Girls' Last Tour

Episode 10

On this leg of their journey, our heroines contemplate the relationship between time and space. Their discovery of a functioning subway prompts Yuu to realize that speed is cumulative, which leads to Chii telling her that the earth is constantly moving, completely breaking Chii's lil' noggin. Thinking about it even more, time is measured according to repeated intervals of distance encountered while traveling at a constant speed (specifically the earth's rotation, aka “days”), which leads to a whole lot of brain-hurting abstraction after a while. Yuu has fun with it though, which makes me think that she'd be a good philosophy student, if she'd ever try sitting down and extrapolating on a thought to its conclusion. (Maybe she'd find her comfort zone alongside the laid-back and reactive Taoist masters.)

So our girls are chilling out on the subway, which is as haunting (and oddly peaceful) as all of the other environments we've seen in the show. The sparse moving tunnel is littered with discarded robot husks, which is especially sad now that we know they were basically people. Robot communication imagery also keeps popping up on screen, which implies that they're trying to say something, but our heroines can't hear them; the entire episode is permeated with this type of melancholic atmosphere. This all builds to a climax that stands as yet another one of the show's outstanding tonal moments.

Remember when Chii told Yuu to return all the junk they pulled out of those grave boxes a few episodes back? Well, Yuu didn't put all of it back. She kept the radio, which (while disrespectful to the dead) is actually kind of a relief, since I thought it'd be interesting to see what sort of antics the show could get up to with that technology—and antics were certainly had. The radio starts picking up sounds while the girls are underground, so they start chasing the direction of the sound. It's a pretty tense sequence that turns into a meditation on the concept of “mood” itself, and how that aligns with certain facts about life. Yuu realizes that rhythm—in this case music—is also made up of time, and experiencing the passage of time in this way is capable of provoking certain emotions in us. In chasing the sound on the radio until it becomes clear, the girls come to discover that it's a sad song, and that the red sunset that they're witnessing gets tinged with a corresponding sense of sadness. Was the sunset sad on its own, or did the music do that? Maybe that ability to impart emotions is what really constitutes music, or all sorts of aesthetic experiences in general? Either way, sadness is what the girls find themselves experiencing at the moment of confluence between the song and the red sunset.

At least the overall experience of this episode isn't sadness. All that tension gets broken up when our heroines make it outside to what appears to be the site of a serious battle from years ago. It's littered with decaying weapons and there's even an impressive-looking crater at its center. My immediate impression is that that a nuclear bomb hit there, which would go a long way toward explaining the strange critter they find hiding inside some pipes. It looks like what can only be described as a Pillsbury Dough Weasel, but with a face like one of those ever-present god-statues. Most unusually of all, it can send language-like sounds out through the radio. Yuu is pretty insistent on eating it for a while, until Chii reminds her that empathy exists and persuades her to leave it be. However, this thing has taken a liking to them (or Chii specifically) and insists on joining their tour. It looks like the girls have found themselves a pet, which may or may not be a psychic cat of some kind.

All in all, this little thing is an exciting addition to the cast. It's as adorable as all the other designs in this show, and having an animal to take care of (besides Yuu) is certain to spice up their dynamic. As we approach the show's conclusion, our heroines have made a significant gain, but that also makes me suspicious of some impending loss on the horizon…

Grade: A

Girls' Last Tour is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.