.
• Genre Shift: It starts off as an average Slice of Life story in spite of its Surreal nature, until the third and final Wham Episode completely changes the manga's genre from a surrealism slice-of-life story to full-blown Existential Horror where the principal focus now tackles Shijima's existential crisis and the consequences of West Yomogi's collapse. Nothing is Played for Laughs with the rest of these chapters after 43 either, as evident in Chapter 44 where Shijima breaks down in tears over her actions of kicking Majime out.
• Great Big Library of Everything: The library that Yomikawa currently stays is a gigantic archive of all books written by humans across entire history. She is also revealed to be a living example of a library as she reveals to Shijima that every written book within several time periods are deeply connected to her.
• Hair-Contrast Duo:
  • Both Shijima and Majime's hair colours are representative of their personalities. The Shrinking Violet, erstwhile recluse Shijima has black hair, while The Pollyanna Majime has blonde hair.
  • Big Sis and Yomikawa. Big Sis has black hair that represents her stoic, aloof personality, while Yomikawa's blonde hair represents her cheerful, upbeat personality.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Mogawa seems to show a severe disdain for the teachers and the student public morals around her academy, as she points out their hypocrisy.
  Mogawa: Student public morals have been an issue among teachers lately... Public morals precisely, we have plenty of students carrying odd items or clothing articles... So we're now supposed to ask them for their situations and opinions, for reasons on why they're carrying these items and give them permission.
• Hypocrite: The Principal. While he is against staff members smoking and drinking around the school grounds, he ironically does the former.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Everyone eventually can physically manifest whatever they're thinking about or apply Cartoon Physics. Despite the town slowly being turned into a Acid-Trip Dimension, it doesn't cause problems for it function as a society.
• Insistent Terminology: When Shijima corrects her sister by calling the Fish With Names simply as "fishes", Big Sis simply tells her not to "shorten it".
• Ironic Echo: Before the story Shijima was a recluse who hid inside her closet due to the death of her friend in middle school. Chapter 43 shows Shijima pulling off a Leave Me Alone! moment, after she was having a romantic rendezvous with Majime that went badly, out of fear of losing her identity and merging with her. As a result Shijima was once again alone, who is thrusted into an empty world without Majime and even Big Sis, echoing her reclusive past.
• Irony:
  • Despite upholding the Principal's No Smoking and No Drinking policies, as such when he rebuked Mogawa for drinking, that does not stop him from smoking. And in Chapter 38 he even allows Mogawa to drink alcohol on school grounds.
  • A character page aptly titled "Trash" in Chapter 10.5 is oppositely claimed to be "Not Trash".
  • Lampshaded in Mogawa's case, when she describes the public morals in her school. Despite following the said morals themselves, many are ironically breaking it, as she describes how students are carrying items of strange nature, as well as clothing articles, in spite of all of them being enforced.
• It Runs in the Family: Both the Officer and Teacher Mogawa work at a civil service type job, with the former as a police officer and the latter as a teacher. Invoked by Officer Mogawa when she mentions how it is a family tradition for them.
  Majime: So you're both civil service employees?
  Officer Mogawa: It's a family tradition.
• It Was All Just A Dream:
  • In Chapter 10 Shijima was seen travelling into Sis' Dream World via the Fish With Names that Sis gave to her. The world is similar to the original but with the new addition of bizarre encounters living within the Dream Danchis. While she was almost eaten by the giant crab and with Majime later saving her, it turned out that Shijima was only dreaming when she had a sleepover with Majime in her apartment building.
  • Chapter 18.5 sees Shijima walking through the Moon in the search for water, before encountering Majime at the crater with the shack aptly titled "Water". After Shijima manages to get a big bite in the form of a giant water fish, she inadvertently caused the whole crater to be flooded with water.
  • Chapter 47 starts with this where Shijima is seen with her friends again including Majime and the Hole-Digging Club members in a compilation shot of their trip to Nara. But it was later revealed to be within Shijima's dream when the scene later cuts to the bedroom of her own home in another planet, where she is the only person living there.
• Justified Title: Fittingly, Chapter 30's chapter title is called "Change". It not only marks the Wham Episode of the manga, but it also causes the permanent alteration of West Yomogi into a World of Chaos.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • The Gardener. Her first appearance is mostly downplayed, since she was seen as a comic relief character, and her hammy fits are more so Played for Laughs than it being a serious threat. That changes in Chapter 30, where she suddenly attacks Big Sis, showing that she has known her true intentions of the town from the beginning, leading to a near-destructive stand-off. The chapter presented with The Gardener showing no signs of comedy at all, as it was clear that she had Serious Business, plotting to destroy her for attempting to break the natural order she placed.
