Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?

So far through 2024, Shuumatsu no Train has got the wackiest and most original anime award locked up. A truly odd experience full of twists and turns, fun characters and some genuinely head scratching moments in the best possible way. Anyone looking for something new to try should check this out I am a big sucker for shows that deal with journeys through post apocalyptic settings and Shuumatsu train is one of the coolest takes on that trope. Following a group of high school girls on a train through various stops between suburban Tokyo and Ikebukuro to save their friend was not something I had onmy bucket list, but I’ll be damned, it was some of the most fun I’ve had watching anime. This show has no rhyme or reason for a lot of the things that happen and I enjoyed that. It made things feel unpredictable and fluid. All the train stops have been affected by the 7G disaster, altering realty and the people living there. For example, we go from mind controlling mushroom spores, to zombies, to a town that’s been shrunk etc. It’s really a hodgepodge of anime genres packed into one. The only complaint I have is that we didn’t get to see more of the stops. Like it’s established that there’s a certain number of stops between where the girls are coming from to Ikebukuro. We only got to see maybe half of those. I know it probably would’ve been difficult with the number of episodes, but it felt like the journey aspect got streamlined at the end. Still, for those that we did see, they were all over the place in the best possible way. A truly eccentric story that mashes a lot of different stuff together and it just works. In a journey anime, the biggest thing is the chemistry between the group and I think the writers here nailed what it would be like to travel with teenaged schools. The fights, the make ups, the doubts and insecurities.. they’re all handled very well and even the way the characters talk to one another feels authentic. There’s so much banter between the group and never a dull moment. One of the highlights of my week was turning this on on Mondays to see what Reimi was getting up to 😂 Although the ending wasn’t quite as good as the start, Shuumatsu train was still fun throughout. Just imagine throwing paint at the wall and making a beautiful painting, that’s basically this anime. Comedy, adventure, hilarious characters, good story, it’s got it all. It’s one of those shows that’s best experienced rather than described so if my description seems a little light at times, it’s because I don’t want to spoil that experience of seeing this insanity for the first time. No doubt one of the best anime originals of the last couple of years. Hats off to the staff for a great story and ride. You will be missed. Shuumatsu no Train gets 9, out of 10.

The Train to the End of the World might look like CGDCT moerot on the surface, but men actually exist in this world, there is a plot and goal to strive toward, and the post-apocalyptic setting—somewhat similar to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or Girls' Last Tour for the more lighthearted contrast to the usual bleakness—is on the unique side because of the slice of life tendencies, absurdist comedy, surreal happenings, and the usual power of friendship theme so common to moeblob high school setups that provides an emotional grounding to contain what otherwise could end up as a train wreck. Even if the writer often toyswith the conventional by inserting zombies with a slight twist or presenting a few simple and predictable storylines in several episodes: Whether it's a parasitic copy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the mushroom mania of Matango crossed with the introspection of Mushishi or employing lilliputians to parody Gulliver's Travels, Gojira, and King Kong to hilarious effect. The episodes are at times a variation on the monster of the week setup but instead become an exotic locale or whacky situation of the week, with the train chugging along like the progression of a corrupted video game, growing more manic with each stop. There's usually enough inventiveness to keep these sub-plots somewhat fresh, but, as opposed to fantasy that tends to have an inherent logic and a cohesive world, we're tossed into disconnected pop culture parody realms, blazing through many of them without much detail and sifting through others for perhaps too long. There are also some ridiculous ideas here, stretching the boundaries of believability, such as our characters communicating with the train foreman by hammering the railroad tracks to communicate in morse code, despite being hundreds or thousands of miles apart. This could never work in a realistic series, but the crazy distortions of the world make it mostly believable; meanwhile, the choice allows the girls to have a continued connection to their village (made all the more important for the usual conflict between the village and the city), acts as a relay point for new information, and provides extra comedy as the competent-for-five-whole-minutes train conductor is quickly zapped into a doddering, beady-eyed fool. Although earlier scenarios resemble fiction I'm familiar with, the series does benefit from