Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m feeling the urge for some high-class hospitality, and thus decided it’s high time to head down to the Gingarou Hotel. Though humanity may take to the stars or perish from this earth, attentive service and comfortable accommodations will never go out of style. Such is the creed of Yachiyo and her companions, the faithful inheritors of their creators’ will, who are now pleased to offer their own signature blend of expertly aged whisky!

So it goes in the wake of last episode’s adventures in distillation, which actually covered a great deal more than the process of cultivating fine liquors. Whisky turned out to be a flexible metaphor for any journey through life, as we lose some things, gain others, and are ultimately refined into a subtle and complex blend of our endless influences. So long as we retain some long-term goal, we are inherently expressing hope for the future, a motivation to keep us from languishing in the dregs of the past. It was a poignant and expertly crafted episode, and I’m eager to see what follows as we return to Apocalypse Hotel!

Episode 6

We open with… oh no, the tanukis are leaving!? But they’ve only been here a century!

“Holes in the ground are great, but I loved it here too!” Rave reviews from our guests

I frankly have to assume this is a fakeout; the show simply loses too much of its dynamic if Ponko isn’t present. Her bond with Yachiyo is the heart of this thing. Plus they’re, y’know, like half of the OP

Interestingly protracted OP, with an inserted cut of Yachiyo reaching towards the closing front door in the darkness. Always appreciate when an OP is used as a dramatic tool like this, though obviously the extra effort involved in altering your stable pieces of bank footage makes it a rare practice

Yep, very much a fakeout. They actually just stripped their ship for parts to make a house down the street, thus Ponko will even remain an employee of the hotel. Basically all of the tanuki proximity with none of the poop piles in the hallways

“Apparently some Harmageddon thing is going to end all civilization on Earth someday.” Definitely a cause for concern. And a real thematic threat for this show, in contrast with many other post-apocalyptic narratives. Shows like Girls’ Last Tour are about accepting inevitability, about “getting along with the hopelessness” and embracing the time you have – in contrast, Apocalypse Hotel is about maintaining optimism and faith in the future, as so clearly expressed through last episode’s focus on long-term goals. This apocalypse might have ended humanity, but Yachiyo and her team are still looking forward

A bright silver ship soars overhead, and from it drops what appears to be a mushroom-shaped robot

And it… immediately cuts through a skyscraper with a laser beam. Wonderful. Seems we’re establishing a nice “poignant metaphor/existential threat” balance in our episodes here

Granted, anything that earns us more panicked tanuki faces is welcome in my book

And now they’re freaking out in tanuki form, which is actually even cuter. Terrific work, team

If this episode is just tanukis losing it and Shinichiro Miki saying “shit!” and “god damn!”, it will be a very good episode

Harmageddon is indeed here to end all civilization, and is disappointed to learn that civilization has already ended. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one!

Love our rapid transition from this robot’s determination to destroy everything to a kind of pity at the Gingarou’s whole deal, followed by a rueful acknowledgment that they don’t have the cash to pay for a room. Sorta expected the followup to last episode’s tearjerker to be a farce, and “the avatar of apocalypse missed his stop” is indeed a sturdy farcical premise

“I guess Harmy’s staying at the Gingarou?” Yep, he’s got a nickname now, they’ve already domesticated him

“In order to provide a more comfortable and accommodating stay, we ask our guests about their cultural customs and habits in advance.” I appreciate these slight shifts in their methods of accommodation, as the hotel’s employees learn to embrace a more interplanetary style of multiculturalism

“I’d like to check my storm-and-slaughter suit for safekeeping.” Naturally

The actual Harmy’s weirdly adorable, with a cat face, frog hat, and noodle arms ending in boxing gloves

Upon hearing there was once a Nudel on the planet, Harmy sets to work killing every dormant Nudel hidden under the surface. He’s really quite charitable as far as civilization-destroying alien entities go, even if it’s mainly in service of eating his own preferred civilization-destroying entities