  • Big Sis is this, when she planned to dismantle West Yomogi, grant humanity Reality Warping abilities and alter it permanently to destroy the illusion of the town for good. But it has consequences in the long run when the world falls into chaos.
  • Another one in the form of Big Sis' clone, where she shows up in Chapter 40 causing more damage, as she causes a feedback loop by handing humanity the power to change themselves. She is virtually shown to have no comedic moments whatsoever, being firstly introduced as an outright menace to the town.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you haven't read Girls' Last Tour, then its most significant plot point is already spoiled. Namely, everything that happened in the previous manga is canon to this manga, as shown with Chito and Yuuri on the train who are not the same as the neighbors.
• Level Ate: The entirety of Majime's world that she created is based on food, with the Chiho tribe's town having watermelons as its main motif.
• Living Toys: Every single people in the world that Majime created is based on her own toys, namely plushies including her salamander plushie Jiro, her rabbit plushie Chiho and her cat plushie Maho. Majime gives them humanlike traits, causing them to develop human sentience, making them completely indistinguishable to a regular living toy. Eventually they multiply as many years have passed, making her own world a fully populated planet.
• Long-Distance Relationship: Non-romantic version. After Shijima goes back in time to fix the damage that the Big Sis Clone caused, as mentioned by Sis, Shijima had to distance herself from the people she knows including her Only Friend Majime as well as the rest of the people she knew. It was the main thing that she and her sister had done to stop people from merging to one another and reversing the inevitable collapse, but at the adverse effect of not seeing Majime and many other people she knew closely ever again. Subverted in Chapter 48 when Shijima arrives in a familiar-looking planet where it is revealed to be Majime's world; and in Chapter 49 where she finally reunites with her again.
• Love Confession: Yoshiko confesses to Mr. Takahashi, her homeroom teacher, during the Mosasa Dogs' concert in Chapter 40, much to the shock of his other students sans Ayaka and Yumi. Yoshiko was slightly embarrassed with this.
  Yoshiko: I- I love you! Please go on a date with me!!
  Mr. Takahashi: Sure! After you graduate!
• Made of Indestructium: Yomikawa's house is designed with reinforced concrete, in order to withstand the weight of many books she has within it.
• MacGuffin: The Key that was unlocked accidentally by Big Sis during the events of Chapter 37 essentially becomes a plot point in Chapters 38 to 40, as her clone was on the loose, bent on unlocking the humans the ability to change themselves.
• Middle-of-Nowhere Street: The Danchis are located in a place that is considered to be cut off from the rest of West Yomogi, as a whole. Taken to the Logical Extreme, when there are only four residents within these run-down buildings: Shijima, Sis, and their two neighbours, where they later leave the buildings under rather different circumstances.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • While the manga is lighthearted, at first, it was until Chapter 30, when a battle suddenly commenced between Big Sis and The Gardener.
  • Chapter 39 takes place during the school festival in West Yomogi High School but "Big Sis" begins to behave strangely, acting rather distant and mysterious towards Shijima. Then the real Big Sis shows up, attacking the imposter, which is revealed to be her rogue clone, triggering another conflict between them and the Sis duplicate.
  • The Oneshot showed a lesbian romance between Mina and Yocchan, including a risqué sex scene between the both of them. It was until Yocchan tragically committed suicide at night, causing Mina to be a recluse.
  • Chapter 43 shows a wholesome romantic getup between Shijima and Majime, even leading to a sex scene. Until Shijima, who is in the verge of being merged with Majime, suddenly kicks her away out of her life, causing her to be sent to a world devoid of anything. This situation, on the other hand, is more severe from the previous examples above, due to kickstarting the Darkest Hour.

Tropes N-Z

• Never Trust a Trailer: Averted. At least in MangaDex's own description on the story, the summary says "A surreal yet heartwarming 4-koma series about everyday life". There's a reason for this however, since talking about the manga's contents is an Interface Spoiler that gives away the manga's core aspect: surreal, existential horror. That becomes true in the first half as the first Wham Episode actively throws the heartwarming aspect of the manga off the bus when reality starts to get warped...
• New Powers as the Plot Demands:
  • Shijima gains telepathy from the third shimeji mushroom that grew on her head. This was, however, only temporary.
  • A more permanent example is when humans are able to Reality Warp via their imaginations, as a direct consequence of West Yomogi and the world being permanently altered by Big Sis. Not surprisingly it caused more trouble than good when her clone started to give humanity the power to change themselves, subsequently breaking the natural order that the Gardener has in place.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While Sis was successful in ruining the Gardener's creation, the only problem was that her invention, a conch-like device, and the Fish With Names, radically turned the already eldritch city and twisted it into something unrecognisable.
