Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Apocalypse
Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou is a 2017 fall anime of 12 episodes, based on a manga of the same name. It follows Chii and Yuu, a pair of girls, as they're on a tour through a post-apocalyptic landscape on their kettenkrad (a tracked motorbike used by the German army in WW2, because lord knows if we have an anime season without underage girls and Nazi gun porn in the universe will probably implode or something). They move throughout the landscape on their bike. They have no essential goal and only the vaguest of origins behind them, and have episodic conversations on the nature of life and existence as nothing really of import happens and they never really get anywhere of note.
The experience might charitably be called 'calming', or 'utterly bloody pointless and boring' if you're feeling less so.
Art & Animation: 7/10 -- What an amazingly wide variety of brown and grey to look at.
Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou is set in some vague post-apocalyptic environment full of scrap material and decay, with some kind of vague WW1-style aesthetic and the hollow concrete shells of buildings everywhere. That said, the show manages to get a surprising amount of good locales out of such a cliche setting, and there's very little to no recycling. A bit of CGI is used for some of the animation, and it is noticeable, but it's hardly a lot and most seems to be drawn, and quite decently so.
As for the character designs, well, Chii and Yuu look ridiculously deformed and 'moe' in contrast to the very gritty and realistic-attempting environments, making them stand out of place. I'm not sure it's such a bad thing though, since it from the very beginning sort of underscores that this show has a somewhat warm and harmless tone despite its harsh environs. All in all, the silly character designs do not detract too much from the quite significant work put into the environs, and means I actually felt like giving this show my main attention even though it's the sort of thing I could just as well have left drifting in the background while playing bridge in another window.
Sound & Music: 8/10 -- Sparse, a bit minimalist, but very well put together for all that.
The music of Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou is quite nice. Relaxing, again, with use of string instruments and singing as some of its most common musical motifs. The singing is quite well-done even if they don't seem to be using any particular words (it's essentially scatting, just singing wowels in some kind of psuedo-Latin), and the sound design helps to underscore the sense of relaxation and calm exploration as well as the feel of sadness of a world in decay. Voice-wise, well, there's only Chii and Yuu, and they're distinguishable and fill their archetypes well enough.
The OP is really annoyingly catchy too. I mean, no great work of art or anything, but probably the catchiest opening I've had to suffer through since "History Maker" and one I never skipped over in the ten episodes it features.
Story: 7/10 -- It's probably all just a metaphor for *something*, anyway.
The easiest way to describe Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou's story is 'Kino's Journey with *two* girls', or, if you've never seen Kino's Journey, 'four hours of landscape shots and philosophy'. Chii and Yuu start the show driving their bike through an empty, post-apocalyptic landscape with no particular goal or destination in mind, and end the show twelve episodes later on exactly the same note after having met a few interesting situations and mainly just talked, and talked, and talked, about a lot of stuff between heaven and earth. For those to whom this isn't an immediate turn-off, Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou is not by far the *worst* example I've seen of such meandering navel-gazing. For one thing, the conversational themes and language used are both simple enough that it avoids seeming pretentious. Secondly, as I've mentioned, the scenery and music are both quite good and gives off a relaxing vibe that lets you just sit down and enjoy the twenty moments of sensation interspersed with some quasi-philosophical gabbing. I mean, it's no Waiting for Godot, but... I mean, it basically *is* Waiting for Godot, but not quite so funny to watch. Each episode has a coherent theme, and sticks to it, and it doesn't take a PhD in literary analysis to see said theme. It's not the deepest conversations, obviously, but it works.
Again, you just have to judge these things on its genre. I mean, sure, the setting is an anachronistic mishmash that makes no sense, and the complete lack of any civilization or people that can keep a sustainable population makes the whole thing essentially fantasyland (especially the last three episodes). The Nazi gun porn, as mentioned, is a lot more blatant than in Kino's Journey and makes just about as much sense here, but again, it's not the point. None of these things are the points. The point is four hours of aimless conversation that touches on themes of life and existence, and everything else is just... Set pieces. Flavour, with only the occasional connection to anything the show actually has to *say* or talk about or explore (like whether or not a robot is 'life'). You may as well complain why The Empire of Legend of Galactic Heroes is basically Space Prussia. It just is.
Character: 7/10 -- Well the characters are basically metaphors too, so who cares if they're walking archetypes.
Having established the genre of the show, really the only thing you can ask of its characters are: "Are they good enough vehicles for aimless conversation to keep you watching"? To which my answer at least is: "Yes, good enough at least". Chii is downcast and serious, Yuu is upbeat, sanguine and a bit of an airhead, and the two spend the show playing those traits off each other every episode, again and again and again, as they explore this week's topics of conversation. It's really bare-bones, with no character development or character exploration, which makes sense as the two aren't so much intended to be fully rounded characters as they're soundboards for dialogue anyway. Their archetypical behaviours apes 'life' well enough for the story to not just be a completely blatant case of a P-zombie debating with a wall, and that's about all that can be said (and demanded, really) about that. Without spoiling too much there are some other people who occasionally appear, and like Chii and Yuu they fill their roles well enough in keeping the episode's theme going.
Again, you just have to judge it by its genre. None of the characters grate too badly on my nerves and serve to keep the general sense of relaxation going. Nothing else to it really. I'd be lying if I considered them 'people', but for a pair of sock-puppets spouting 'Sartre for middle schoolers' they get the job done.
Value: 6/10 --I really can't see why anyone would equivocate this with Made in Abyss, cutesy character design aside.
'Value-wise', this show borrows so heavily from Kino's Journey (and other similar shows like Mushishi) it's impossible not to mention that. It's a show with the same genre and pacing, featuring girls and motorbikes and two-person conversations in a mostly metaphorical setting. It's very obviously not going to be anyone's cup of tea, being even less eventful than Kino is. It's very much a 'slow and talky show' with some rarely interspersed tension, and as an example of its genre it's an entirely satisfactory example that really doesn't break that much new ground.
Enjoyment: 7/10 -- Sure, why not.
This show is four hours of relaxation that occasionally tickles your neurons with music and conversation. Anime Zen, if you will. So, yes, I enjoyed it, in a sense. It made me relax and just watch the screen in half-asleep mode. A lot of shows I've watched have done worse, and given that this reaction was pretty much the intent I can't really get up in its grill about it. It's nice, in its way.
So, in summary, Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou can be summed up and judged by this quote from its third episode:
Total: 7/10 -- "You don't need a reason. There are nice things, sometimes."
And that's about all that can be said about that.
