Hello, minna-san. Thanks for stopping by Anime Rants. The last two episodes of Touring After The Apocalypse were entertaining as well as slightly frustrating (in that I wanted more answers). I was relatively impressed with the anime, and would even watch more. Sadly, a sequel is unlikely unless the anime performs way better than I think it did based on sites like MyAnimeList. Anyway, more of my thoughts and notes on these two episodes can be found below.
Episode 11: Yoshimi Hundred Caves
Episode Rating: 7/10
Episode 11 was “the alien episode.” After the spiritual encounter with souls in episode 9, I immediately wondered if extraterrestrials would be next, and I wasn’t far off the mark. If the giant animals and robot spirits weren’t proof enough, this episode proves that the show is sci-fi as much as it is slice-of-life or adventure. It’s a nice mix of genres.
Shortly before the alien encounter, Airi had been picking up a strange noise she couldn’t identify. They followed the direction of the noise – which Yoko wasn’t able to hear – and it led them to the historic Yoshimi Hundred Caves. You can probably tell I didn’t take any Japanese history courses because I had never before heard of this well-preserved landmark from the 7th Century AD (Wikipedia). They are located in Saitama Prefecture. I would love to see these ancient artificial caves myself some day. Anyway, Yoko and Airi spent the night in one of the caves.
Airi woke up in the middle of the night and wandered around, sensing that something was calling her. She encountered a little black cat first. Together, they witnessed a brief time with the aliens. First, the nearby machines went berserk. There was a great light from above and gravity was altered slightly. Then the light disappeared and it looked like space itself was being twisted to form a wormhole. To Airi it looked like a black orb. The cat jumped in, but Airi tried to run. The eerie orb pursued her and caught up to her just as she dived into one of the Yoshimi caves for cover. When she opened her eyes again, Airi was floating in outer space with the black cat.
The high-pitched sound that Airi heard earlier was back, but this time Airi could understand it like words. It was the aliens talking to her. Their “voices” were in her head. The aliens showed Airi visions of Earth 1500 years ago and explained that they arrived at that time. However, humanity was not yet ready for interacting with other intelligent species, so the aliens decided to wait a few centuries. But when they came back just recently, they found humanity gone. Just as Airi was thinking she wanted to show all this to Yoko, her time with the aliens ended, and she found herself back in one of the Yoshimi caves.
At first, Yoko didn’t believe Airi, but her disbelief didn’t last long. Soon, she wanted to meet the aliens too. In order to impress the extraterrestrials, Yoko decided to ride the Serrow up the slope of the Yoshimi caves hill. It was a tough path, but Yoko and Airi made it happen together. While she rode the Serrow, Yoko reviewed the eras of Japanese history out loud, symbolizing humanity climbing upward through the ages. At last, Yoko reached the top of the hill and Airi clapped enthusiastically.
Perhaps the aliens were impressed, because they decided to show both Yoko and Airi as they left the planet again. There was mysterious light from the sky and then a zap of something like lightning, and the aliens were gone. However, they told Airi that they would be back in a century for a visit. The episode ends with Yoko in awe of her “close encounter of the third kind.” (Reference to a 1970s alien film.) I enjoyed this installment a good amount. Personally, I don’t believe aliens have ever landed on Earth, as there is no convincing evidence – only fantastical and inconsistent anecdotes. That being said, there almost certainly life out in space, so an alien visit isn’t impossible.
Episode 12: Venus Line, Shelter
Episode Rating: 7/10
In the final installment of Touring After The Apocalypse, Yoko and Airi hiked up a mountain trail and beheld a stunning view of Mt. Fuji from the far side of where they started. They also saw their shadows in the fog, which is apparently a good omen in folklore. It’s a rare phenomenon that can happen under the right conditions. In addition, this episode showed a lot of flashbacks to the time the girls spent at the shelter before their adventure began. This provided several insights into the characters of Yoko and Airi as well as “Onee-chan,” whose name we still don’t know.
At the shelter, Yoko and Airi participated in education classes instructed by Onee-chan over what looked like a web camera. The girls also engaged in VR training to do practical things like butcher animals. They played soccer with a little goal robot, who fell over and broke after losing the game. Yoko also remarked that the food was always plain and bland. Those facts make it seem like the shelter was nearing the end of its usefulness. Speaking of food, Yoko and Airi also took care of the crops. We saw them harvesting some mega-tomatoes that looked amazingly fat and delicious.
