Even Chito’s and Yuri’s ability to find joy in the mundane is challenged as the realities of life in a post-apocalyptic ghost world become increasingly apparent.
Creative Staff:
Story and Art: Tsukumizu
Translation: Amanda Haley
Letterer: Xian Michael Lee
What They Say:
Even after a mysterious life form tells Chito and Yuri the end of the earth is near, still they continue their everyday adventures together, traveling slowly toward the city on the top-most layer. Their days pass as usual; with the goal of food and making it to tomorrow, with a little bit of relaxing and kicking-back, of course.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
You know, I’m afraid for Girls’ Last Tour. For a while, it was easy to be distracted by the series’ lighter, slice-of-life elements, but now we’re at the penultimate volume and it’s impossible to ignore just how bleak the situation is. I’m worried about how this series is going to end: I don’t want a dark ending where the protagonists die, but on the other hand, in some ways a vague ending that just abandons the girls in mid-sentence to an unspecified fate might be worse. I can dream of a happy ending– perhaps where Yuri and Chito find an enclave of survivors with a giant warehouse full of enough non-perishable food to feed everyone indefinitely– but let’s be honest, that’s not where this story is heading.
Still, my existential terror aside, Girls’ Last Tour remains brilliant. I was blown away by the anime in 2017, and now that we’re past where the anime ended in the story, the manga continues to bring interesting ideas to the table and make them even better with thoughtful execution. Having the two girls stumble into an art museum is one thing, but the small choices made– which paintings they see, how the girls react to them, how Chi and Yuu differ in their responses to art– are what make the series so intelligent and profound. The same material could be preachy and banal in lesser hands, but Tsukumizu has proven he has the gravitas to grapple with the epic themes he’s tackled here.
Initially, I thought Chi and Yuu were meant to be unremarkable everyman (everygirl?) sort of characters; they were meant to serve as our tour guides to a fascinating world, even if they weren’t individually that interesting. However, it’s clear now that the differences in the two girls’ personalities are tremendously important in Girls’ Last Tour. Yuu doesn’t remember much from day to day, and lives more like a foraging animal; she primarily worries about filling her belly and being warm. Chi is much more conscious the world around her, and seemingly more human for it, but at what cost? I find myself wishing that Chi would become more like Yuu for her own sake, then have to grapple with the darkness of what I’m really wishing for.
In fact, the way Girls’ Last Tour deals with memory– both individual and communal– as both the defining characteristic of humanity and its greatest burden, reminds me of a lot of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. In some respects, I think it picks up where Maus leaves off, and I’d be hard-pressed to think of higher praise for a graphic novel than that.
All that said, I’m not quite as enamored with the art as I am with the writing. The style fits the narrative, and there’s a lot to be said for the atmosphere, but sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what’s going on in Tsukumizu’s sketchy backgrounds. Sometimes I wish he’d turn up the contrast to make it easier to see what’s going on, put down some strong pen lines to give the reader more to latch onto. His style makes it feel like we’re always looking at the world of Girls’ Last Tour through a snowstorm, which is likely intentional (and undeniably effective), but sometimes I wonder if a different approach would be more evocative. It’s probably impractical to ask for sumptuous artwork about nuclear winter though, right?
As I wait with anticipation (and no small amount of terror) for the final volume, I encourage every fan of manga and graphic novels in general to give this series a chance. They say there’s nothing new under the sun, but I’ve never seen a post-apocalyptic story approached like this. The fact that this series can feel exciting and new, even as it details the death of civilization, is a singular achievement.
In Summary:
Still brilliant, but much like other graphic novel classics that value atmosphere over artistic beauty, it’s not going to knock you over with fabulous illustrations. Likely either you’ve found this world utterly compelling from the very beginning, or you’re not reading this volume at all; this isn’t a title that lends itself to a mid-series pick-up.
Grade: A+
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: December 11, 2018
MSRP: $15.00 US/$19.50 CAN