Posted by on November 12, 2025

“Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.” –George S. Patton

While exploring Akihabara for the source of the radio broadcast, Yōko and Airi find a cosplay café and briefly do a photo shoot, using the surviving costumes. The pair encounter a large number of climate-inappropriate animals, including giraffes and capybaras, and Airi explains that Ueno Zoo was nearby, so it is likely following humanity’s demise, the animals simply escaped and made the area their home. The pair encounter a tiger who’s standing over a kill, and after a tense few moments, the tiger retreats into the grass with its meal. Although relieved Yōko’s knees give out. The pair continue on their search and trace the broadcast to a nearby office block. Here, the pair learn that the original radio host created an autonomous program that would ensure his musical collection continued to be shared, and decide to use electronics from nearby stores so the radio host’s broadcasts can be heard. Later, Yōko and Airi pass through a muddy swamp en route to Umihotaru and stop briefly to clean up after falling in the mud. When Yōko spots the looming full moon, she cannot feel that something ominous is about to happen. The next morning, Yōko repairs a flat tyre after driving over debris strewn about by strong winds and later rushes to escape a massive storm. She and Yōko reach the roadside station at Umihotaru, where Yōko reveals she’d been terrified during the ride in owing to the strong winds and massive waves. As the two rest, Yōko dreams about exploring the facility with her sister and finding things from when it’d been still active. When she wakes up and finds the spots in her dreams, she becomes intrigued, but before the two can explore further, a horde of rats appear. The pair only barely escape when the torch Yōko dropped ignites a truck’s fuel tank, creating a massive explosion that eliminates the rats. In the aftermath, Yōko receives an email from her older sister and is shocked when Airi unexpectedly reboots: Yōko’s sister had foreseen that Airi would need to return to the manufacturer for maintenance, and with this goal in mind, the pair set off the next morning for Tsukuba, where the manufacturer’s central facility is located, stopping briefly to ring the Bell of Happiness and promising to continue travelling with one another.

Although Touring After the Apocalypse had covered the concept of memory in its first three episodes, Yōko and Airi’s adventures entering the first half’s conclusion reveal a different set of topics: having toured in relatively safe conditions, Yōko and Airi experienced their first real danger against an automated armoured vehicle early on, and upon arriving in Akihabara, Airi and Yōko encounter a tiger guarding its kill. The tiger is more interested in its meal than the pair, and while Airi had been ready to blast it with her plasma cannon, the tiger ends up retreating into the grasses, allowing Yōko and Airi to relax. Despite being a relatively safe setting, hazards have been periodically shown in Touring After the Apocalypse to remind viewers that Yōko’s journey is not one of sunshine and rainbows. This is accentuated when the pair take shelter at the Umihotaru rest station: a massive storm producing multiple waterspouts and intense lightning forces the pair to stop their journey, and here, the pair come face-to-face with a massive horde of rats. Despite their efforts to escape, the rats threaten to overrun the pair, and it was only a lucky explosion from an ignited gasoline tank that buys the pair some breathing room in the end. The concept of danger in Touring After the Apocalypse, however, is not presented as an impediment to Yōko and Airi’s adventures: in fact, Yōko comments on the faintest hint of exhilaration from moments – despite collapsing in relief after encountering the tiger, Yōko remarks that the moment made her feel more alive, and similarly, after lying in the rain following the gasoline-fuelled explosion, Yōko expresses how glad that she’s exploring the world for herself, rather than viewing it from behind a screen in the safety of her shelter. The sum of these sentiments mirror a lingering sentiment, that experiences are always more visceral and most impactful when one does things for themselves. The gap between lived experiences and anecdotes is immense: before the rats attack, Yōko and Airi share a conversation about how a dream, she was able to eat the specialities at Umihotaru, but in the present, the absence of humans and ingredients make this all but impossible. However, even being able to just go out and see things is mile ahead of staring at photographs, and this is what ends up motivating Yōko to continue travelling despite the danger (which is, itself, something part of the experience). In this way, Touring After the Apocalypse indicates that hazards accompany anything worth doing, and the surest way to live is to step up and do things for oneself, rather than limiting oneself to living vicariously through others on social media.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Halfway into Touring After the Apocalypse, the difference between this series and 2017’s Girls Last Tour becomes considerably more pronounced – in the latter, dangers came from the unknown nature of the constructs Chito and Yū explored, constructs that spoke to themes of forgotten knowledge, but here in Touring After the Apocalypse, everything is deliberately familiar. Dangers here come not from the unknown constructs, but rather, the merger of nature with places man had previously tamed. The sharp contrasts speak to fundamental differences in tone, and where Girls Last Tour is more contemplative and introspective in nature, *Touring After the Apocalypse *is a little more energetic in spirited.