Yoko grew easily bored of the routine life within the bounds of the shelter. She dreamed of seeing the world depicted in the old smartphone. However, it still felt unreal and sudden when Onee-chan told her that it was now safe to go outside. Far from wanting to prevent them from leaving, Onee-chan encouraged Yoko to take Airi and the Serrow and go exploring. Early on, I was under the impression that Yoko and Airi had run away from the shelter without permission. This episode made it clear that wasn’t the case.
It was really nice to see Yoko and Airi reacting to their new freedom. The moment when the shelter shut down was sad, but the moment when Yoko and Airi saw a real bird for the first time was joyous. I was expecting the final episode to reveal that Onee-chan was an AI system who ran the shelter. But if I’m interpreting this right, it seems like Onee-chan is a real person or was at some point. The end of the episode showed a photo of Onee-chan together with Yoko (with long hair like in her dreams.) This means that Yoko’s dreams of traveling with Onee-chan may be memories after all.
Much remains mysterious and unanswered in this anime. It honestly makes me hope for a second season – but I seriously doubt it will do well enough commercially to actually get one. It seems to me like Onee-chan or someone else altered Yoko’s memories. It’s possible that Airi also knows about this. Near the end of the episode, Yoko suddenly realized she didn’t remember when she and Airi got to the shelter in the first place. Airi told her that they had always been there. If that’s true – which I doubt – it means they were both born (or in Airi’s case, created) within the shelter. That doesn’t tell us much, but it affirms the idea that Yoko may be the last human on Earth.
Where is the rest of humanity? I tend to think some of them managed to leave and live on the moon or in space (based on episode 7). The rest probably went extinct, but I’m not sure what event or series of events triggered that. The apocalypse may have been sudden, like a meteor crash or a nuclear war; or it might have been a slower decline brought about by multiple causes (such as climate change). At the end of the day, this anime is about touring after civilization has ended, so we may never know why it ended. It’s not the focus of this story. However, I would have liked the anime better if it provided some answers instead of being vague about the world-building for the entire season.
(Note: Another possibility is that humans all uploaded their consciousnesses to a digital world or some alternate dimension.)
Back in the present, Yoko and Airi enjoyed the mountaintop view together. They held hands and renewed their commitment to traveling. Overall, Touring After The Apocalypse wasn’t a bad anime. I consider it in the 7/10 range. Eventually, I’ll write a series review and go over some of the highlights, strengths, and weaknesses of the series as whole. Until then, I hope my episode reviews are helpful or interesting. Touring After The Apocalypse is a cute, mostly family-friendly anime with educational value, a unique blend of sci-fi and supernatural, and an entertaining atmosphere of adventure.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 
This has been an interesting series. I’ve been wondering how to discover the popularity of different anime series in Japan, especially outside the shonen demographic. The Tokyo Anime Award Festival list is the closest thing I’ve found, and it seems very different. But Touring doesn’t seem to be on there.
I agree that not giving the cause for the disaster puts the focus on the story rather than being a specific warning. Though these are clues I noticed:
I don’t think it was radiation because it only seems to have eliminated humans. The animals, even exotic ones, are doing well, and the plants too. Maybe there were some local releases from deteriorating nuclear plants, but I think they were shut down. A big asteroid hit doesn’t fit either. I think the Tsunami we saw in Schwar-chan’s memory was a coincidence, maybe Fuji-san erupting, and it could have happened some time before the event- maybe they just hadn’t gotten around to cleaning everything up.
My guess is a plague, either natural or man-made. There was a mention of endocrine disruptors.
People had some warning of approaching disaster. Some of the highways are clogged with cars, and there are other signs that people had some warning, like setting up the radio station to keep playing. In the observation tower there was graffiti translated “We saw the sunset before it ended”.
The shelter was obviously set up for a lot more people, lots of lockers, huge gym, large elevator, and only one human. I suppose it’s possible that Big Sis is off-planet, probably with no way to return, though from reading the Weinersmith’s “A City On Mars” that would be difficult. And there might be a few other people around the globe, but unless everyone had old-school shortwave radios there’d be no way to communicate
I loved the Mobility Resort episode- the spirits of the robots and vehicles were just waiting for a final human to see them off. It’s interesting that Ari saw everything in pristine condition too, but didn’t see the spirit cars and bikes.
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