Well everyone, the day has come. I’ve been putting off watching this episode for a simple, familiar reason: as long as I don’t actually watch the last Girls’ Last Tour, the show never has to end. The adventures of Yuu and Chi have turned out to be some of the most beautiful, thematically rich, and moving episodes I’ve experienced. Confronted with the last episode, I’m forced to admit how much I don’t want this journey to be over.

Simply following these girls as they traverse the ruins of their great city is an enchanting experience all by itself, mournful and yet also hopeful, with each new episode offering its own visual wonders and artifacts to discover. On top of that, Yuu and Chi’s reflections on this world, unbound by our preconceptions regarding “proper living,” regularly poke at the heart of the human condition, forcing us to reflect on what we believe and pursue, and what will ultimately last. The show’s frank acknowledgment of the ephemeral nature of all things is balanced by its last and greatest strength: the clear and loving bond between Yuu and Chi, a tether protecting them, and also giving all of their adventures meaning and a sense of joy. Lost in a world whose end is inevitable, Yuu and Chi cannot hide behind any promises of future glory or ultimate reward; what joy and solace they find in this place is found each day, in their uncovering of this lost world, and in the love they bring to each other.

It seems a little ironic, then, that I’ve put off this last episode for so long. As Girls’ Last Tour itself states, everything ends, but that should be no cause for despair. Let’s enjoy this last episode, and remember the show fondly, without regrets. What the future holds, we cannot know – but as Yuu says, if you stick around, something good is bound to happen.

Episode 12

No mystery presented by this episode’s opening shot, for a change – instead, we get a straightforward establishing shot of the submarine the girls last found themselves in

Right, I’d forgotten we ended last episode on a genuinely threatening cliffhanger. Get out of the dang sub, girls!

It’s so cruel. All this time, the girls’ lack of preconceptions regarding old-world symbology and lifestyles actually facilitated the depth of their insights, as they examined the trappings of old lifestyles with a frankness and clarity born of ignorance. Now, that ignorance might actually get them killed, since they have no context for nuclear warning signs – traditional dramatic irony, after a full season of subverting it through Yuu’s ignorant wisdom

At the same time, Chi’s actively lamenting how they hoped this sub might provide further understanding regarding the lifestyles of prior generations. Even as Chi seeks to stretch out a hand to the past, the past offers only violence in return – the lingering threat of its still-deadly nuclear weapons

That fact hits a lot harder in a show like Girls’ Last Tour, which has spent so much time emphasizing the temporary nature of our mastery of this world, as well as the interesting ways our relics can be interpreted by future generations. What kind of society leaves only the potential for more violence as its gift to the next generations? When all else is gone, only this society’s hatred remains

Yuu is unimpressed by Chi’s interest in cultural anthropology

Chi’s delivery of “are you lonely with it being just us two?” is so good. Just slightly quieter than her usual speaking voice, with that tremor of vulnerability

Yuu finds some chocolate to share. I like this mid-distance shot as the two settle down to eat, emphasizing their closeness in this cramped and forbidding place

“Edible things can be eaten.” Yuu’s wisdom knows no bounds. She enters a canon of sages who all know Fun Things Are Fun

Chi acknowledges that Yuu’s encyclopedic memory for flavors is basically a way of “remembering the past” in itself

The dough weasel returns, just as their camera automatically connects itself to the submarine’s computer network. I think they call it “Niku”? The subs translate it as “cut,” which is technically correct, but in this case they’re treating the word more as a proper noun than a verb form, and thus it should likely remain untranslated. The nature of Japanese as a language means basically any character name will directly translate to a series of other terms, but effective translation demands understanding of context – this name’s significance here has nothing to do with what it means in the abstract, and is most usefully understood as a simple proper noun signifier

Incidentally, I don’t normally talk about translations because most of the time, the translations I use are pretty good. I’m watching Girls’ Last Tour on Amazon, though, and their subtitles are often kinda terrible

They find images of Kanazawa, and also photos he presumably took of a woman who was traveling with him. How is this tiny tragedy we don’t even see so gutting

A somewhat surreal experience, as Yuu and Chi discover a video of a school club, essentially coming face-to-face with the traditional version of their own genre

Surrounded by this beautiful garden of videos and images from long before, Yuu can understand Chi’s fascination with exploring the past. So much life and vitality, theoretically lost, but still captured in time

Ooh, a brief cut at a funeral, calling back to those graves the girls discovered

This sequence really does feel like the sensory overload it must be for Yuu and Chi. This whole show has maintained such a reserved color scheme and sense of movement, and now all these brightly colored videos are brimming with life. It really conveys the lost vitality of humanity’s prime