• Nobody Can Die: The population of West Yomogi is suspiciously free of deaths and any life-threatening incidents and situations that could cost a human's life in a second. That is until it was revealed that the Gardener is responsible for making this happen in the first place. Counting the numerous years prior where no traffic-related deaths have been reported.
• No Full Name Given: With the exception of Shijima and Majime, as well as The Gardener and Shijima's neighbors, nearly all of the named characters in the series only have their first names shown. Inverted in both the Police Officer and Teacher Mogawa's case, as they are often referred to by their surname, Mogawa, without their first name.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Shimeji Simulation is (in)famous for shaking the status quo, with examples including:
  • Chapter 9 starts off as a minor shake-up where it is revealed that Sis created a dream-walking machine using the Fish With Names. However, what leads to the next chapter begins the true shaking of the status quo: Shijima's visit to the Dream World and her near-death experience from the giant crab establishes her true friendship with Majime after she was saved by her.
  • Chapter 19 does it again when Big Sis creates a giant excavator drill, of which was used to drill a giant hole that is connected to the Gardener's world. Chapter 20 reveals that the Gardener is the one who is running her own Pocket Dimension and is a Physical God.
  • After the battle during Chapter 30, West Yomogi has been radically changed, as a result of the conflict between Sis and the Gardener, thus shattering the latter's status quo regarding her view towards the Simulation. At the end, Big Sis distributes the powers of reality-warping to humanity, signifying the colossal change where West Yomogi is no longer the same town as it was seen in the previous chapters.
  • Additionally, in Chapter 40 an even more extreme change happens because of Sis's conflict with her duplicate. The changes become even more pronounced in Chapters 43 and beyond when things go bad to worse for the simulation. What left of the Gardener's erstwhile status quo was completely destroyed, resulting with the entire world to become unrecognizable.
  • Chapter 41's ending shows a marriage scene between Yoshiko and her teacher Mr. Takahashi, eventually cementing their status as an Official Couple.
  • Yomikawa's reveal in Chapter 44 radically changes everything that is known about the entire world Shijima and the rest are in. But it was not until Yomikawa drops the most revealing bomb in the story: the simulation was a joint effort to preserve humanity after a devastating war wiped out civilization, of which was placed inside a supercomputer that is floating on space, alluding to the third rocket that was launched during Girls' Last Tour.
  • Chapter 45 has two examples. Shijima finally reunites with Big Sis, only for her to find out that she is dead, with her soul being inside a fish, making the first character in the manga to be Killed Off for Real. She dies completely and her soul is no longer existing at the end of the chapter. The second is the bombshell that Shijima drops: she and her sister are revealed to be humans created by the simulation, as well as others, thus turning everything about Shijima's past to the head of the readers completely.
  • Chapter 46 reveals that Majime is in a void, three chapters after she was kicked out by Shijima due to being almost merged with her. But that would change when she creates her new world based on her three plushies: Chiho (rabbit), Jiro (salamander) and Maho (cat) and becomes its own Goddess.
• Official Couple: Both Mr. Takahashi and Yoshiko. It started off with the Love Confession in Chapter 40, before Chapter 41 puts the trope into effect, as both of them appeared at a bizarre-looking wedding ceremony, making them Happily Married.
• Only Sane Woman: The Gardener. She is a representation of the world's natural order and as such she is sometimes put up into Large Ham antics whenever something does not rationally align well.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Both Shijima and her sister are orphaned for years without their parents at all, who both lived in the decrepit apartments in West Yomogi, citing that the town they are in is just not for them at all. Until Chapter 45 shows the actual truth behind their parents' fates: the Tsukishima siblings are mere creations of the simulation, elaborating the truth behind their time as orphans.
• Painting the Medium: Invoked in one page of Chapter 44, where the whole page transitions from a vanilla pictorial manga into a text-based interaction between Yomikawa and Shijima. Marking the contrast is the page in this said chapter is peppered with philosophical contexts uttered by Yomikawa.
• Parental Abandonment: Shijima and her sister's parents. No one knows what happened to them or where they have been. The flashback scene on Chapter 30 showed a part where Big Sis mentioned how they both "don't even have parents". Subverted in Chapter 45 when it was revealed that both of them are created by the simulation and are Artificial Humans.
• Perpetual Motion Machine: The Twin-Flounder Motor, one of Sis's many inventions.
• Plot Parallel: Chapters 46 and 47 are parallel chapters that focus on both Majime and Shijima, respectively, which happen at the same time up to the Time Skip.
• Pocket Dimension: The "rooms" that can be entered using the rocks throughout the town.
• Rage Breaking Point: How the Gardener appears at the first page of Chapter 30, when she finally knows of Sis' motives.
