Touring After the Apocalypse

Episode 9

I did not expect an episode about motor vehicle racing to leave me in tears by its end, but that's getting ahead of myself. Last time, Yoko attempted to satisfy her urge for racing as fast as humanly possible by riding her electric motorbike around the track at the Motegi Mobility Resort. Unfortunately for her, the electric motor just wasn't up to the task of satisfying her innate death wish. As she and Airi set off to leave the mobility resort behind, she once more hallucinates mysterious voices, this time telling her to wait.

Turning back, they find an improbably preserved museum filled with famous motor vehicles of ages past, apparently even in good enough working order to be raced, for real. At least, according to the sole surviving android tour guide, they are. I probably should have clocked that new robotic friend “ISAAQ” was too close in nature to episode two's tragic cyborg for comfort. His story ended in melancholy and death, so why should ISAAQ's be any different?

For a brief moment, Yoko is once more able to experience the thrill of the race, her borrowed (copied?) memories evoked by the smell of burning gasoline. She gleefully speeds around the circuit as the camera follows her like a stage from Super Hang-on. Even the extremely short Airi gets in on the action. Although her feet can't reach the pedals of a full-sized racing car, she finds a way to remotely control a specially equipped car.

So far, so cute and relatively humdrum, I thought. We did the racing thing last week. Why are we doing this again? Yet as Yoko nears the finish line, she begins to hallucinate again. This time, she sees specters of the museum vehicles race past her, and the grandstand full of ghostly robots cheering her on. When she finally stops, she finds the bike no longer functions, nor does Airi's car, and ISAAQ collapses, his internals corroded beyond repair years previously. All show signs of severe neglect-related degradation.

This leaves our girls, and by extension the viewer, asking, “What happened here?” Is this a move towards the supernatural, to more of a ghost story? Was the pristine museum itself nothing but a hallucination? We get our answer as small blue lights rise from each museum vehicle and dilapidated robot, as a stirringly emotional track soars over the extended ending credits. Initially believing them to be fireflies, Yoko looks on in wonder as the lights drift into the sky. “ISAAQ?” she whispers, cradling one in her hand, as it slowly flickers and dies.

Something about this scene is so incredibly moving that I struggle to put exactly into words why. It's not like we got to know ISAAQ terribly well, nor do I have much empathy for motor vehicles. Yet the value that the (presumably) human Yoko imputes to them, plus the love and attention lavished upon them by their previous owners, and museum visitors, gives them meaning. I never thought I'd find a parallel between Touring After the Apocalypse and the show I reviewed last season, Hell Teacher Nube, but they each share episodes focusing on the Japanese concept of “tsukumogami.” Tsukumogami are objects that have been treated with enough love that they develop their own souls.

Not only does Yoko's dream of riding a bike really bloody fast come true, but she also grants the final wish of all the abandoned cars, bikes, and robots at the resort: to see the racing circuit used one final time, before they, like humanity before them, meet their end, and move on. Perhaps Yoko is indeed the final human, the one whose task is to turn off the lights and close the door behind her after humanity's time on Earth is complete. That's a sobering thought for a whimsical show about two girls visiting tourist spots on their little motorbike.

Rating:

Touring After the Apocalypse is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.