• The choice to portray Akihabara meant that *Touring After the Apocalypse *was certain to explore the aspects of this iconic district best known to the world: electronics and otaku culture. In its framing, *Touring After the Apocalypse *is clever with respect to how the day unfolds. Although the third episode had ended with Yōko and Airi becoming intrigued by a radio broadcast, their decision to search for said broadcast’s origins does not mean they’re willing to overlook other of Akihabara’s attractions, and it is by day where the pair end up participating in some cosplay of their own. This means that when Yōko and Airi do their makeshift cosplay photoshoot, they have the advantage of broad daylight to explore in.

• Besides being a logical choice from a travel perspective, and offering the maximum amount of lighting so viewers can see Airi in a maid outfit without impediment, this allows *Touring After the Apocalypse *to show viewers the fact that Yōko and Airi are willing to make detours on their trip even when there is something of an objective to tend to. This mode of exploration is something I’ve found to yield for some of the best memories: in 2023, I stopped at the Chun T’Oh Ancient Forest to stretch my legs during a long drive along British Columbia’s Highway 16 and found myself with a remarkable sight of old-growth trees with tree trunks that were over two metres across, and last year in Uji, a rainfall forced my friend and I to seek shelter at the Tale of Genji Museum, producing a surprising chance to explore one of Japan’s most famous tales in a visual, immersive fashion.

• Yōko’s comments about Airi enjoying posing for the camera as much as Yōko enjoyed taking them earns her a look of barely-concealed disapproval, but before Airi can retory, Yōko spots a monkey in the background to one of her photos. This turns Airi and Yōko’s cosplay shoot into an impromptu day at the zoo when the pair notice a variety of animals. My first and immediate thought turned to the Ueno Zoo – Japan’s oldest zoo, Ueno Zoo is located about a mile north of Akihabara, and the presence of animals not native to Tokyo suggested that since humanity vanished, said animals became free to roam this side of Tokyo, creating for unusual sights.

• Yōko and Airi’s day take a turn for the suspenseful when they encounter a tiger about to enjoy its lunch, and while the moment leaves Yōko shaking from fear, despite her finding the experience exhilarating, the reality was that predators are unlikely to attack unless they feel threatened: predators depend on their physicality to hunt, and unnecessary confrontation carries a risk of injury, which in turn, may impact their ability to hunt. This is why large herbivores are more dangerous than carnivores: they evolved defenses against predators and have aggression to match, allowing them to stave off predation.

• As it was, Yōko and Airi weren’t in imminent danger at this point, and while Airi considers using her plasma cannon, Yōko asks her to stand down. This marks the first significant hazard the pair had encountered since the armoured vehicle from the first episode, serving to remind viewers simultaneously that while this world isn’t one that will allow the pair to freely frolic around without a care, Yōko and Airi are reasonably well-defended against threats and therefore, viewers can appreciate such moments of suspense without worrying that this tour across Japan may prematurely conclude.

• Once the tiger is in the rear-view mirror, Yōko and Airi explore the building where the radio show host is likely to be in, and it was to general surprise that the host was actually an AI who was built in the likeness of its creator, the original radio show host. The host had hoped he could continue sharing music with the world, and while the AI was able to respond to its environment somewhat, the creator only built a basic model that was limited in its ability to reason. By evening and rainy days, the show shuts down because of its dependence on solar energy. The moment came as a shock to viewers, who’d been hoping for a human on the other end of the transmitter, but from a thematic standpoint, this is logical because it reiterated the idea that human constructs can outlive their creators.

• This aspect of *Touring After the Apocalypse *was touched on in the third episode, when Yōko and Airi had stopped by the Tokyo Big Sight and found the remnants of a Comiket event there. The thought of leaving behind a legacy of some sort is one that still motivates a great deal of human behaviour, and for the radio show host, his desire to create a record of his musical interest and share it with the world meant that, in a manner of speaking, his interests and beliefs far outlasted his lifetime, allowing it to have a tangible impact on Yōko and Airi. As night falls, and the AI powers down, the pair begin looking at ways so they can help the radio host’s intentions reach an even wider audience. The solution becomes clear: if the host were to also broadcast from speakers, anyone would be able to hear the show during daylight hours.

