Folks, I am very happy to be returning to Girls’ Last Tour! The show’s first episode was equal parts charming slice of life, and, er, I guess more contemplative slice of life? It was essentially a post-apocalyptic travelogue, a subgenre that actually boasts a whole bunch of top-tier anime. Kemono Friends and Kemurikusa both fall in a similar space, while both Haibane Renmei and Sound of the Sky, though they don’t have a specific focus on journeying, capture a similar combination of warm slice of life contrasted against a majestic yet fading larger world.
Slice of life and post-apocalyptic despair might not seem like a natural combination, but the pairing actually makes a lot of sense to me. There are no longer any battles to fight in these worlds – whatever some action hero might have been able to accomplish, their deeds are no longer relevant, as the world has already arrived at its end. Instead, those who survive must focus on what they still have – and in any world, the one thing a broken civilization can’t take from us is each other. In a world gone to ruin, the comfort we can provide each other becomes all that much more crucial, and a natural symbol of how human kindness is ultimately undefeatable. Even in a world in decay, two people can still care about each other, and find comfort in each other’s presence.
Resonant premise aside, Girls’ Last Tour is also just a lovely aesthetic object in its own right, full of evocative backgrounds and tied together with incredibly precise sound design. Let’s see what adventures these girls get up to in episode two!
Episode Two
We open with a shot establishing the vast scale of the environment they’re traversing, but it’s a top-down shot onto a snowy field. As opposed to illustrating ruins in the distance to naturally imply adventure or a destination, this shot implies homogeneity – they’re crossing a vast expanse of the exact same white sheet
That homogeneity is immediately disrupted by the girls’ play, as we see they’ve been idly packing snowballs
This show’s soundtrack is so dang good. This combination of strings and flute falls somewhere between a winter jingle and a religious hymn, precisely the combination of playfulness and solemnity, as well as a general “wintery” sound, that they’re seeking
“Maybe we’re actually already dead, and this is the pure-white world of the afterlife.” Right, I forgot how randomly heavy this show can get. But it makes sense – their playful behavior is partly a performance they put on to feel less aware of the fact that they are perpetually surrounded by death
Yuu making a snowman on Chi’s head with a bullet for a nose is an extremely Girls’ Last Tour image
Also reflective of this show’s general sense of humor; it doesn’t craft strict setups and punchlines, it just lets Yuu’s natural behavior result in lots of deadpan comedy. A nice way to keep the tone light without actually disrupting the overall atmosphere
That’s actually a point worth considering – different genres and atmospheres are better suited to different styles of comedy, and whatever your personal preference for comedy is, the tone of a particular work should generally take precedence over the strength of any one joke
“Did you know that the afterlife is supposed to be really warm?” Their idle conversations reflect how their circumstances have forced them to develop a familiar relationship with death
Oh man, I totally forgot about this charming OP
This blizzard is pretty handy for masking the CG
Chi almost falls asleep in the cold. They really are just barely holding on
The girls arrive at a power plant, though they can’t actually read the letters. An interesting choice; because they don’t know the language, it feels a lot more like they’re exploring some truly ancient and unfathomable civilization
The girls start shooting at a pipe that seems to contain hot water. I think Chi would generally see this is a really dangerous plan, but they’re both way too cold to care
Chi ends up using her shoulder to steady Yuu’s shot, a nice reflection of their collective strength
Oh no, their blob bodies are dissolving in the water!