War footage contrasted against smiling faces, against this stately piano melody. This feels almost like Neon Genesis Evangelion’s later segments; the human experience, utterly unfiltered

Yuu sees a girl happily munching on french fries, Chi sees a girl proudly cradling a new book. They could have had these lives, or known these people. Their own quiet loneliness is thrown in stark relief as they are confronted by all they’ll never get to see, never get to share with the world. The beauty of our old lives, smash-cut against the senseless violence we inflicted on them. And these girls watching silently, tearing up, acknowledging all the sadness and wishing to connect with these lives, which have been brought so close to them, but which still hang so maddeningly far away

This sequence is making me tear up too. What a heartrending episode

“I kinda feel a little less lonely.” “Me too.” I’m glad they’re able to find solace in that. To them, these experiences likely feel so remote that they can’t really begrudge their absence – instead, they’re simply happy to see those points of connection, common interests or fascinations that tell them humanity has been sorta like them for all of time

And now we get the fullest version yet of their departure from grandpa, and why they were left to fend for themselves. Yuu awakes with tears in her eyes, the pain of separation brought close by all those lively videos from the past

Oh my god, there’s a giant version of the creature now. And it has one of those Chi faces

So were these AIs that then ended up being worshiped by a future, post-technology society? The creature’s ability to interface with electronics suggests so

THE CREATURE ATE YUU OH MY GOD

Chi gears up for battle!

Chi distracts herself by rambling about the situation, but when she trips and falls, she’s overwhelmed by her memories of Yuu, and absolute terror at the thought of losing her

Chi is having to directly grapple with what this series has spent its entire running time emphatically demonstrating: that for these two, they are each other’s reason for living. A hopeless world can be a fantastical adventure, as long as they’re experiencing it together

Fortunately, Yuu is fine. The creature spits her out once Chi meets her outside the submarine

The dough-creature is actually… some kind of mushroom? It’s clearly highly intelligent, and can communicate using humanity’s remaining broadcast infrastructure. So is this the dominant species that replaces us, once our empire falls to ruin?

“We ingest thermally unstable materials, and dismantle them internally into a stable, static state.” So their evolutionary track was a direct response to our dangerous excesses, and now they actively roam around dismantling the weapons we left behind

“When this process is completed, the long period of life activity on Earth will end, and the Earth will slumber once more.” Jeez

“To our knowledge, you are the only two humans still alive today.” Dear lord. I wasn’t aware quite how close to the edge we were; humans were certainly infrequent, but I hadn’t thought Chi and Yuu were actually stumbling past the very last fragments of survivors. What a lonely feeling

Aw, the little one wants to stay with them

What a strange, otherworldly, majestic sequence. The harbingers of the end times, these mushrooms that seem almost like angels, bidding the last remnants of humanity goodbye as they float away to continue their final work

“They said the world is ending.” “Yep. But…” A load-bearing “but,” there. As long as these two have each other, they’ll be okay

I love how long they hold this shot of the two of them just appreciating each other’s company

“As long as I have you, Yuu, I’m happy”

“I bet they got along with Hopelessness.” Ahaha. How does this show bring such consistent, effective humor to its apocalypse. What a joyful show about the end of the world

And we’re back to daily concerns, as the girls remark how lucky it is that the cafeteria had canned goods. Yuu jerks Chi around a bit regarding the loneliness question, before offering the answer she knows Chi needs to hear: “I’m not lonely because I have you”

And so they continue their journey towards the top level, where there might not be anything at all. That’s okay

On a promise to reach the moon next, the two continue their adventure

And Done

Aw jeez. What a wonderful, poignant, beautiful show that was. I found myself tearing up over and over throughout this episode – at the girls marveling at all that humanity had lost, at Chi recognizing just how much she loves her friend, at those strange creatures slowly taking flight, carrying the last embers of humanity’s fire with them.

This show was simultaneously a celebration of these girls’ lives, and also a memorial for all of humanity. Its emphasis on the impermanence of human creation urges us to take stock of how we are truly living our lives, its acknowledgment of the end teaching us to better appreciate each moment and experience for what it is. It is a story predicated on mankind’s terrible folly that nevertheless sees incredible beauty in our striving, in our failures, and in our desire to connect with each other.

The world of Girls’ Last Tour is beautiful, and yet so, so sad – very much like our own world. The honest clarity of this show’s perspective makes me cry even now, which I suppose means I still need to learn to embrace Yuu’s life lessons. Thank you all for joining me on this journey – it’s been an honor and a comfort to share this show with you, and please take care of yourselves out there. No matter how difficult things get, remember there is beauty out there, and that something good might always happen.

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