© apogeego/「終末トレインどこへいく?」製作委員会
I have to stop describing every episode of Train to the End of the World as the craziest because the show continues to outdo itself. This one, by design, is borderline incomprehensible. Even fans who have experienced rough train rides before can draw the line here. At what point does excitement and fun turn to frustration and insincerity? It's subjective so I can only answer it myself. And my answer is that I want the Shuumatsu to accelerate deeper and deeper into absolute madness. I believe this anime has the potential to become more hostile towards its audience, and I hope I can see it continue to test those limits.
I won't pretend I can unravel every allusion, symbol, gag, and scrap of meaning that may or may not be included in this parade of twists and turns. Maybe I could if I had a week, but not in this state of flux. However, I think I can decipher the intention. The similarities between Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Nerima Land are perhaps obvious, but the way the writing approaches them is orthogonal and interesting. In short, the episode does not seek to recreate the works themselves but the experience of reading them as they were published in the mid-19th century. And think about it: you can't do that by throwing out which was taken directly from Carroll. In modern times, novels and their adaptations have become ingrained in the collective consciousness. We are so familiar with them. Instead, we have to imagine how strange and meaningless the story would be to a group of people not ready for it.
This volume achieves that feat by building on the fundamentals Carroll used in his works, specifically game logic, wordplay, cultural variation, and the use of lots of opium. To that end, Mizushima uses shogi instead of chess, Japanese wordplay instead of English, an eclectic notational environment, and a character who is literally a poppy. And I mean Mizushima, not Yokote, as he is credited with directing, storyboarding, and scripting this episode three times over. Presumably, he wrote the entire setting for Alice in Nerima Land, so I imagine he felt better equipped to tie everything into this story. This includes about a dozen character biography slides, as well as all the information Reimi went over in her old book (the one she picked up during the premiere). Honestly, putting on a fake anime is a ridiculous amount of work, even though Hirobako fans know Mizushima is no stranger to elaborately crafted fake anime.
As an audience, we are also stripped of many layers. from the basic context, which even when acknowledged by a die-hard fan like Reimi, is warped beyond recognition by the time we get to it. It's a TV show that says 7G became a real city before Yoka corrupted it further. It's absurd. However, the absurdity is the problem. The thematically meaningless concept is paramount to any reading that scratches the surface of The Shuumatsu. Do we as humans impose meaning on a chaotic world or do we assume the chaos of a world whose rules we cannot understand?
This episode shows the latter scenario. The girls defeat Chaos, the tactlessly named villain, when they discover that he and his pawns are simply following the rules of shogi. The previous stops of previous episodes also have their own logic and rules. They are unique from place to place, but they are consistent within their regional limits. And with the revelations at the end of this episode, whether intentional or unconscious, Yoka is indeed responsible for them. All of this supposed coincidence might just represent her conflicted feelings towards Shizuru. She is erecting barricades, but not removing rails. The most illogical thing in this film is perhaps nothing stranger than the conflicting whims of the human heart.
We can't forget the cold opening either. The show juxtaposes its strange new heights against some of the darkest images it has thrown at us. A mysterious and malevolent psychic attack shows us flashes of memories suggesting that Akira witnessed someone die, Reimi kills a badger (or the badger turns into a human), Nadeshiko feels was responsible for her parents' divorce and Pochi's abuse. They have suppressed these traumas up until this point, but just as Shizuru needed to confront Yoka, each may need to confront their own demons. My only significant complaint about this episode is that Nadeshiko introduces the solution so abruptly that the emotional component carries no weight. I think it could have been more artistically integrated into the surrounding madness. But I don’t think the show needs to slow down and have a “serious” plot twist to resolve all of this. Being a human being, taken as a whole, encompasses a crazy degree of multitude, and Shuumatsu Train at its peak evokes that whirlwind of emotions and experiences. It's not a straight line from A to B. It's a wide and colorful spectrum.
Finally, I want to emphasize that Shuumatsu Train still works for me because I like its strangeness and I find it fun. It's as simple as that. I love the grotesque humor in many of the creature designs, especially the milk-powered Man Cow and all the urban infrastructure pigs. In one scene, the squeal of a pig's tire resembles an actual pig's squeal, and it's just a single example of the consistently excellent foley work and comedic timing found throughout the series. While Metallic Rouge's fast pace often frustrated me, Mizushima's direction makes the breakneck pace of the action and dialogue feel like a deliberate stylistic choice. Additionally, Akira's frequent references don't feel annoying because they're always on the left; last week it was a DH Lawrence movie, and this week it's a non-Godzilla Ishirō Honda movie. I was also able to immediately tell (and later confirm) that one shot used the climax from 1973's The Wicker Man as a visual reference. There's a no-nonsense art, and Shuumatsu Train combines high and low skills exceptionally well.
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Train to the End of the World is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Steve is on Twitter while it lasted. He's currently looking at how even the end of the world can't stop Japan from having a nicer rail system than the United States. You can also see him chatting about trash and treasure on This Week in Anime.