  The Gardener: I finally found you. So you did this. You're the one who's been making a mess of the town.
• Rain of Something Unusual: Or rather snow. Chapter 45 is this case when the falling snow across the empty snowy land Shijima walks is not even cold, but rather they are dream fragments of the people within the simulation.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: The main setting of the manga, West Yomogi, is considered to be an idyllic town, like any other rural towns in real life. But it is often known for having its fair share of unusual, outright bizarre phenomena. This includes the Thriving Ghost Town nature of the world and the bizarre occurrences that are happening, the existence of strange rocks popping out of nowhere, a giant hole that leads to the Gardener's world and even the slowly distorting, acid-trippy nature of the world because of people granting Reality Warping powers. But after the Big Sis clone twisted reality further by unlocking humanity the power to change themselves, the town itself and the whole world in general is barely recognisable and in a ticking time bomb to a complete collapse of what left of the natural order it was in. Until Shijima is given with one difficult solution by Big Sis: Reverse all the damage the clone caused during the school festival, but by not allowing herself to interfere.
• Reality Warper: After Chapters 30 and 40, humans have been given the power to change reality or themselves in a whim, respectively by both Big Sis and her clone. Deconstructed, since humanity have become so unbound to the status quo of the simulation that they're willing to reality warp freely despite the obvious consequences to the world's natural order. And said consequences become real in Chapter 45 when Shijima walks into a snowy land that eventually turns out to be the remnants of West Yomogi with landscape so badly altered that it barely even resembles as one at all, before the town was wiped out from existence. Thanks to their actions, humanity became physically more distant from others as a result.
• Recursive Reality: The entirety of Chapter 42. The first part shows Shijima and Majime in what appeared to be an empty, barren area with a mysterious donut-shaped structure and a noose within the middle, of which Mogawa attempted to hang herself. Then the scene cuts to another recursion where Shijima, Majime and Sumida are seen in an art gallery-esque place, with Sumida seen painting Mogawa that turned out to be the previous recursive world that Shijima and Majime just visited moments ago. And then the final scene cuts to the final recursion where a small, crude canvas sitting on an easel of what looked like the members of Hole-Digging Club including Shijima and Majime. Shijima and Majime are later seen at the final panel of the chapter.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shijima is blue, as she is quiet and shy, while Majime is red, as she is hyperactive and boisterous.
• The Reveal: Several examples.
  • Sis reveals that all of West Yomogi is a literal simulation, given the fact that no accidents and deaths were reported, as mentioned by The Gardener, who was revealed to be the town's overseer.
  • The Big Sis that appears in Chapter 38 is revealed to be her rogue clone that was accidentally created by Big Sis' attempts of using the machine code in the Rock World.
  • Another bombshell then comes in Chapter 44, when Yomikawa reveals that West Yomogi and the world within it is a simulated reality within a computer. But it was the only first part as mentioning all of it is a big reveal and a massive spoiler. It turned out that the supercomputer was created moments before the Robot War, in order to continue humanity's existence by uploading their consciousness into it and by launching the said device through space with a shuttle that is also revealed to be still flying across space, supported with how Chito and Yuuri saw the flight path of the third shuttle that is successfully flown through space inside the abandoned space station. It was not until the Dénouement Episode, Chapter 48, where this becomes a major plot twist: everything that happened in Girls' Last Tour is canon to this manga.
  • Chapter 45 exactly shows the truth of Shijima and Sis' parents, where it is revealed that they never had parents whatsoever, making a much clearer case of Big Sis' words regarding how their town is not for them and they don't even have parents, as they were created by the simulation ("suddenly born") at the grass next to the danchis. There's the revelation that the people in the simulation are not born, but rather transported into it, which is exactly how Yomikawa's reveal played out in the previous chapter.
  • Chapter 46 reveals that Majime, after being absent for the past two chapters, is later revealed to be the deity of her new world that she created, which comprises of Talking Animals, with the Chiho (rabbit) tribe being one example. Albeit it is also revealed that she went into self-exile after several of them from various nations warred against each other over wanting more friends of their own, which resulted in her regretfully unleashing a Bolt of Divine Retribution (or rather a rain of arrows) onto them.
• Same Surname Means Related: Averted. Both the teacher Mogawa and the police officer Mogawa turned out to be respectively older and younger siblings (both who don't have a first name) who both have the Mogawa surname.
• Scanlation: Since the manga has no slated official English release, all of its chapters have been currently fan-translated by Orchesc/a/ns.
• Serious Business: The Gardener exhibits a Rage Breaking Point murderous personality when West Yomogi, the town she surveils, was under attack by Big Sis. On the courtesy of both her and Big Sis battling each other.
