Shojo Shumatsu Ryoko 
Girls Last Tour ended this weekend. Chi and Yuuri's travels together didn't end, but I think that's the way it's supposed to be. No conclusion, no final closure, somehow it's just so much better to think of them in their Kettenkrad in the snow, still trying to find the highest level in the city and it doesn't matter if they ever get there as long as they are together.
This is one of those series that truly defies definition. It's the end of the world and there's no bang, no whimper, just quiet. It's a road trip with no action, but there is certainly adventure, but it's a gentle adventure through an empty world ... that isn't very empty. It is filled with things beyond understanding, but that's just because it is suddenly so apparent how everything we take for granted becomes inscrutable just a half step away.
There's no angst, no terror, no zombies, no plague or fallen asteroids - but there are cats, of that's at least what they want to call them, not really ever seeing a cat before, let alone know how to pronounce a word that only Chi has read.
But it's exactly what the end of the world would probably be like, if it was just you and your best friend and a motor machine, where home - no matter what you imagine a home might be - is actually, wherever you are, together.
It's thoughtful. The dialogue is simple, yet it touches on all of what it means to be human.
I was sad when it was over. I wanted to hear Chi and Yuuri bicker more. But you know, in the end that didn't matter. What mattered is just how much they actually do care for each other. Not care as in romance or duty or or anything beyond just being together.
It was a perfect ending.
But it left me asking one really odd question ...
Girls Last Tour could never have been made over here. Or at least, never anything more than a one off film that might get some recognition as it wound through the art houses. Never, never a series on television. No explosions. No families on the run. Nothing happened ... because nothing happened, everything did. Why not? Why can't we have good things like this over here?
Perhaps, perhaps, just like Chi and Yuuri's journey, we have forgotten that there is a value in slow and not fast, in quiet and not loud, and instead of being force fed entertainment, it's kind of nice to be, just, every now and then ...
... thoughtful.
and now I guess I'll have to watch it all the way through!