Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou

Amid the desolate remains of a once-thriving city, only the rumbling of a motorbike breaks the cold winter silence. Its riders, Chito and Yuuri, are the last survivors in the war-torn city. Scavenging old military sites for food and parts, the two girls explore the wastelands and speculate about the old world to pass the time. Chito and Yuuri each occasionally struggle with the looming solitude, but when they have each other, sharing the weight of being two of the last humans becomes a bit more bearable. Between Yuuri's clumsy excitement and Chito's calm composure, their dark days get a little brighter with shooting practice, new books, and snowball fights on the frozen battlefield.

Among a scenery of barren landscapes and deserted buildings, Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou tells the uplifting tale of two girls and their quest to find hope in a bleak and dying world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chito Main

Minase, Inori Japanese

Yuuri Main

Kubo, Yurika Japanese

Nuko Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Ishii Supporting

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Automaton Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Kanazawa Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Eringi Supporting

Shimamoto, Sumi Japanese

Grandfather Supporting

Kiyokawa, Motomu Japanese

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Ogata, Mitsuhiro Producer

Yoshikawa, Tsunaki Producer

Isogai, Noritomo Producer

Reviews

Dec 22, 2017

Pitzer

Recommended

Strolling through a grey and barren wasteland, two girls are on a journey. Rations are their only food, each other's company their only comfort and a Kettenkrad motorbike and a protect rifle their only partners. This is a story about a post-apocalyptic future, cultures lost in war and appreciating the little things in life.

Few future settings display the thoughtfulness present in Girl’s Last Tour: war has, multiple times, left its mark on Earth and humanity. The numerous layers of the forsaken and metallic city tell tales of many civilizations long gone; their technology gradually grows more sophisticated and the cityscape more complex by the layer. ... Their different religious beliefs, or lack thereof, as well as their different perceptions of beauty are ingrained in them: some show idealistic symmetry spread evenly throughout, others are dominated by religious symbols resembling a progressed Christianity. However, their god seems more like an alien creature possibly playing a central role in mankind’s long history of war…

The themes and background of the show allow for contemplation and its war-ridden lands give ground for cynical criticism of war, but Girl’s Last Tour is not at all about nihilism, the cruelty of war or the dangers of technological advancement. With overpowering optimism and gratitude for life, it avoids dwelling on many of its philosophically potent and open-ended questions through the sheer simplicity of its appreciation for the here and now; there is solace in solitude and beauty in company.

It’s hard not to get swept up in the show’s pensive mood, but it is near impossible not to fall in love with the protagonists' fun antics: Yuuri and Chito have amazing chemistry and partaking in their intimacy is a truly soothing experience. The two share a heartwarming bond of love and trust and remind one of simpler days; to take the role of an onlooker is to embrace a heartwarming nostalgia.

Chito is the duo’s brain: she is literate and reliable. Over the years, she has learned to work around Yuuri’s shortcomings and deal with her eccentricities. At times, her diplomatic mindset clashes with Yuuri’s air-headedness. However, she has no issue striking back should it get overbearing, for she knows it’s the only way to get through to her dense companion.

In comparison, Yuuri might at first seem like an unpleasant person. She is a glutton, unreliable and at parts overbearingly annoying - but actually a very caring individual. She keeps looking out for Chito and ensures her safety, she is sorry when Chito is hurt and does her best to express her guilt. It is not only her shortcomings that need to be worked around: her partner has serious fear and submits to panic at the blink of an eye. Fortunately, Yuuri always stays supportive of her.

Rusty pipe systems, snow-clad plains filled with weapons of war and desolate temples - the show’s landscape is empty and its designs range from simple to highly complex. The dark, barely saturized, grey color palette only changes during dreams and revelations. Unlike one might initially assume, the empty and wistful world radiates a romantic feeling. While it may be devoid of nature and has no ecosystem to speak of, the countless tales told by the cityscape itself more than make up for it. The bubbly moe character designs help alleviate the central juxtaposition of the cold world and the comforting company of the two protagonists (and whomever they might meet along the way).

Such sparse environment rarely allows for much movement to take place, but through dosated usage of CG the show enables engaging camerawork and alleviates the overall experience. The CG itself does unfortunately not hold up to the gorgeous and detailed look of the hand-drawn backgrounds but it in turn allows the explosive scenes to benefit from the momentum achievable through animation - and they look great!

The show’s solid visuals are accompanied by both upbeat and melancholic music. In insert songs, the vocalist creates a great feeling of departure encompassing an euphoric mood and a grieving goodbye. On the other hand, the Opening and Ending songs excel through their sheer musical simplicity. They embrace modern electronic music and pop culture (the moonwalk and even dabbing), depicting and enhancing the fun shenanigans of the two girls and their endless journey.

Due to its metallic landscape, the soundscape of the show mostly consists of industrial sounds: petrol engines, gunfire and cold, metallic echoes dominate, and their prevalence is only trumped by the two girls’ dialogue.