• Shattering the Illusion: After the revelation of West Yomogi being a simulated reality under the Gardener's watchful eyes, in part of having no accidents reported, Big Sis goes into bluntly questioning the Gardener about the town being a "calculation" and a "Papier-mâché" and boasted that "no mere Gardener" can stop her. She uses the Fish With Names from her conch-shaped device to literally destroy the illusion of the town itself. Though it's not without the drastic consequences it transpired in the future run.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: The Mogawa sisters. Officer Mogawa is a police officer who is unafraid and serious, while her older sister Teacher Mogawa is a lazy and cynical school teacher.
• Slice of Life: A story about Shijima leaving her closet after two years of secluding herself inside where she pursues a day-to-day life with others including Majime. Though it doesn't take a few chapters to peel that layer away when the manga turns out to be a Surreal Existential Horror. It gets blatantly Subverted in Chapter 43 when existentialism becomes the principal focus.
• Snow Means Death: The entirety of Chapter 45 shows the world blanketed in snow, but the snow that falls are the dream fragments of people in the simulation, showing the state of the world's utter collapse because of the Sis clone's actions during the school festival. However, the "snow" also signifies Big Sis' slow death, when she was simply found by Shijima, atoning for her past actions, while also telling her Dying Wish to her little sister.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Despite being a Stealth Sequel, ShimSim has similarities to Girls' Last Tour, with both of them created by Tsukumizu, have a Foil duo lead consisting of a blonde and black-haired girl and also a Deconstruction of its own themes. But it has a lot of distinct differences that make it different to Girls' Last Tour.
  • Girls' Last Tour takes place in a world After the End, specifically in a megacity devoid of all people after an apocalypse drove humanity to extinction. Shimeji Simulation takes place in a Thriving Ghost Town in the present, where it is at least populated with a few people, with its real nature turning out to be a simulated reality.
  • Their Central Themes also oppose, despite inclining to the themes of friendship. In Girls' Last Tour it is about enjoying everything while it lasts, since they all perish. On the other hand, Shimeji Simulation is about the importance of friendship and dealing with its set of struggles.
  • Girls' Last Tour deconstructs the post-apocalyptic adventure genre, while Shimeji Simulation deconstructs the Iyashikei genre.
  • Girls' Last Tour was serialised by Kurage Branch and it was often released on a single volume in full. Shimeji Simulation releases each chapters monthly on the 27th of each month (in most cases) and it was serialised by Comic Cune.
  • It also extends on how both mangas ended on their respective stories, despite focusing on the themes of sacrificing everything to reach their goal. In Girls' Last Tour Chito and Yuuri's ventures ended for nothing upon they reach the highest layer, where they lost their Kettenkrad and the rest of their belongings. Shimeji Simulation ends on a slightly happier note than its predecessor where Shijima finally reunites with Majime 1000 years later, albeit bittersweet, since the world completely collapsed after the clone's actions, Big Sis finally passed away and everyone she knew once were long gone.
  • In terms of characters, they are also different, in spite of being in the same black-and-blonde-haired Foil duo lead mold. Chito is an orphan who was taken care of by her surrogate parental figure only known as Grandfather; Shijima is an Artificial Human since she was created by the simulation and only has Big Sis as her surrogate parent. Yuuri, like Chito, is an orphan who is a complete ditz; Majime lives with both her parents in a stable household. Big Sis is seen as a contrast to Ishii, who are both scientists, are The Stoic and are Wrench Wenches with an affinity for engineering. Ishii is a Nice Girl who is helpful to Chito and Yuuri, such as fixing their Kettenkrad, but her learnings are rooted to the past. Big Sis is an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl who often focuses on her experiments more than taking care of her younger sister and is also morally ambiguous who is willing to commit such acts to achieve it; plus she leans to the futuristic aspect of her learnings.
• Spoiled by the Manual: Each of the ".5" chapters, the character manuals, are blatant spoilers on its own. For instance, officer Mogawa's relation to teacher Mogawa as her younger sister was blatantly shown in Chapter 30.5. But the character in question only appeared as an Early-Bird Cameo in Chapter 28 who was mistaken for teacher Mogawa. Officer Mogawa's relation to teacher Mogawa as her younger sister was revealed in Chapter 30.5, spoiling this fact, since their relationship as siblings was not revealed until Chapter 35. One particular page in Chapter 49.5 is a big spoiler where Western Yomogi is revealed to be a computational device used to preserve all of humanity, a fact that was foreshadowed by Yomikawa during Chapter 44.
• Spoiler Cover:
  • Chapter 46's first panel shows Majime wielding a staff, as well as overseeing a town with watermelons on it. It's a first clue that the major plot point of this chapter is spoiled: Majime is The Maker of this world after becoming a Physical God when she created her world. The said panel doesn't bother trying to hide it.
