Touring After the Apocalypse

Episode 7

Anyone hoping for some more concrete answers about Airi or Yoko's true identities and natures may be a little frustrated by the lack of revelations offered by their visit to the maintenance facility in Tsukuba. Although they're able to access the super-advanced AI-run underground facility, the AI isn't able to interact with them directly, only uttering brief commands. The fact the facility is accessed via a phone booth with voice recognition software is amusing, especially when it suddenly descends rapidly into the ground carrying the shocked girls with it, into the dark.

They discover an entirely automated base complete with sliding doors and a THX 1138-esque white, clinical room. “It's just like our bunker,” remarks Yoko. No wonder she wanted to leave that featureless, boring place. Airi's beckoned to a door marked “A-46,” to undergo essential maintenance, while Yoko enters the “Y-21” door, for her medical check-up. I wonder if there's any significance to the numbers; could they be a subtle hint that Yoko and Airi are both part of numbered series, of cyborgs in Airi's case, and enhanced biological clones in Yoko's? How many identical Yoko and Airi duos have been sent out into the world in the past?

It's becoming increasingly clear that Yoko is likely to be artificial, as this week's flashback very clearly identifies that the brown-haired girl seen in modern day Japan is an older version of her. Is her road trip around the country, guided by the obviously AI “Big Sis” a deliberate attempt to trigger and then integrate copied memories? Are there digital backups of other human beings on deeply buried hard drives somewhere just waiting to be uploaded to new bodies if Yoko's development is successful?

During Yoko's medical, we see a computer readout that confirms she has an organic-looking brain, and normal, biological things like an EKG trace. I can't help wondering if her sudden sleepiness is more than a little suspicious… what happened to her as she slept? Is the Yoko that leaves the facility the same Yoko, and what about Airi? They're separated for quite a while… Perhaps I'm seeing worrying things where in fact there are none.

The rest of the episode is an otherwise fairly chill exploration of the former science expo site, including a planetarium visit to watch real stars (as the roof crumbled away long ago). We learn some interesting tidbits about the world's state prior to the apocalypse – there was an established moon base, and possibly an equatorial orbital elevator that looked distressingly like Breugel's "Tower of Babel." Does this suggest the destruction of mankind was the actions of an angry deity? What about the huge chunk missing from the moon – was this caused by the moon base exploding? Perhaps rubble from that crashing down to Earth is what caused the various craters we've seen in both this and previous episodes? What about the traffic jam fully of empty vehicles the girls pass through? That suggests the apocalypse either happened suddenly, during rush hour, or else there was enough warning for people to try and escape the cities.

Despite this episode offering some more breadcrumbs about the post-apocalyptic world, we're really no wiser about about what actually happened, nor about Yoko's true identity. It's just as well that Touring After the Apocalypse can also be enjoyed on a more superficial, vibes-based level. The closing sequence with Yoko singing a sweet version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while shooting stars fall from the sky is both heart-warming and a little lonely. It may be that Yoko and Airi will be the final sentient beings who will ever witness such sights.

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Touring After the Apocalypse is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.