Girl's Last Tour

This highly anticipated show starts today.

Surprised we don't have a thread on it.

The series follows two girls, Yuuri and Chito, as they navigate the ruins of civilization after an unknown apocalypse, and as they travel in their modified Kettenkrad, they seek food and supplies while surviving day-to-day.

This is… surreal… The whole thing is bathed in a morbid silence and a strange sense of peace at the same time… There's an uncomfortable contrast between the setting and the tone… I have no idea how they're gonna make 12 episodes like that, but I like the two girls' chemistry at least.

Now why does Japan insist in throwing cute young girls into crappy environment? "CGDCTASH" (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things And Suffering Horribly) is like its own genre at this point.

I find quite intriguing these kinds of series that blend seemingly innocent, peaceful slice-of-life and a deep or serious background. Perhaps there's the fact that you have a broad range of things to work with, from cozy and even comical to dark and dire. What I like is when these series, rather than primarily treating post-apocalpyse as "how to survive" and making action and such dominant, bring out more of "how to live" everyday lives.

I was aware of the manga and it was nice when I skimmed through it, but it was just "there", not much to read very closely. With an anime and its enhancements though, I might pay more attention.

edited 6th Oct '17 12:47:51 PM by Trivialis

Well, this is one that benefited a lot from getting animated. The manga is a decent read but the anime is an amazing mood piece. Sound and colour add a lot!

Cute Girls Doing Cute Post-Apocalyptic Things. I don't know whether to love or hate the fact that you can easily categorize anime like that. Pretty simple overall with the two girls just wandering for supplies, with a bit of commentary on war and weapons. The sound direction was excellent and really carried the episode. Could be repetitive, or this could turn into something special.

....this is like Romantically Apocalyptic but with cute girls.

2. This really drives home how lifeless the world is. It's not just the lack of people. But we haven't seen any living animals. I don't think there's even been any plants. But even more concerning is the lack of dead things. The way a lot of buildings and systems are intact, plus flashbacks, it shouldn't be that long since everyone died. But until the fish I didn't see a dead anything. This isn't an exciting show, yet it's oddly compelling.

Part of me really, really hopes that they found a library or something and were able to replace the copy of Kappa that Yuuri burned. Quite a large part actually. My inner bibliophile was crying at that.

I'm actually a little disappointed by the opening. It's cute, but it's very generic, and doesn't really fit the tone at all.

Someone with more skill than me want to make a page for this manga/show?

My thoughts exactly. Will probably still listen to it every week.

God that part hurt. And the fact that they had to burn books to survive. Tragic.

They found a fish! Odd how there's been a distinct lack of living breathing anything so far. Makes you wonder what the hell happened. Also interested in the places "above".

3. Oh wow, we actually get some answers. It seems this is an artificial world, which explains the lack of life. Other people are alive. Few in number, and not all necessarily nice considering the girls' initial reactions, but not necessarily bad either. Resources are scarce, but not so scarce that people start competing with each other right away. There was also some nice contemplation this episode about what to live for. I like how each episode has a theme thus far. Great show thus far, and one I'd recommend.

Also a reminder on the importance of chain link fences on open lifts/elevators.

Episode 3, significantly more interesting than the previous two. Kanezawa is cool! You'd think, even with a sparser population, people would naturally congregate into villages instead of just random drifters here and there, but I guess the lack of life or sufficient resources in any one place would prohibit that. I'm guessing it's somehow impossible to even do agriculture at this point?

Also the fact that whenever humans get to a certain point, they apparently just end up having wars and causing yet another apocalypse.

It's entirely possible that there just straight up aren't enough people in this city to effectively form a village or central society. Or maybe there is one, but it's on another layer and so far away as to be effectively non-existent.

I had hoped they stick with the Slice of Life thing they have going and don't try to get much in the way of overall plot, and it's looking pretty solid on that front? I'm not quite sure what gets me about it, but this is the kind of Slice of Life that really sucks me in.

Side note: I can't help but keep imagining that this is all actually taking place in Russia. It doesn't, but that doesn't keep me from defaulting to that for some reason.

Whenever resources are lacking, guns go a-blazing. Even now humanity can nuke itself into oblivion.

It's a slice-of-life where said life is about traversing a silent, post-apoc world. You get the warm and fuzzy antics paired up with the intrigue of the worldbuilding.

I have a fear of heights so the elevator scenes really stressed me out. <shudder> Poor Kanazawa.

Yeah, I felt really bad for Kanazawa. Kappa was one thing - more because it was something Chito really cared for than anything about it being Great Literature - but Chi has a reason to live beyond it, namely Yuuri. I have to wonder, like Kanazawa did, just how far he's going to make it now.

I mean, like he said - he's got a new level to map now. I could see him trying to fill the hole that the loss of his old maps made by making new maps to fill the gap. Not perfectly, but enough to keep him going.

Which then gets in to the question of if he's mapping because he likes to do that, or if he's mapping because that's how he lives? Something he does to fill the time and keep himself occupied, or a purpose that his life revolves around?

I think the former is probably more likely, since I think it's more in keeping with the tone of the work, but that's just me.

He does mention that if the map was lost he would probably die. In a world like that, I'd say the thing you do to keep busy and the thing that keeps you alive aren't very far apart most days.

3230.08.06.15.23 — I think this means this episode is set August sixth, 3230?

4. Lessons learned: always look forward while driving, keep your helmet on while driving, and make sure your lamp is fully charged before delving into the unknown. How do eyes make statues look so creepy? The themes this time were relics and proof that you existed, and if there's any meaning to believing in a higher power in the post-apocalypse. I love how this show keeps bringing in new things even with just two characters most of the time. Yuu is right. Chi is probably god.

I thought the statues looked goofy.

I love how confused Chi was about cheese. Like, what the heck, it's a flavor of food, but you also say it when getting your picture taken?!

I imagine a vast majority of the words we use today would be nigh indecipherable to an average person speaking what would English morph into one thousand year in the future.

I liked how they pondered the themes of the show and managed to present it in such a relaxing way. This is actually closer to Kino no Tabi (2003) than the Kino remake.

Yeah, my response to the first episode was more or less "this is basically Kino's Journey and I couldn't ask for anything else".

On the topic of languages, I dug up an old Tumblr post on the subject that I think nicely illustrates how radically language can shift. Here's another one that isn't quite as good but showcases the shift more gradually.

The point is, even if this show is "only" four to five hundred years into the future, language could have shifted enough that old text could be very hard for proficient readers to decipher, much less two kids who aren't.

if its 3230, then we're more than 1000 years in the future, which also explains the simplified katakana Chi writes with (and why she didn't understand Kanji)

edited 1st Nov '17 7:56:58 AM by ScrewySqrl