I didn’t really intend for tragedy to always return me to Girls’ Last Tour writeups, but here I am again. This has not been an easy summer for me, and Girls’ Last Tour is pretty much where my headspace is – “getting along with the feeling of hopelessness” and all of that. At its core, Girls’ Last Tour is a story about death specifically, and about things ending more generally. The decaying civilization that Chi and Yuu struggle through is a reminder of the impermanence of all things, the kind of reminder that makes it impossible to live without acknowledging your own impermanence. Yuu and Chi cannot console themselves with “our lives will be remembered,” “our actions will contribute to a greater cause,” or anything else that implies a kind of eternity – the crumbled streets they putter through stand as a guard against any such illusions, emphasizing that all things eventually end.

As we make our own way through lives full of restless action and ambitious plans, perpetually reflecting on impermanence isn’t necessarily a helpful exercise – yeah sure, it may all turn to dust eventually, but we still gotta work and eat and take care of each other. But when you are reminded of impermanence, and lose something that cannot be replaced, it helps to have stories like Girls’ Last Tour, which acknowledge that loss while insisting that life is worth living even though life will end. There is so much beauty in this world, and I am forever thankful for the stories that acknowledge both the beauty and the sorrow, and greet the inevitable tragedies of living with honesty and hope. Living is its own meaning, and love is its own reward. Let’s return to the irrepressibly joyous Girls’ Last Tour.

Episode 8

Girls’ Last Tour maintains its regular tactic of beginning the episode with a sequence that evokes confusion and vulnerability, as we open on a full black screen, with only the sound of footsteps approaching until Yuu opens a grate above us to reveal the sky. Opening sequences tend to set the tone for episodes, and Girls’ Last Tour always opens by reminding us of the danger of this world, to counterbalance the inherent comfort of its leads’ behavior

These sequences also put us in the girls’ headspace in another way, as they’re generally constructed through shots that only give us a partial understanding of our environment, echoing the girls’ lack of context for all the objects they come across

They find what appears to be an old hand radio

They’re in a truly nightmarish environment this time – a series of metal locker shelves arrayed in sequence, one block after another, extending out to the horizon under a colorless sky

This OP song and sequence are very charming, but the more I watch of this show, the more they seem like an odd tonal fit. They pretty much directly contradict the intended takeaway of that cold open

Though the OP also presents the show’s worldview in total, through the contrast between its tone and lyrical content. It’s like Yuu is merrily, obliviously singing lyrics written by Chi

“Memories.” Hoo boy. Finally some backstory?

The girls keep puttering among the black obelisks

“You brought it with you?” Chi tells Yuu it was pointless to bring the radio along, a statement which itself demonstrates Yuu’s value to the group. As the cynical pragmatist, Chi is likely to discard things that don’t seem immediately useful, whereas Yuu is always imagining greater possibilities, and thus might discover something that Chi would disregard

They haven’t discovered much, though – just an empty shell, a button, and some cloth, aside from the radio. But that’s how it goes – when you’re consistently experimenting with what’s useful like Yuu, you’re gonna end up with a lot more misses than hits

And at long last, in the distance, another Chi statue. These statues originally had no meaning for the girls at all, in spite of their apparent religious significance, but the time Chi and Yuu have spent engaging with and talking about them has lent them a new and very real meaning. Yuu is thrilled to see a new statue, and asks Chi for the camera

Yuu has forgotten Kanazawa, and thanks the camera for reminding her of him

The girls reflect on forgetting the people they’ve met, which feels sad in a different way from the general sadness of this setup. Yuu and Chi have made an adventure of the apocalypse, but even within that adventure, impermanence reigns

“These are graves.” Rows and rows of tiny black boxes, all carrying forgotten belongings, now only witnessed by the statue left behind. What a lonely place

Sequences like this embody the intellectual power of storytelling, a power that asks us to consider and reflect without necessarily offering a specific lesson to take away. There is no “answer” to this scene – merely the encouragement to reflect on what the symbols we chose to define ourselves by mean, and to consider our relationships with objects, memories, and our environment. Fiction is full of ambiguous moments like this that will mean different things to different people, like little aesthetic koans

And Chi’s resolution is “we have to put those objects back. They’ll lose all meaning if they leave this place.” It’s a genuinely spiritual resolution, emphasizing her respect for the feelings of the people who inhabited this place, and her belief in their belief

Yuu is the pragmatic one. “Well, they’re all the same in the end.” She is more open to experiences, but learns less from them, building up very little worldview or belief baggage along the way

A wonderful new environment lets this show’s background team show off again, as the girls motor their car up the interior of a giant spiral tower

It’s become abundantly clear that there’s nothing actually waiting for the girls at the top of this city. I get the feeling the ending of this story will kinda gut me

This is also a story that doesn’t really have any need to “explain” its worldbuilding, how these girls got together or how the world ended up this way. What is, is. Cause would imply meaning or purpose, a way of creating narrative cohesiveness that is antithetical to Girls’ Last Tour’s view of the world

“Everything seems so dangerous that I actually start thinking everything will be fine.” Yuu gets it

The simplified geometry of this place and interior setting allow the show to get away with some fully CG tracking shots

Getting stuck inside this tower actually makes the girls feel nostalgic for their normal days of rambling along an open, outdoor track. Our desire for comfort and routine are not reflective of our specific environment; given a somewhat more claustrophobic apocalypse, Chi and Yuu long for the familiarity of a slightly less claustrophobic apocalypse

“How can you live if you’re afraid of dying!?” Yuu is very proud of this line

The spiral path is eventually disrupted by a broken segment, but someone else has made a smaller outdoor path that continues the climb. Once again, we see one era of humanity building upon another, both of them now lost, but still collectively able to help the girls continue their journey. Great works may not maintain the value we assign to them, but these objects have found new meaning in their support of the girls

The path collapses beneath them, but they make it up. Chi is too scared and closes her eyes, so Yuu grabs the accelerator and steers them through. These two are so good

Jeez, they came really close to death that time. That was a very lucky escape

“When you think about it, our lives go around and around, too. Where will we end up when we reach the end of the spiral?” A tidy metaphor, with their near-catastrophe outside the spiral emphasizing that even if our cycles of living are boring, we realize we treasure them when they disappear

“Moonlight”

Oh wow, tons of incredible shots of the city

The two forage through broken apartments, a tonally driven sequence given focus through the cool glow of the moon. Cycles of foraging, suffused with purpose and quiet joy

Footsteps preserved in snow are a clever way of giving a sense of narrative progression to a still panning shot

Oh no, Yuu has discovered beer. This will be the end of all things

Chi sniffs it, but wisely lets Yuu take the first sip

Friends getting drunk and enjoying the moonlight, an eternal truth

I love that the second Chi gets drunk and loses her inhibitions, she leaps on Yuu and starts messing with her stretchy cheeks. Chi is rarely willing to express how much she adores Yuu

Oh, this is so, so good. Dancing under the moonlight at the edge of the world

And now she’s just chewing on Yuu’s hair. Amazing

And Done

Ah jeez, they love each other so much, you guys. What a wonderful episode – a highlight both in visual and philosophical terms, and one of the most varied and aesthetically ambitious journeys so far. Their time among those lonesome graves offered lots of poignant and naturally illustrated reflections on the show’s usual obsessions, but then we got a genuine action-adventure highlight in their tower climb, and a beautiful, adorable celebration of their bond under the moonlight. What a lovely show this is.

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