• Yōko’s choice to put something together is significant for two reasons: besides demonstrating that Yōko is technically able and has enough knowhow to hook something up, this action also adheres to the belief that one should leave a place better than they found it. In an age dominated by social media and selfish behaviours resulting from social media use, it is admirable that *Touring After the Apocalypse *would make such a point about this. Although the original phrase refers to keeping a spot neat and tidy, it can also speak to the notion of making improvements for others’ sake, and putting in speakers so the radio host’s AI can continue sharing music is a very visceral expression of this. While such actions demand a modicum of effort, their consequences can be far-reaching – if there are survivors in this world, anyone who travels to Akihabara next will appreciate music.

• This is something that Girls Last Tour also did: towards the end of the anime, Yū and Chito end up helping The Cut reunite with its kind after learning that their species consume high-energy substances as a form of sustenance. For their troubles in looking after a being they themselves barely understand, Chito and Yū bear witness to something miraculous. Acts of kindness and working to better one’s surroundings, no matter how bleak the world may appear, is something that people are increasingly forgetting, and I found it a shade disappointing that amidst the anime community, this message was not mentioned when the fourth episode aired, suggesting that the thought of leaving a place better than one found it was not on viewers’ minds.

• When Airi and Yōko push onwards to Kawasaki, they traverse a road that’s become marshland and end up falling in the mud. This creates a moment of levity after Airi extracts a large tortoise from the mud, and the pair subsequently take a detour to clean up. The fact that Yōko and Airi’s tour of Japan is frequently punctuated by detours speaks volumes to Touring After the Apocalypse‘s perspective of journeying. Again, we look no further to social media for examples of how not to travel (namely, rushing to a destination so one can create ‘grammable moments for likes and comments) – slow, methodical travel with a clear intention to enjoy the process is what yields the most meaningful experiences, and under this mode of thinking, unexpected detours simply act as one more destination to take in.

• In the case of Touring After the Apocalypse, something as simple as stopping to wash their clothes and give their bike a good cleaning provides Yōko and Airi a change of pacing from their road trip. Such moments, although understated, are essential for long drives – in Alberta, driver’s education handbooks and courses universally recommend taking a break every two hours, and this naturally invites opportunity to stop in places briefly for a rest. For long-haul drives where the destinations are a little further away, most drivers will probably take fifteen minutes to hit the bathroom, grab a coffee and get back behind the wheel. This is perfectly valid as a mode of travel, but in the past, I’ve found that doing this also caused me to pass over technically excellent destinations. For instance, in the past, when Vancouver was the destination, we would pass through places like Golden, Revelstoke and Kelowna.

• The reality is that each of these places have things worth checking out, but if one’s only grabbing a burger or hitting the bathroom here, there won’t be much of a chance to go exploring. I’ve remedied this by deliberately going back to these places and exploring them more thoroughly, giving me a chance to properly appreciate what a place has, and in doing so, I found that even in small towns, there are absolute gems of places to check out. In Revelstoke, for instance, there’s a delightful restaurant called the Old School Eatery that serves a wonderful rack of ribs, and a short ways from town is the Revelstoke Dam Visitor Centre, which provides tours of one of British Columbia’s largest rammed earth dams.

• Once their clothes are washed and the bike is cleaned, Yōko and Airi prepare to settle down for the night. Yōko’s survival knowhow is on point: she’s gathered kindling and has already prepared a campfire while it’s still broad daylight. In Les Stroud’s Survivorman, Stroud almost always recommends gathering the requisite kindling for a fire well ahead of nightfall, so that after darkness falls, one can simply tend to the fire and not worry about stumbling around in the dark. This is never explicitly mentioned in Touring After the Apocalypse, but attention to details like these make the series more enjoyable than just a story of travelling through Japan.

• The whole notion of setting a shelter and fire up during the day is an example of proactive survival, something Stroud emphasises as being able to afford one with an upper hand when things get difficult. In Touring After the Apocalypse, Yōko’s survival knowledge is likely the consequence of a combination of practical experience and at least some theoretical knowledge: having spent her time in the shelter admiring the world from behind a phone screen, I imagine that she would’ve also read about survival techniques and bushcraft, practising from the safety of the shelter before venturing out into the world and refining her technique over time.

• As evening sets in, producing a stunning sunset, Yōko and Airi end up spotting an entire school of fish swimming swiftly against the current, and a full moon gives Yōko a feeling of unease. Airi explains that the moon’s appearing larger whilst close to the horizon is an illusion, but in Touring After the Apocalypse, the moon’s size appears large enough that it feels the scene as though it were shot through a 800mm lens with a 2× teleconverter. The imagery is deliberately left ambiguous: if the moon actually moved closer to the Earth, the consequences would be significant. Besides immense tidal differences, the moon’s gravitational pull would also shorten the Earth’s length of day and increase volcanic activity. While Mount Fuji is shown as having erupted here in Touring After the Apocalypse, the length of day appears normal.