Girls’ Last Tour is lighthearted and emotionally poignant; it excels through simplicity and thoughtfulness, but never dwells on the latter. The juxtaposition of its thematically dense but desolate cityscape and the intimacy of the main duo create a melancholically wholesome experience and make it one of the best shows of the year.

Score: 85

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 26, 2017

Gundroog

Mixed Feelings

SSR started off strong, it was intriguing to see a SoL show set in post-war wasteland about two girls drifting through abandoned landscaped towards upper levels without a certain goal. It was promising when through dialogue and analogies the show set up themes about value and point of living. However that's kinda it, maybe there's something more to it in the manga but the show itself is painfully shallow. It's not void of neat little character moments that build up the main couple, make you sympathize with them and simultaneously feel the atmosphere they're immersed in. Despite that at any other point in time ... I found myself incredibly bored cause nothing was happening, there was little to look at and dialogue while touching upon some interesting themes never really went beyond sort of mentioning that they exist in a very superficial way.

With dialogue that boring the saving grace could've been the adventure itself, if there's nothing to listen to maybe there's something to see. In that regard SSR offers occasionally very curious environments that bit by bit contribute to the bizarre world its set in. You have giant rows of file cabinets that have a bit of a dark meaning behind them, you have buildings standing on tall beams, factories made out of infinite tubes, occasional weird statues of something unknown with an unknown purpose. It's neat at first but usually the show offers too little to late to redeem anything with that. Doesn't help that color direction is extremely boring. I understand that it's hard to do much when your show revolves around burned out and crumbled cities and factories but it is possible, at the very least proper contrast is a must and they author of original manga must've knew that a bunch of boxes and squares don't make for a visually interesting environment.

The ending for obvious reasons is not exactly conclusive and there's nothing wrong with "adventure goes on" kind of endings but after basically nothing happened they kind of back loaded a lot of exposition and storytelling to the last episode so it's as if entirety of the show started and concluded there. Not knowing what a climax is wouldn't be too out of place for SSR though as each individual episode was also terribly paced. Sometimes I would check how much time went by and when I thought the episode must be coming to an end it usually turned out it's only about a halfway point. That is once again cause nothing happens and when it does it's stretched out so thin that it does't make much of a difference. That would've been fine if the show aimed to be relaxing but I didn't find it such cause it's not relaxing by default if you just watch at pretty landscapes or watch girls enjoy eating something or taking a bath, which happens weirdly often given the setting.

So in summary, I just think SSR was a bunch of wasted potential, if it wasn't trying something new it would probably get a 4 from me at most but at least there was an attempt.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 23, 2017

Killbay_Kun

Not Recommended

Ok, so it seems like i am the only guy in this entire site that didn't like this show (at least in the review section), so i fell the need to write why this show is so terrible.

Also, this is my first review in the site and i'm not a native english speaker, so sorry if the structure of this review seems garbage to you.

Firstly, i want to say that i was very excited to see this show when it came in the seasonal chart, i didn't know how it whould be, but even if it was just a generic slice of life show, it ... would be interesting just by the premise, bonus it was made by White Fox, that is one of my favorite studios.

What i got was really dissapointing: a show about literelly nothing, most of the show is just these two girls walking and visiting some unisteressing place, and that is it, i wouldn't have a problem with that if the show had something interssing that could haddle it to be entertaining, but... what this show have of entertaining?

Story? None of it, most of the show is episodic and there is barely any worldbuilding. Good comedy? Nah, there is barely any comedy at all and the few jokes are just Chito punching Yuu. Cute girls suffering shit? Meh, the girls act like the fact that they are the last two humans in the entire earth are just normal business. Some philosophic and 2deep4u shit? Nope, none of the stories have any meaning at all.

Not saying that a anime MUST do some of these things to be good, these are just some ideas of things that Shuumatsu could do to be at least enterteining, but shuumatsu does none of it and does nothing that i didn't say too, it's just two girls living, nothing is fun, must of the stories barelly have a conflict, nothing has any purpose at all, everything is just a great piece of nothing.

And bonus, this show is slow as hell, it drags a in a lot of things just to fill that 23 minutes mark, like bake a loaf for entire 2 minutes or take 3 minutes with a montage that is pure filler, and all those facts combined result in to the most boring show in this entire year, i think i could not watch it all if i didn't watch it weekly, cause must of the time i was just waiting for the episode end so i could do something better.

Another thing that could have saved this show would have good characters to handle the boredom, but that brings in another problem that is the characters are more bland then a piece of paper, they're uncharismatic, boring and do not stand out, and this wouldn't be a problem in a normal show, but this are the ONLY 2 characters in the entire show, you can't just be this lazy and expect the viewer to give a shit about then in this way.

I could also talk why this ending is forced and totally garbage, but spoilers are agains't the Review Guidelines, so if you want to know, ask in my comments.

In conclusion, this show is just a waste of premise and it's a shame that such talented people did work in this, i hope WF give us a better work next time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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