Welcome back to Anime Rants. I’m way behind on seasonal anime like this, but still trying to plug away at it when I feel like I can. Today we’re looking at episodes 3 and 4 of Touring After The Apocalypse. Compared to the first two episodes, these installments were less interesting in terms of world-building and lore. However, they were still enjoyable for the chill vibes, beautiful scenery, and emotionally moving moments. It seems like this anime will focus primarily on the touring and adventuring aspects and less on explaining the world or solving its mysteries. Let’s briefly review.
Episode 3: Setagaya, Shinbashi, Ariake, Tokyo Big Sight
Episode Rating: 7/10
The places in the title are the places Yoko and airi visit each episode. As usual, the city areas they explored in this installment were empty and being retaken by nature. I’m delighted by the concept of walking through a city park years after its abandonment and seeing the ornamental trees like sakura taking over. I took several screen-shots of the scenery in this episode. It’s quickly becoming something I enjoy from this anime.
The focus on survival and adventure was strong in this episode. Yoko and Airi have a futuristic device that cleans water, as well as an app that measures contaminants and radiation. We still don’t know what caused the Apocalypse, and we may never, but it probably involved something that made the environment toxic for humans. That’s not much different than our current world, though, is it? Anyway, it took a while for the girls to find some food, but they eventually discovered a hidden cache of canned goods and happily ate those. According to Yoko, it was better than what they ate in the shelter.
(Side Note: While the girls explored the houses in the city to search for food, Yoko at one point discovered at least a dead body. She avoided telling Airi about it and quietly brought her hands together, a gesture of respect for the dead. I just wanted to point this out because I think this anime is a bit melancholy at times, and I kind of like it. Adventure stories ought to have a serious air to them at least sometimes.)
When Yoko and Airi visited Tokyo Big Site, Yoko was under the impression that it was a location for year-round motorbike shows. She thought so because of an old video of onee-chan looking at bikes at the site. Airi explained once they were at the location that all sorts of shows used to happen here. There were no bikes right now, but at one point, Yoko had another dream in which she saw a bike show with onee-chan. She saw a version of her own motorbike, Serrow, except with a gasoline engine.
When Yoko told Airi about the dream, Airi was surprised, because the Serrow also used to have a gas engine before it was remodeled to run on eletric and solar power. It seems that Yoko’s dreams are not merely dreams. They seem more like memories, but I don’t know why Yoko would remember scenes of the world before its ruin. There’s a mystery here that I’m not getting yet. Hopefully we learn more about Yoko’s dreams and about onee-chan before too long.
After exploring the inside of Tokyo Big Site, Yoko and Airi went swimming in the ocean. They encountered some penguins and Yoko was absolutely thrilled. She seems to love every new thing she sees, but especially wildlife – which I personally understand. I loved the scenes of swiming with the penguins. While the girls were swimming, it was stated that Airi couldn’t float. I don’t know if that’s because she hasn’t learned to swim or because she’s partly mechanical and wasn’t built for the water. There’s still a lot we don’t know about both our main characters.
After swimming and resting, as the sun was setting, the girls made a surprising discovery. Airi thought she sensed radio waves, so Yoko pulled out the smart phone, which had an app for picking up radio. To their shock, they heard a song playing, followed by announcements from a talk-show host! The song used was “Crossing Field” by Lisa, famously the opening song of Sword Art Online. Funnily enough, the radio host is voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka _, who also played Kirito in that series. So, have Airi and Yoko finally found a human in this post-apocalyptic world? To be continued!
Episode 4: Akihabara
Episode Rating: 7/10
Yoko and Airi followed the radio signal to the ruins of Akihabara, hoping to find the radio host somewhere therein. The girls found a maid café and played with the cosplay outfits. Airi was a cute cat maid and Yoko was a cute cat butler. After this little adventure, the attention of the girls turned to the wildlife. Akihabara was crawling with rare and extinct creatures, even those not normally found in Japan. These animals were the descendants of escaped zoo animals. There were cabybaras, cappuchin monkeys, giraffes, huge and exotic birds, and more. Akihabara was now a wildlife haven.
At one point, Yoko and Airi were walking through a field of tall grass, when suddenly they encountered a full-grown tiger in the act of killing a deer. The brief scene was interesting to me because I remember feeling much the same as Yoko did. She was grinning from ear to ear with exhilaration while also shaking visibly from fear. The awe of seeing a great beast in front of you is something everyone should experience, even if it’s just with a zoo animal. It’s an important experience.
I also appreciated that Yoko stopped Airi from shooting the tiger, instead letting it carry away the deer in peace and go its own way. Airi said she still would have shot the tiger if it tried attacking Yoko, though. I love how Airi is so brave and protective at heart despite having a quiet, less expressive way of talking most of the time. Anyway, let’s skip to the part where Yoko and Airi found the location of the radio DJ, who called himself Jiro.
Unfortunately, Jiro was not a human after all. He was an AI program designed to sound like a radio talkshow host and to choose random songs to play from a library of millions. He existed inside what looked like a personal computer. Jiro was friendly to the girls but could only engage in so much conversation due to his programming limitations. It seems like Jiro was probably not the truly sentient kind of AI, but the kind that we are using today. That’s in contrast to the “robot” we met in a previous episode, whose mind was apparently fully human.
Yoko and Airi remodeled the station for Jiro so he could play radio loudly on the speakers. They also made his power source more stable. In the end, Jiro thanked the girls and played the song they requested as they drove off into the morning sun the next day. Despite the feel-good ending of the episode, with the girls singing about how all living things are friends, this felt like a bit of a letdown. I was hoping to meet a human or perhaps a machine with some information about the world or a unique emotional perspective. Instead, it was just a chatbot running a radio show.
On the bright side, I loved the parts of this episode with the wildlife as well as the costumes near the beginning. While this show certainly isn’t thrilling, I’m enjoying it enough to keep watching and reviewing. There are several reasons I like this anime, but the one inthe forefront of my mind right now is the character writing. I think Yoko and Airi are endearing, fairly realistic, and also pretty interesting. Yoko is definitely the tomboy/genki-girl character type while Airi is the kuudere/cool and practical girl. Hopefully, they will have more development and depth as the show goes on.
One random thing I noticed is that Yoko uses the masculine pronoun boku to refer to herself, which could suggest that she identifies somewhat masculine and could even be a trans boy. On the other hand, I believe it’s fairly common for tomboy girls to use boku without being necessarily queer. I would need to ask a native Japanese speaker to be sure about that. Anyway, I’ll head-canon Yoko as a young lesbian with a masculine-leaning gender presentation. That random note is the last thing on my mind for today.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 