becoming more warped as we get closer to Youka, for the Alice in Nerima Land manga comes to life, which has one of the more complex plots and a large cast of quirky characters, heroes and villains alike; but, most importantly, it does far more to build upon the relationship of the moeblobs in ways that most other scenarios fail to do. We're also treated to unhinged parodies of manga cliches and magical battles along the way, and Ikebukruo looks wholly alien. For the duration of our whimsical train travelogue, our moeblob quartet engage in fast-talking and rather naturalistic banter. Shizuru is your typical lead role, though wracked with guilt; throughout much of the series, I mixed Nadeshiko up with Shizuru because their designs and hair aren't too dissimilar. The former's only defining trait appeared to be "I can use a bow," but she also plays mommy to the group and breaks up fights, yet she lacks a character arc of her own or even much screen time devoted solely to her, leaving her feeling incomplete. Reimi and Akira have a kind of rabid-dog tsundere relationship and conflicting personalities, with the former being emotional and physical-oriented and the latter intellectual, providing most of our encyclopedia drops and a surprising dose of humor being wrung out of literary references. We know less of Youka, and her relationship with Shizuru is short-cutted via the usual power of friendship dynamics that are experienced amongst our moeblobs and then interpolated where needed. There's even a dose of melancholy and understated emotion (emphasized well in both the OP and ED), preventing it from being too insubstantial, and even small details like the train being named Apogee has meaning that remains buried for much of the series (didn't expect it to be spelled out in such a sentimental fashion). Unfortunately, the nature of the series is telegraphed heavily from the opening scene and a few parts throughout the first episode. What we know is not just implied; it is shown. The missing Youka had a hand in what happened with 7G and the unraveling of the world as we know it, and there was an apparent falling out between these friends. The journey to find Youka has a "We're not in Kansas anymore" Wizard of Oz vibe, like we're stepping out of monochrome into a whacky technicolor wonderland, at first just a girl and a dog and maybe a potential Wicked Witch. Mystery was not the main concern for the creators, but revealing the catalyst for all of the strange events we see unfolding each episode so soon is indeed a misfire. The delivery of what ended up happening would be more compelling if we didn't know the cause and the search for Youka didn't have an immediately established connection to the world becoming a jumbled mess. These coming of age scenarios are turbulent, and the fantastical impetus engulfing the entire world often ends up being deeply personal in storylines such as these, but an aura of mystery and uncertainty would complement this aspect better than bluntness. It doesn't need to be as dense in its unraveling of an elaborate mystery like, say, Tengoku Daimakyou, but it shouldn't blow its wad faster than the minutemen either. 7G warping the world in a myriad of ways is the type of goofiness the show goes for, but it would have been preferable if that idea were changed to something else instead of being the direct continuation of 5G and 6G, which are real technological projects. Most sci-fi fails in its predictions, and while the writer's intent wasn't to predict anything here, it would have been better to frame the problem technology with a unique name and property, as this aspect, intersecting with the real world, is goofier than just about anything else in the series. There's certainly a relatable anxiety here about the hubris of mankind and a never-ending thirst for "progress," rarely willing to stop and consider the potential dangers of technology rolled out at a rapid pace without any concern for safety or wellbeing, which could have an irreversible impact on the world. There's even a sense in which the various societies warped by 7G are stagnating or regressing technologically, with one village's humans becoming cute furballs (presumably) incapable of advancing civilization, so one could say this is nature "correcting course" to humanity's tampering in unpredictable and even nightmarish ways. Looking through the director's credits, one can easily see how a series like this was inevitable, as he directed the well-produced and quirky CGDCT series Girls & Panzer and worked on a lot of oddball comedies like Shin-chan, Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu, and Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. Overall, despite a sometimes bumpy ride and certain scenarios not being overly strong or original on their own, the combination of various genres, ideas, settings, comedic timing, and effective direction and writing weaves everything together in a pleasing fashion, topped off with decent production values and an atmospheric score. The epic and uncanny proportions of the series lends more weight to this conventional but earnest story of coming of age and friendship than I'd expect from all the tired high school moerot that we usually get combined.