  • If Chapter 47's title, Empty, isn't obvious enough, the chapter's first panel blatantly spoils the plot point that Shijima becomes The Hermit in her own empty world after reversing the damages that was done during the school festival.
  • Volume 5's cover art shows Shijima and Majime with each other. It's a very major spoiler to boot as it did not happen until the very last chapter where both of them have reunited again. Essentially, the cover spoils the ENTIRE plot of Shijima's journey to look for Majime between Chapters 44 to 48 from the get-go.
• Spoiler Title:
  • The title did not become a major deal from most of its chapters. In Chapters 30 and 44, however, the title spoils the reveal of the world's true nature: the whole world is revealed to be a simulated reality. Hence the title name Shimeji Simulation. Talking about the title itself easily spoils the manga's famous Tomato Surprise twist.
  • Some of the chapter titles of this manga are also egregious examples of this trope.
    • Chapter 10, titled Dream, exactly shows the main plot point where Shijima visits the Dream World.
    • Chapter 30, titled Change, spoils the Wham Episode where the entire simulation is permanently changed after Big Sis alters it.
    • Chapter 45, titled Reverse, exactly depicts and spoils the key plot point: Shijima has to reverse all the damages Sis and her clone have caused.
    • Chapter 46, titled Genesis, spoils everything about Majime, including her ascension to becoming The Maker of her own world, as well as becoming its god.
    • Chapter 47, titled Empty, spoils the plot point where Shijima ends up becoming alone in her own world after the reversal seen in Chapter 45.
• Stealth Sequel: The manga, at first, initially appears to be an original work created by the author Tsukumizu. But from the start of Chapter 8, there's a minor hint that the manga is a stealth sequel to Girls' Last Tour, where Shjiima and Majime briefly come across a black cube sitting in front of the danchis that is identical to the cube seen at the highest layer of the predecessor manga's finale. Several other hints of this manga being a sequel have also been seen including the inclusion of the machine language, the cryptic writing system previously seen in the predecessor manga, which is assumed to have now been upgraded as it has fishes and more graphical elements embedded onto it; with Sis using it to bolster the computational power of the simulation, which is already a foreshadowing that their world is a simulated reality in a supercomputer. It was not until Chapter 44 when Yomikawa reads a book to Shijima about the humanity of the past which was struck by a violent unnamed epidemic, before a massive war followed, with human settlements wiped out one after other, with the latter so eerily identical as to how the humans were wiped out by the massive Robot War seen in many of the video clips in Kanazawa's camera in Episode 12 of the anime. The biggest bombshell comes when it was revealed that humanity during the eve of the robot war managed to create a fusiform-shaped supercomputer and used it to transfer their human consciousness (a la Brain Uploading) to preserve humanity from extinction; and then the said computer is said to operate forever inside a space shuttle that goes on practically forever to the edge of the universe, birthing the simulation that is as of now in the start of the manga. In GLT's Volume 6, Chapter 42, it basically corroborates Chito and Yuuri's observation of the third shuttle's flight path which continuously heads further into the edge of the universe. The Dénouement Episode, Chapter 48, cements this trope as it is revealed that the two strangers Shijima met inside the Afterlife Express were not in fact her neighbours, but Chito and Yuuri themselves who were posited to have passed away from the Big Sleep and had their consciousness uploaded right next to the black cube, which served as the de facto server room to the simulation. This, at the end, revealed that Shimeji Simulation is a sequel set in an unspecified years within the future after Girls' Last Tour, making this manga a canonical sequel to its predecessor.
• Surrealism: The world of Shimeji Simulation, as a whole. It is often reflected by the numerous bizarre occurrences that happen throughout the story, including Bizarrchitectures and the world's overall atmosphere.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Chapter 25. Mogawa shows Majime bottles of whiskey, wine and beer, to which the latter points out to not drink all of it and with Mogawa "promising" not to do so. The next panel shows her drinking a can of beer afterwards, much to Majime's dismay, as part of her "test" regarding alcohol's fall velocity.
• Teacher/Student Romance: A Zigzagged case between Mr. Takahashi and Yoshiko. While they are revealed to be in love through their Love Confession before it ascends into Happily Married territory, the circumstances of their marriage is bizarre, on the other hand, given how their wedding ceremony was seen in the manga.
• Tears of Remorse: Shijima goes through this at the end of Chapter 44, after realising the actions of her kicking Majime out of her life, as well as her fear of Majime disappearing.
