BAD IMPRESSIONS: Girls Last Tour

As opposed to my bad review series, this is a first impression that I got after finishing the manga. Spoilers ahead

I won’t go in-depth to anything but will provide my general thoughts, and feelings’s on the work

Girl’s Last Tour is a pretty melancholic the whole time, it is, after all, a post-apocalypse story and in the traditions of apocalyptic stories, it is filled with philosophical overtones.

The titular girls, Yuuri and Chito, explore the ruins of an advance civilization looking for food and shelter while ruminating on the past of humans. The story is a reflection on life as a whole, and the individual’s place in the larger world. The girls are dwarfed by the enormous ruins and old tech that surrounds them, and their everyday actions are insignificant in the wake of the grander decomposition of the world around them. To this end, the girls continue on their journey with no real point to it. Just as an individual is unclear about their purpose in life, the girls have no clear goal other than continuing living for no real purpose. This struggle to live on is ultimately fruitless as, by the end of the manga, they reach the highest point in the city to only find a barren landscape and to be left with no supplies.

At the end of the story, the girls quietly pass away asleep in each other’s arms in a quiet landscape with the world continuing on without them, destined to be reborn anew. Despite all this, the story is not filled with depression and angst, but of curiosity and joy at the small moment of discovery. The girls also take joy in each other’s company, whereby the end of the series, even after they have lost all of their supplies, they still find solace at being connected to each other.

The ultimate message of Girl’s Last Tour is not one of despair but of comfort. The author’s message is that we need to find comfort and joy even in the worst of situations for it’s the quiet moment of happiness that make life worth living. This message is also conveyed by the art style of the manga with the characters having soft, round, features contrasted by the hard angular designs of the machinery and backgrounds. The girls’ soft appearance is a comfort to both the viewer and the characters as they can look to each other to manage to live in the harsh cold world around them.

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