Train to the End of the World - A WTF show of batshit insanity that is so unpredictable, yet a certified train-on-rails doomsday of a journey to the vast unknown, and to come out feeling overwhelmingly satisfied with the entire product. In the quarterly grinds of the boring seasonals where you find lots of the "same same but different" Isekai and fantasy take over the reins, one thing that I really miss the most are original shows that take the experimental approach and succeed with their growing fanbases (i.e. this season's Girls Band Cry, which you SHOULD definitely watch, despite having to sail through the highseas), which is becoming more of a rarity these days. But in this Spring, there is a show so out-of-whack that immediately encapsulates the average anime consumer, yet still sticks close to coherency that everything still makes sense from start to finish. And that show is Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? a.k.a Train to the End of the World, Kadokawa's show to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Railway Day: the founding of Japan's first railway on October 14, 1872, concocted by the masterminds behind the anime: director Tsutomu Mizushima and storyboarder Michiko Yokote, both of whom had previously worked on Fall 2014's Shirobako (one of P.A. Works's cult classic Working shows), as well as Winter 2019's Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai a.k.a The Magnificent Kotobuki, an underrated 3DCG show, which I feel that everyone should give it the second chance that it deserves (my review from 5 years ago still stands resonant). It's easy living in the world of today to think about what the incoming future will be like, but sometimes, minds and ambitions are damned to deliver a future so out of control that there's almost no reset button to return to normalcy. This is exactly what happens in this show: an experiment of obtuse technological advancement gone horribly wrong — the 7G celluar network. What is poised to become Japan's next step in technology, quickly becomes an aftermath of doomsday proportions where the network spawns a warp in reality, from the likes of people turning into animals when they reach a certain age, to fully controlling the word by the thought process of its creator. In the process, a friendship brewing between friends also unfortunately gets heavily involved due to rough patches, disagreements, and the like, so much that it also plays a significant part in the reality warping as well. This is the plot of a group of high school girls setting out to save one of their friends, in a world so messed up where danger lurks at every corner, expecting the unexpected and not coming out a mess from it, all while commandeering an abandoned Seibu 2000 series passenger train on the Seibu Ikebukuro line to reach the aforementioned city to reunite and save their dear friend from all of the chaos of the disastrous launch of the 7G network. And as I always say with every original show: I will not spoil the show in its entirety with the review, it's best to go in blind and experience it for yourself. From the very start, after Shirobako and Kotobuki, you can feel that both director Tsutomu Mizushima and scriptwriter Michiko Yokote have certainly elevated in their respective fields. To go from a pure classic working series to a show of CGDCT-esque feeling of the Wild Wild West that's laden of dogfights, and now to a crazy wild doomsday journey just to reach a fellow friend, this show is the sum of everything that the both of them have mustered to give it a long-lasting reputation for being one of the most crazily thought-out plot settings, yet make everything Monogatari-esque with the heavy dialogue, and still be coherent and consistent. That is not an easy task, and while you can certainly debate if the extra Episode 13 is ever needed to wrap up the rather loose plot holes in a rather tight squeeze of the 12-episode runtime, I think this show really doesn't need that since its unique story and plot is a one-and-done thing that can be done within that timeframe. With that being said, Shuumatsu Train is a rather eclectic show, bursting full of ideas that'll hit you left, right, and centerstage, almost as if the train journey itself is something of a fever dream that never has a terminus station. The group of JKs, all with their unique personalities and meeting even more crazy people along the way as they analyze the effect of the warped 7G reality, group leader Shizuru Chikura and her gang of peacemaker Nadeshiko Hoshi and frenemies of the optimistic Reimi Kuga and the intelligent Akira Shinonome, as they progress to Ikebukuro to save the friend who had fallen away, Yoka Nakatomi, it's a guilt trip of the supernatural to touching stories of the girls as they start from their rather unassuming hometown of Agano, with train conductor Zenjiro