They say they’ve had “three baths since leaving Grandpa’s.” Worldbuilding so slight it’s more like texture
Chi describing this as “paradise” once again brings up the subject of death. You really get the sense they’re both hyper-aware of death’s nearness, and also somewhat numb to it
And the answer, of course, is solidarity. The moment ends on them sharing their laughter
Interesting. Chi’s journal demonstrates that she does actually know a written language, but it’s a very different one from the Japanese characters of the power plant. Lots of nice, subtle hints of worldbuilding
Yuu apparently can’t read or write, and clearly feels left out as Chi catalogs their journey
“Memories fade, so we write them down,” contrasted against this simultaneously beautiful and harrowing shot of two rifle bullets in front of the dancing fire. The hope of preservation layered against the end of society
OH MY GOD, YUU THREW ONE OF THE BOOKS ON THE FIRE. What a goddamn heinous thing to do. She didn’t do it intentionally, but I don’t think that would stop me from killing someone who just burned one of my four remaining books
“Whatever. I said I was sorry.” And Yuu is not making this better. Her slight bitterness at being excluded robbed Chi of one of the four stories she still has left. It was an incredibly hurtful thing to do, but Yuu can’t really parse why, and that just makes Chi even more angry. It’s a frustrating thing, not being able to convey just how hurtful something was
A mid-distance shot holds steady as Yuu restlessly moves around the fire, emphasizing her loneliness and sense of guilt
They keep doing these odd sequences that seem to briefly tonally imply Yuu is just going to lose it entirely – pointing the gun at Chi in the first episode, holding Chi’s journal directly over the fire here. I’m not really sure where they’re going with that, because Yuu’s actual personality is incredibly transparent
The sound design once again takes center stage, as we spend some time simply listening to the creaking of snow against the old building overnight
“Chi, are you still mad at me?” She’s like a puppy who chewed up your shoe
Yuu’s “apology” is drawing Chi’s face in the journal with an “I’m sorry,” indicating she actually heard some of Chi’s speech about preserving important things. A very cute resolution
Huh, her letters actually are katakana. Okay, so it’s just that Chi doesn’t have much a kanji vocabulary, not that she’s writing in a totally different language
The show’s faded, pastel-heavy colors help convey the sense of a world covered in snow. Heavy, pure white snow has a tendency to reflect sunlight very brightly, thus making the other colors of the world all look bleached out
Colors show up where they can, though. Nice subtle rainbow effect implying the spray of the falling water
“I just told you to watch your step.” “What a shame, when the sky’s so blue!” Chi and Yuu each sort of embody one half of this show’s concept, with Chi offering the world-weary pragmatism and Yuu the star-eyed wonder
“Why is the sky blue?” Yuu introduces a classic slice of life conversation starter, with the wrinkle that neither of them have actually seen an ocean before
Yuu is also unfamiliar with fish, apparently. It seems that their life even prior to this current state was pretty sheltered; they presumably grew up during the war, and Chi only knows these things because she’s always been a bookworm. Excellent incidental characterization; this show directly tells us nothing, but it’s still giving us plenty of context over time
Oh my god girls, please do not eat some random dead fish you found in the drainage runoff
Beautiful shot of the two of them talking on their little concrete island, within the great sea of the melted snow. The looming skyscrapers and jagged metal-and-rebar barricades give the shot a strong sense of depth. Cities are good for creating shots with depth, as they have lots of natural flat lines to convey clearly segmented distances relative to the camera
“Be careful, it’s hot.” I appreciate the small running joke of Yuu always immediately doing whatever Chi warns her not to
This show’s expression work is so very good, and these blobby heads lend themselves to such funny visual exaggerations. The show benefits from its minimalist designs much in the same way Nichijou does
“It must have come in from a higher level.” The introduction of this fish naturally leads to our first actual goal – climbing to a higher level of the city. And having establish that goal, the show finally pans back to reveal the plate-based nature of this city. What an intriguing world
And Done
And so at last, our girls arrive at their true goal: find more fish, and eat them! Fish aside, I really enjoyed that reveal of the city’s true structure, as well as the general grace with which this episode executed all of its worldbuilding reveals. We’re getting lots of intriguing details regarding both the world and Chi/Yuu’s history that create a natural sense of mystery and desire to know more, while at the same time, the show is still pulling off setpiece after setpiece that establish a completely tangible physical atmosphere and emotional tone. I also appreciated how the journal segment let the show really stress the relationship between these two, as a genuine fight ended up demonstrating the ultimate closeness of their bond, and how much each of them needs the other. It was a striking episode in all regards, extending intriguing threads both back into our heroes’ past, and forward towards whatever they find at the city peak. Girls’ Last Tour continues to be a beautiful, atmospheric and altogether compelling ride!
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