• Time Travel: Big Sis reveals that the only way to undo the events relating to her clone handing out the Key to humanity is to go back in time during the school festival. The caveat, however, is that if nothing changes at all, then chaos will return to the town again. Making matters worse is if everyone returns back to normal, Shijima has to distance herself away from people forever in order to prevent herself from interfering with the changes again, thus she is left with the option of staying in solitude.
• Thriving Ghost Town: West Yomogi is often considered as a ghost town, due to most of it being largely unpopulated by people, despite being thriving as such even in times when Sis altered it. Only small pockets of the town itself are populated as such. A few instances of this trope playing straight includes the danchis, where its large size contrasts with the drastically small tenancy count of four; West Yomogi High School only has few students mostly from Class 1-D, where most of its classrooms are hauntingly vacant, despite the huge size.
• To Be Continued:
  • Chapter 29 ends with the sudden appearance of the Gardener who attacked Big Sis, which then follows up with the battle scene in Chapter 30.
  • Chapter 45 ends with a Cliffhanger where a glimpse of Shijima floating in the void and a brief appearance of Majime is seen, which is a follow-up to the next chapter, where everything goes back to the events of the school festival.
  • Chapter 47 ends with Shijima entering a strange train, an Afterlife Express, that goes at an unknown destination to nowhere.
  • The Dénouement Episode Chapter 48 ends with a scene of Shijima arriving at another world from the Afterlife Express that builds up to the Grand Finale. The world is revealed to be the home of one of its tribes, the Chiho tribe. And it's hauntingly obvious on who created this world.
• Tomato Surprise: A Plot Twist in Chapter 30 shows that everything about this world is in fact a simulated reality and not real at all in the slightest. It is until Chapter 45 drives this point hard when Shijima reveals what the audiences didn't: everyone in this world are figments of a reality simulation who were all created by it, herself included.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Some of the author's posts on Twitter regarding a teaser of a future chapter (a snippet of it) spoils the plot of that said chapter before it is even released on the 27th (the usual day the manga's chapters are released in a month), since they turn out to be exactly as shown as what the images say.
  • The title art of Chapter 9, released three weeks before the chapter's release, depicts Shijima, Majime and Sis looking at the Raw Fish Generator. It was exactly shown in Chapter 9 upon its release, spoiling the said chapter's plot regarding the Generator.
  • This image shows Shijima slicing a part of the huge apple with her knife. It immediately spoils the plot of Chapter 10 where Shijima ventures the Dream World and does exactly the same thing.
  • This image shows Mogawa who is now short-haired. It spoils a plot point shown in Chapter 11 that Mogawa undergoes an Important Haircut.
  • This image shows a giant excavator with Sis standing right next to it. It spoils the major plot point of Chapter 19, where they use it to excavate a giant hole that leads to the Gardener's world.
  • This image shows Majime riding a corn cob. Chapter 30 exactly shows that, since it spoils the post-Wham Episode that humans are now able to reality warp on their own accord.
  • This image shows the three busts of Socrates, Pythagoras and Aristotle as well as the machine language at the background. Guess where it also takes place? The Rock World, as exactly depicted in Ch. 36.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: A flashback of Big Sis' elementary years in Chapter 30 showed a glimpse of her tragic past as a victim of bullying from her peers due to her conflicting interests. Then a panel of what looked like her talking to her teacher, before he coldly told her to be (presumably) more social towards others. After the flashback she and Shijima are seen at a playground, with Big Sis claiming that they have no parents and how their town is "not for them".
• Upsetting the Balance: The side effects of Big Sis' alteration of West Yomogi has caused, when she gives humanity the ability to use Reality Warping on their own accord. What resulted is her causing the town to become a chaotic dimension, where humans can do whatever they want with this newfound power, breaking what remained of the Gardener's natural order to the town she oversaw. It goes From Bad to Worse when Sis' rogue clone goes out of her way to upset the already shattered natural order of the town furthermore by giving humanity the ability to change themselves, leading to a feedback loop.
• Utopia: Deconstructed. The main setting takes cues from the usual portrayal of a utopic society, including West Yomogi being a classic Arcadia as well as the world being peaceful that it's seldom possible to even find a report of a death that occurred at once. That is just a tip of the iceberg for what the world about is, however, since The Gardener is chiefly responsible for causing no deaths to happen and she's willing to adhere to her Status Quo to keep the simulation bound to her rules, creating a masquerade of a utopia. This eventually caused Big Sis to appear, willing to achieve her own utopia by bending the rules through destroying the illusion of the town and allow humanity the freedom to change anything they can, despite the obvious damage to the world's natural order as a whole. Sis' utopia also leaves much to be desired when it results in the whole world being barely recognisable due to reality warping being commonplace, leading to her clone now doing the same thing where this time she wants to destroy Sis' utopia by allowing humanity to change themselves. Chapter 45 emphasises the deconstructed version of this trope that Sis blamed herself for the collapse of the simulation, resulting in her effort of creating a utopia where humans are unbound to rules to be All for Nothing.