Taira at the helm, with one of the weirdest quirks that only beckons the girls on their journey of fate learning to drive the train (nicknamed Apogee, a reference to the "apogeego" creation name) to areas unseen without foresight for the unexpected. I kid you not when this rather deceptively hours (or rather, episodes) long trip from Agano to Ikebukuro has surprises at every corner, expected at the very least for its post-apocalyptic, sci-fi plot with a slice-of-life setting that's full of surreal comedy, and I LOVE IT. On the production side, this is hands-down, easily the best work that the 3rd-rate studio EMT Squared has ever done, being the studio's first-ever original work (and most likely it's ONLY one for a long time), with gorgeous, beautiful visuals, even if they're intentionally made to be thrown out of whack. It's a good thing that director Tsutomu Mizushima specifically dragged fellow P.A. Works director Fumihiko Suganuma as the chief episode director of the series, since they both worked on Shirobako together, and long-time anime veterans already know the result of that formula. As for the involvement of storyboarder Michiko Yokote, while Shirobako is great, Kotobuki is rather decent, aside from the fact that it and Shuumatsu Train aren't P.A. Works' produced shows for a reason (i.e. the studio can't do dark settings well, a la the rather underwhelming show of Fall 2020's Kamisama ni Natta Hi a.k.a The Day I Became a God). Still, you have to give credit where it is due, and both Tsutomu Mizushima and Michiko Yokote deserve every ounce of praise for creating this once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable show to commemorate Japan's 150-year-long history with trains. The music also deserves a mention here. Composer Miho Tsujibayashi may only have the credits of Isekai Shokudou a.k.a Restaurant to Another World, and Season 1 of Machikado Mazoku a.k.a The Demon Girl Next Door, but Shuumatsu Train's OST is so well-composed that, as the youth of the current generation will say, she absolutely "slays" the competition with her work here, and I'm really excited to see where she'll go from here. Both the OP and ED songs are exceptional, with the catchy 8-bit-cum-modern funky tunes of Rei Nakashima's "GA-TAN GO-TON" which is a banger bop of a song, and the dark tunes of Rokudenashi's "Eureka" really setting the motion of the seemingly arbitrary train ride to unpredictable and unforeseeable lengths. Honestly, it's outstanding. Shuumatsu Train is a show that may not be for everyone given its unruly nature, but in a unique season of reboots and remakes, the original shows (this show, Girls Band Cry and Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai a.k.a Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night, forget Astro Note) have been far and away the biggest surprises of the Spring 2024 season, and all 3 shows are great in their own right. But back to this show, if you haven't caught on to my endless singing of praises, then I don't know how to convince you to watch this magnificent anime, which has been a VERY LONG time that a show like this has managed to just capture and suck me into oblivion of its greatness since Winter 2018's Sora yori mo Tooi Basho a.k.a. A Place Further Than the Universe, that I can personally call this my AOTS. Take my word that Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? a.k.a Train to the End of the World is a show NOT to be casted on the wayside and should be watched at least once. All aboard this doomsday GA-TAN GO-TON train ride to the vast unknown!

This isn't a show for everyone, but it feels so rewarding seeing it from start to finish. Pros: To start off, this show is extremely weird. In a really good way. How many times have you seen the first episode of a brand new anime and you just go "yup, I know exactly what's gonna happen in the next 11 episodes"? This is not one of those. The premise of the show seems really insane, but that's just how the author decides to set the stage, it doesn't change the fact that the story itself is very well done. Outside of that, I think the part thatmakes it really standout is how this show balances humour and emotional portions of the show. We've seen this type of things done to perfection in many shows in the past; Kaguya, Konosuba... This show knows how to create an extremely bizzare situation, throw the main casts into the situation, and just let things play out in the most ridiculous way possible. But it also knows how to keep things grounded whenever we get these scenes that talks about more important and serious topics. Cons: Pacing: I would most certainly have hoped for a couple more episodes. There are 28 stations between Agano and Ikebukuro, and majority of those stations are skipped. Some parts of the show definitely feels rushed.

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