Girls' Last Tour

Episode 5

Even by Girls' Last Tour standards, today's episode was low key. Now that they're back to being on their own with nothing particularly noteworthy to explore, the focus has shifted to what Yuuri and Chito do to keep themselves entertained during the quieter parts of their travels.

The first part consists of them fantasizing about how they'd stock their house if they lived in a time when things were still decent. They encounter a room that's still somewhat reasonable (with chairs, electricity, and running water) and consider what it'd be like to settle down. Predictably, Yuu wants a pantry, while Chii would appreciate some bookshelves. Some heating would be nice, as well as bunk beds to maintain their status as a dynamic duo. I do this all the time as a modern-day college student, so it was pretty relatable.

In the next segment, things get pretty surreal. The girls start to doze off while driving (a dangerous proposition, even when there are no other cars) and decide to take a rest day. They play a game akin to an inverted version of Jenga, where they compete to balance bits of rubble on top of each other to build a tower. Of course, Yuu's efforts tend to be bolstered by convenient gusts of “wind.” Afterwards, they decide to take a nap, at which point Chii is treated to some bizarre dreams. In the first, a giant Yuu taunts her as she sits perched atop a massive version of their Jenga tower. In the second, Yuu appears as an enormous sea beast ready to devour Chii as she floats adrift at sea. This was all super cute, rendered in an even more fluid and cartoony style than the rest of the show. It's not only adorable, it's accurate to the nonsense-logic remixing of recent events that tend to constitute dreams, in my experience. It also allows me to call the show “Girls Last Vore,” in reference to the leviathan dream-Yuu's insistence on consuming her comrade. (The warning signs were always there, in hindsight. Yuu tried to eat Chii's hand the last time they took a nap. Chii better keep an eye on her friend, before her world-ending hunger may no longer be containable.)

The third vignette consists of our heroines discovering the beauty of music. Since they're alone in the wasteland and don't have any instruments, they haven't been exposed to much of it in their lives. So music comes to them serendipitously in rhythmic encounters between elements of nature. One day, the girls decide to take shelter under some concrete roofing during a rainstorm. When the water leaking into their dwelling begins to hit the ground in a musical fashion, our heroines notice and set up some metal containers to land beneath the droplets. Having done this, they spend the day enjoying a surreptitious concert courtesy of mother nature. If this was a manga chapter originally, I'm betting its power was magnified by the translation into film. The production's naturalistic approach to sound and visual atmosphere fully convey the feel of moments like this one. It really does evoke the humid musk of standing just outside a rainstorm's reach and the clear echo of water hitting hollow metal. This palpable sense of atmosphere remains the production's greatest strength, and the source of its quiet, breathtaking beauty. This week's conclusion, which cuts out the regular credit sequence to show the concert in full, is a standout demonstration of its mastery over sensory details.

While little happened in terms of concrete events this episode, Girls' Last Tour was still firing on all cylinders as a simultaneously amusing and refreshing atmospheric slice-of-life show. It's also been a remarkably consistent production, considering what the show wants to accomplish. I hope that it can maintain this consistency as we head into the show's second half. Given what we've seen so far, I'm optimistic that it can.

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.