• The next morning, Yōko’s sense of dread increases with the wind, and when a stray piece of debris pierces the bike’s tyre, Yōko manages to repair it, but not before cutting herself in the process. While Yōko attributes these premonitions to intuition, there is, unsurprisingly, a scientific account for why she’s feeling uneasy. The strong winds and darkening skies foreshadow a storm, and besides the physiological impact of shifting weather, lowering air pressures, changing temperature and humidity ahead of a storm causes perceptible changes to one’s circulation, which in turn alters one’s feelings. These changes are subtle, and here, after fixing the flat, Yōko is more proud of herself.

• However, when the storm does roll in, sending storm surge over the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line’s viaduct, Yōko becomes genuinely concerned that they are in mortal peril. The storm seen in *Touring After the Apocalypse *is far more ferocious than anything seen in a typical thunderstorm, spawning multiple waterspouts. Vortexes in such proximity would likely disrupt one another or merge into a larger funnel rather than remain stationary, and while this would produce a terrifying scenario, it’d also be less visually impressive. A storm of abnormal strength might also be indicative of a world whose climate has gone awry, but given that most of *Touring After the Apocalypse *is set under gentler weather, it becomes difficult to pin down what precisely happened, and I imagine that this is by design: since *Touring After the Apocalypse *gets survival details correct, I’d expect the author willfully introduced conflicting details so viewers wouldn’t focus on the cause of the apocalypse.

• In the end, Yōko and Airi reach the rest station, and after settling in, Yōko dreams about exploring the site with her sister: besides sampling the food and watching some school girls deposit change in a vending machine, she also explores other parts of the building before waking up. This aspect might be a little confusing at first, and while science can be used to rationalise some of the things seen in Touring After the Apocalypse, one must allow for a little symbolism to kick in. In this case, what *Touring After the Apocalypse *strives to convey is that the memories within a place linger long after the human occupants are absent, and these memories are thing that a structure or location might also long to tell to those who pass through.

• While a building is not something one can interact with, the same way one might interact with a cyborg or an AI, *Touring After the Apocalypse *hints at how even something inanimate can tell a story. Dreams are poorly characterised, even in the present day – scientists hypothesise that the contents of a dream simply mirror things on the subconscious mind as the brain organises thoughts and memories during sleep, but those familiar with New Age beliefs hold that dreams offer a great deal more insight into things people may not ordinarily think about. In Touring After the Apocalypse, Yōko finds dreaming unusual, and the fact that places seem to prompt dreaming might be a sign that the memories imbibed in a location are speaking to her.

• When Yōko finds coins under the same vending machine she’d dreamed about and mentions the building feels familiar, this led me to my conclusion; there’s no scientific basis behind it, but from a symbolic standpoint, it feels logical to suppose that themes of memory are a part of Touring After the Apocalypse. Before Yōko and Airi have the chance to explore further, a horde of rats appear and threaten to overrun the pair: these rats are clearly aggressive and hunger for flesh. The fifth episode had concluded with the rats appearing in the shadows, and a part of the suspense in the sixth episode came from not knowing when this threat would actually materialise.

• Against a swarm of small, agile foes, Airi’s plasma cannon is useless and she astutely states that firing it would probably cause the building to collapse, without meaningfully thinning out the horde’s size. Airi uses a makeshift slingshot to fling coins at the rats, but there’s far too many for the pair to take on. Yōko and Airi eventually reach their motorbike and prepare to escape, although even this proves insufficient. Earlier, Yōko had dropped her torch near a fuel tanker, an act that proves instrumental in saving the pair from certain death. The explosion is massive, producing a mushroom cloud that levels the building and flings Airi, Yōko and their bike into the air. When Yōko comes to, she wonders if this is what she was bothered by earlier.

• Yōko’s comment about the world being indifferent and doing its best to kill people equally is rooted in reality – Les Stroud says the exact same thing in his Survivorman commentary, and from a certain point of view, this is what makes the universe fair. Although Yōko had been having fun with her travels so far, she still recalls the uncertainty that came from those early days when they left their shelter to start their journey. No activity is inherently risk-free, and a part of living is learning to manage risk well. Having had a narrow brush with death, