Girls’ Last Tour: Closure

Girls Last Tour is a series that was very much in the spotlight recently due to the success of its anime adaptation, and shortly after the finale of the anime the source manga itself reached its conclusion. I am very much of the opinion that the manga ending was something that was not open-ended, but I’ve seen a lot of discussion from people who believed it was. And so, as it was a series that resonated with me at a surprisingly deep level, I want to talk about why I believe the ending is the thematic culmination of the show’s message being taken to its very limits, and why as a result of this it is in no way inconclusive.

The final happening of the series sees the duo finally reaching the top layer of the vertically layered cityscape they’d dedicated their life to climbing. Upon reaching the roof they’re confronted with a completely barren wasteland stretching out for miles with nothing to see except the ferociously heavy snow that cloaked the surface. They had placed all of their hopes and dreams of a better life within their mental image of the top layer, so when they were greeted with complete and utter emptiness it took them a bit of time to mentally reconcile with this truth. After a moment’s confusion at the sight before them where they simply have no clue how to process it, Chi and Yuu engage in a friendly snowball fight, feast upon the very last of their rations, and then go to sleep together saying that they’ll think of what to do next tomorrow.

The talk of “dealing with it tomorrow” is likely what has confused so many people, but to me it’s clear as day that the two of them weren’t going to wake back up. That when they lay themselves down in the final chapter, they calmly and peacefully pass away in their sleep. Frankly I think this is the only valid interpretation of this scene. When you look at the final chapter thematically, circumstantially and with regards to the author’s intentions, the only viable conclusion to be reached is that this was their way of respectfully bowing out and drawing the adventure to a close.

The main theme in the story of Chito and Yuuri’s journey was always about “finding good in a bad situation”. As they ventured forth throughout the towering cityscape, the few humans left would constantly be finding moments of beauty amidst the stillness and deathly silence that hung stagnant over the abandoned ruins. Examples include when Ishii’s plane collapses or Kanazawa loses his map, they use that as a way of escaping their vice and starting anew. Rather than succeeding and escaping the city, their bad situation continues yet in a way that still offers them some semblance of joy. When the Kettenkrad breaks down in the final stretch of Chi and Yuu’s travels, Chi tries desperately to fix it but when it becomes clear that she wasn’t going to able to she gives up and decides to use it one last time as a bath, finding at least a smidge of cheer amidst what was to be the most damning event of their lives.

By contrast, the story was never about “making a better situation”. This was a time where humanity had already been pushed to the brink of extinction and there was only a handful of people still alive. They were just stragglers in a world that was already dead, and there was no way that situation would ever take a turn for the better. Before their departure, the nukos confirm to them that they were the last two humans alive in the upper layers of the city (and it’s likely the only two left in the lower layers were Ishii and Kanazawa), as well as offhandedly leaving the parting words that Earth is finally about to reach the end of its long-storied existence. Yet even after hearing this, the two are still able to find fleeting moments of bliss amidst the charred rubble.

Looking at it through that lens then, their last act of happily passing away in their sleep is the ultimate evolution of this theme. By all means this was the absolute worst situation they had ever faced, one impossible to bounce back from. And so to exemplify the core message of the series, rather than being panicked and despairing their grim prospects as they desperately cling to life, Chito and Yuuri come together as family one final time to comfort each other and find their closing happiness. At the conclusion of everything, they walk in togetherness to help the other overcome their fear of dying and graciously accept an end to their weary struggles. In the face of a death so strong it consumed the entire planet, they spend their final moments in the comfort of each other’s presence; frolicking around in the snow as they finally just let loose everything they’d been holding back, meandering through pointless philosophy over their last supper, and embracing each other tightly as they approach the void. Standing at the very edge of history as arguably the last two living existences left on planet Earth, they depart the mortal plane not in a state of anxiety and fear, but wrapped in familial warmth. To embody the show’s very heart and soul, rather than fruitlessly stressing over survival they face the abyss ahead of them, finding respite, resolution and satisfaction amidst the worst possible circumstances.

Continuing on, I believe that the talk of “figuring it out tomorrow” was meant to be taken as a symbolic phrase rather than something literal, that what was more important than anything was the feelings behind those words. By speaking of the future where there was none, it was like a promise to each other that no matter what happened they would always be together, something that would help ease their troubled hearts as they let go of their very lives.

Girl’s Last Tour is a very tranquil series in the way it treats its character. Along their quest the two are constantly put in places where they can only just sit back and marvel at the world around them. It’s never been something that had a gritty sense of despair and violence at the forefront. And it’s for this reason that I think of you look at it from the author’s perspective it doesn’t make sense for the girls to wake back up again. From everything I witnessed in the series and the raw emotions I saw poured into its cathartic atmosphere, I cannot fathom that the author would just betray the identity she had weaved together by making them survive the night. The only possible future left for them if they were to reawaken would be a stressful death by starvation on the way back down, an ending which doesn’t tonally slot in with the rest of the series at all.

Again, to lend credence to the idea that the story couldn’t continue past this point, if we view it from an in-universe perspective then it too becomes blatantly apparent that there was simply no possible way for them to recover. Right from the moment I started the series I was concerned for the safety of the Kettenkrad because I knew that the mobility and effortless travel provided by it was the one thing that provided them with the capacity to explore and procure resources. With the Kettenkrad meeting its end on their ascension to the final layer, their imminent fall had become unavoidable. It’s all well and good to be taken along for the ride by a vehicle, but with it gone that would mean they would then have to be walking along on foot and expending energy and hydration from point to point. During one of their pitstops on the march up, Yuu notes that Chi’s energy reserves had been getting increasingly rugged as they struggled onwards, and after a certain point they both become so tired they just stop talking to each other to concentrate only on walking. They sacrifice everything in a bid to keep moving on, discarding things that that weren’t vital (such as the camera they’d had with them since near the very beginning) in order to try and reduce the weight load, even going so far as to burn every single book that Chi had collected (including her diaries) for the sakes of keeping warm. By the time they finally reach the plateau they had completely gone through every last bit of food they had aside from enough for one last meal. They had been in bad situations before, but never anything like this. They always had the Kettenkrad to help efficiently ferry them on their searches and they always had at least a month’s worth of food reserves to sustain them in between procurements. However this time they had completely exhausted their supplies and fallen beneath their safety threshold to a point of no return.

On an even more basic level, the AI that was in control of the elevator they took up to the final level had finally been granted death from its immortality after being alone for so long, and therefore they had no way of getting back down before you even factor in their deteriorating physical conditions. After they departed the elevator they were riding the Kettenkrad for multiple days before it broke down, and then it still took countless days and nights to finally reach the top. With absolutely no food provisions to speak of, there’s no way they could have made it back to the elevator in the first place. Being at the highest level that towered into the sky, the air had grown increasingly thin and exceedingly cold which would have made even basic movement strenuous and started slowing down their bodily processes to compel them to fall unconscious. Under these conditions, if they were to attempt to trek back down the extremely lengthy path carrying their heavy packs, their bodies would collapse from exhaustion in no time flat and they would be left to slowly fade from starvation.

For that matter, what even would be the point of surviving? They had completed the goal they set out to achieve by reaching the utmost highest point, and in the process of that they had become the last two humans alive in that entire cascading fortress. They had seen everything there was to see and gone everywhere they planned to, there was nothing left to be done.If I can be so blunt, there was really no need for them to force themselves to keep living on. I think they had earned release.

I want to mention that I don’t think that’s a thing to be mourned. So often when a series kills off its protagonists at the end it’s done by way of tragedy as one final sacrifice, but that’s not the case here. It’s not like they were killed or murdered, they laid themselves to rest. They had done their time fighting to survive against the odds. Looking at everything the characters had endured and accomplished, I think passing away in their sleep was somewhat of a blessing. It was them finally being granted parole from the silent, icy prison they’d been forced to wander so long. In fact, looking at it from this perspective if you asked me I would tell you that I do honestly consider Girls Last Tour a happy ending. Not in the conventional sense that suddenly everything works out okay but in the sense that the protagonists ended the series in a state of happiness and freedom.

And so it’s for all these reasons that I think it’s evidently clear they don’t wake back up. Hand in hand beneath the starry sky that they’d finally seen for the first time, they quietly pass away as a way for the author to respectfully draw their last tour to a close. Not as failures, but as those who gave their very best to live in their cruel world and were finally awarded relief at the mountaintop. After struggling for so long, solace was their reward as the last remnants of mankind’s grand stage reached their curtain call and Earth finally fell silent.