• The Watcher:
  • The Gardener herself. She is the overseer of West Yomogi, given that Nobody Can Die under her watch, regardless of incidents.
  • Majime later becomes the creator and the watcher of her newly-created world, where in particular she is worshipped by the Chiho tribe at the unnamed town.
• Weather Dissonance: Chapter 22 starts off with Shijima grumbling about the summer weather, with Majime wishing for winter. The next day, a sudden winter weather happens, despite the fact it was summer the previous day.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 30. Later soon revealed that Sis was responsible for the events in West Yomogi, when confronted by The Gardener, who is later revealed to be a deity and the town's overseer, ensuing a major confrontation between the two. This alone caused the town to be radically changed, due to the interference of Sis via the Fish With Names.
  • Chapter 40. The implications of Big Sis' actions in the past are now also catching up to the present, when her rogue, self-aware clone she created from her cloning ability drove the free world she crafted into chaos as it attempts to grant humanity the power to change themselves, which occurs in the form of a feedback loop. This resulted in yet another chaotic imbalance to the already warped world. This signifies that Nothing Is the Same Anymore furthermore as the Gardener's own status quo has been completely shattered, leaving the entire simulation to be completely warped beyond recognition.
  • Chapter 43. After Shijima kicks her friend Majime away out of fear of being merged by her, she is now thrusted into a world of emptiness without anyone but herself, playing the same bitter irony of her reclusive life in the past. Unlike the first two examples, Big Sis is later revealed to be dead in Chapter 45 and Shijima's "solution" of fixing the mess the Sis clone did during the school festival requires her to sacrifice her connections to Majime and to the rest of the people she knew by distancing herself to them.
• Wham Shot:
  • The black obelisk seen in one of the panels behind Shijima and Majime in the very first chapter? That's a clear Foreshadowing that the world is surreal and not what it seems. At least to the audiences who know about it firsthand, since Shijima and Majime do not know about it. Both of them took a few chapters to finally know why it is not a normal world when they see a strange black cube. Despite being the first instance of this trope, it's a First-Episode Twist, namely because the significant plot point is spoiled: the world is a simulation.
  • Chapter 8. It shows a shot of the Raw Fish Generator, Sis's rather strange contraption to convert fish into Fish With Names. It later plays a major role when Shijima was later sent to the Dream World through the said fishes in Chapter 9, as well as during Sis's confrontation with the Gardener in Chapter 30.
  • Chapter 46 shows shots of Majime with the staff on her hand. Before it soon transitions to her long-haired self in the future talking to her creations. It then goes into a Flash Forward scene 1400 years into the future, aptly named the Majime Era, where plants and Talking Animals are seen everywhere. It was until the end of the chapter that a statue of Shijima is seen beside the Majime statue.
  • Chapter 48's train sequence isn't particularly shocking. That is until Shijima is joined by two very familiar characters that she meets while riding the train, which is none other than Chito and Yuuri...
  • Ditto from the same chapter. The last panel shows a familiar-looking world with Talking Animals and some fruit-shaped structures that Shijima ends up after a long trip, which is revealed to be the world that Majime created.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Big Sis was successful in altering West Yomogi during Chapter 30. The problem? Her rogue clone caused a significant change to the already warped world via a feedback loop in Chapter 40. She enlisted her younger sister and Majime's help to stop her clone from making things worse, as well as stopping the Mosasa Dogs' concert from blending their music within the world's code.
  • Another case in Chapter 43. Shijima, who grew fearful of presumably losing her identity, kicked Majime out and attempted to shut her off after that risqué romantic rendezvous between the two. What resulted for her instead is her being sent to an empty, desolate barren world with nothing but herself. To make things worse, the house that she and Majime were in are nowhere to be seen, leaving Shijima stranded in the middle of nowhere.
• Winged Humanoid: Subverted. The waitress in Restaurant Heaven may seem that she has wings, but it turns out that they are glued at the back of her apron.
• World of Chaos: While the world is already an Acid-Trip Dimension before Big Sis altered it, further chapters after Chapter 30 have shown the chaotic, logic-defying state of this world. One can wonder how anyone can navigate through such a world riddled with Alien Geometries and Bizarrchitectures all over the place. Chapter 40 takes this trope to a Logical Extreme, when humans are now able to change themselves, leading to more chaotic insanity.
• You Can't Fight Fate: When Shijima is presented with the idea to return everything back to normal by Big Sis, it is revealed that her only other option is to isolate herself from the people she knows by distancing herself from them, in order to not interfere with the said changes themselves.

---