Touring After the Apocalypse

Episode 11

In this episode, Airi and Yoko visit the famous Amigara Fault to find the holes that are just for them. Ok, that's a lie, but isn't it just a little bit freaky that there's a real-life place (Yoshimi, Saitama) with a hundred artificial holes carved into a hillside that's more than a little reminiscent of the setting of Junji Ito's most famous short story? While our peppy girls thankfully aren't sucked into a dark abyss to be inexplicably transmogrified into spindly-limbed abominations, there is a distinct supernatural air to proceedings. Now, I'm not saying that this archaeological site was constructed by aliens, but it was aliens (insert tired internet meme here).

The past few episodes have prominently featured some bright lights in the night sky that I assumed were human-launched satellites. Some of them may yet be thus, in this week's episode, Airi is compelled to visit the Yoshimi Hundred Caves by an ultrasonic pulse only she can perceive. Leaving Yoko to sleep in one of the creepy, glowing moss-filled caves, Airi makes friends with a random black cat, and is subsequently alarmed by the sudden activation of traffic lights and a nearby car that launches itself over a bridge. An EM pulse? Probably. Before this, we see a strange spiralling distortion in the sky, and the lights in the sky zipping around, so we're clued into a sense of mystery and wrongness. A strange black sphere appears behind Airi and starts to chase her, before eating her up like a negative Rover (from The Prisoner, 1960s sci-fi fans).

Continuing the classic SF theme, Touring After the Apocalypse then proceeds to go all 2001: A Space Odyssey on us, as Airi takes a psychedelic trip through Kubrick's mirrored stargate to view a distant solar system, learning that aliens once visited the Earth 1,500 years previously. Judging humanity improperly advanced enough at that time for true communication, they returned a millennium and a half later to find humanity extinct. Yet afterwards, when Yoko also shares a brief experience with the visitors, Airi learns that the aliens consider human culture to be “still evolving,” and that she and Yoko represent one possibility for humanity's future. If Yoko can live another hundred years, then she can meet the aliens again. Given what we've seen of her resistance to disease and injury, perhaps it's not infeasible that she might live that long.

I'd hoped by this stage in the show we might be given some more information on the state of the world, or at least some clues as to Airi and Yoko's true natures, but we don't get that here. The aliens are mere bystanders with poor timing. During her trip into space, Airi does glimpse what appears to be a ruined space station in the distance. I wonder if it was wrecked by debris from the probable moon explosion? Also, during the ending sequence, we see a brief shot of a partial solar eclipse with what looks like aurora from electromagnetic radiation in the sky.

This is definitely Airi's episode more than Yoko's, and we see her emote a bit more than usual – showing curiosity, confusion, and even fear. In many ways, she seems just as human as Yoko, merely with different abilities. Yoko still gets her chance to shine, deciding to ride up the hill's stone staircase on her Serow, in an attempt to get the aliens' attention. It's ridiculous, but seems to work! Trust Yoko to find the most implausible, physically dangerous way to do something.

With only one further episode left, I doubt very much we're heading for any narrative resolution. The source manga is still running, so the best we can hope for is for the announcement of a second season. I'm mostly okay with that for now. As long as I know Yoko and Airi's story continues in some medium somewhere, then I won't be too sad to say a premature goodbye to them next week.

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Touring After the Apocalypse is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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