And of course Ponko, queen of subtext, assumes that Yachiyo is falling in love with this gallant cat-kangaroo-boxer creature

Thus Yachiyo and Harmy set off on a world tour of decaying, moss-covered human landmarks

“There isn’t an intelligent life form out there that can control its own progress.” So this is his philosophy – civilization inevitably leads to environmental ruin, and thus he is dedicated to destroying any intelligent life form that might conjure the threat of civilization itself

Oh, I love this. Yachiyo has no appreciation for Harmy’s nihilistic philosophy – in fact, rather than directly challenging his words with any “hope for the future” counterpoint, she simply complains that Harmy prevented her from getting to all of the day’s previously assigned duties. What is the point of lamenting the tragedy of civilization when there’s work to be done in the here and now? Her words are practical, but they speak to an understanding of how we can effectively use the limited time we have that makes an embarrassment of Harmy’s self-important rhetoric

It’s a generally productive ethos: “before lamenting the end of the world, make your bed and clean your room.” The things that give our lives meaning rarely correlate with any big-picture revelations; it is through living in the here and now that we actually take productive steps forward, finding meaning along the way

“Doesn’t it strike you that these delays might eventually snowball into a larger issue!?” Take care of the small stuff, and the big stuff will take care of itself. Not necessarily always true, but quite frequently psychologically necessary as a way of maintaining a sense of forward momentum

“Also, I see no causal link between humanity’s progress and their departure!” And just sticking in a bonus “also you’re wrong on your own terms” at the end there

“I can assume you show a similar lack of reflection when ending civilizations as well!” Just brutal

“Stop this nonsense if you’re not serious about her!” Thanks Ponko

Oh wonderful, now we’ve got a quartet of interplanetary superheroes here to stop the nefarious Harmy. Can you guys do this shit on someone else’s front lawn

“Start your search, Mighty Cuff!” I appreciate that they all have appropriately self-important hero titles

Ooh, some lovely smears and inventive CG effects flourishes for their clash. Like with KyoAni productions, I appreciate how this show can suddenly flex some preposterous action choreography when the mood strikes it

Also clever use of a CG bridge and the general darkness of the scene to facilitate this dogfighting-into-depth aerial sequence

Seeing the trajectory of Mighty Cuff’s blast, Harmy actually takes the hit in order to protect the Gingarou

“Do you not find me troublesome?” Ponko is pretty far off the mark regarding Yachiyo’s feelings, but it seems Harmy is being genuinely domesticated by all this tender attention

“There’s a difference between willful destruction and accidental breakage.” Just because his body is naturally inclined towards destructive power doesn’t mean that has to define him

“Can you show me around this area? Say no if you can’t.” Thus we get a reversal of his earlier world tour, with him now asking her to show him what makes this place special, and framing it as a request rather than a demand

“Do you not feel lonely? Do you not feel empty inside?” Yachiyo lives in the here and now, and cannot comprehend such existential questions. Certainly a happier way to live than the clearly lonely Harmy

“I don’t quite understand.” “You’re fine that way.”

Having found this small sanctuary of acceptance, Harmy decides to protect it the only way he can – by leaving, and thus ensuring more of his enemies won’t threaten the earth

Love this schmaltzy ballad as he offers his parting gift, a blast that uncovers their long-awaited hot spring

And Done

Ah, that was delightful. Apocalypse Hotel was really firing on all cylinders in terms of both comedy and philosophy there, offering a wonderful new arrival to contrast against Yachiyo’s philosophy, and garnishing their journey with a generous array of tanuki shenanigans. After last episode’s focus on the necessity of long-term goals, this one offered a sonorous celebration of the here-and-now, the importance of finding joy in your everyday tasks and interactions, and in not falling into despair regarding the inevitable end of all things. Harmy was a delight, and I hope he returns to destroy our civilization with all possible haste.

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