The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - Touring After the Apocalypse

All alone after the end of days, two girls bike through the empty ruins of Japan—and they're not about to let the collapse of civilization get in the way of sightseeing. Even when the world ends, their journey goes on.

Touring After the Apocalypse is based on the manga series by Sakae Saitō. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

There have been numerous shows this season that seem to struggle with balancing the art of providing the audience with information while also leaving enough room for an ongoing narrative to unfold. So far, I think Touring After the Apocalypse rides that line beautifully. Not only does this premiere hold back on giving everything away, but it also has an amazing sense of atmosphere, a solid sense of pacing, and a surprising amount of action for something that starts with such a laid-back tone. The idea of two happy-go-lucky girls just touring the countryside after a clear cataclysmic event is fascinating and seems like an easy setup for feeding the audience information on what might've happened to this land as they travel to new places. Even though nothing really happens for the first ten minutes of the episode, it was enjoyable just watching these two girls ride their motorbike to scavenge for food. I want to know more about this world that seems to be moving on from something horrific.

There's a little bit of personal motivation with one of our leads looking for their sister, or at the very least, trying to revisit a lot of the places that she did previously. I like many of the stylistic additions, particularly the camera work, which shows that there is actual intention behind everything we are seeing. That makes many of the more supernatural elements a bit easier to swallow than I originally anticipated. At first, it felt like the show was taking a tough turn, with at least one of the girls seemingly being an android that could fire lasers from her hands. Still, there's just something about the way that the characters interact both before and after that sequence that feels very casual in a believable way. Not to mention that there appears to be an issue with one of the girls regarding her interaction with past events or her ability to remember them. The show is very vague about it, but in a way that actually sparks intrigue instead of just baiting us without any real payoff.

In many ways, this episode also felt like an independent short film, which I think is the ideal standard that many premieres should strive for. It's well animated, sows plenty of seeds, but also gives us enough that the episode feels satisfactory in some ways. I wasn't really expecting much when I first read the description of this show, but now it might be one of the strongest premieres I've watched so far, and I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing what else the show has in store. Fingers crossed it doesn't go to the opposite extreme and overcomplicates itself.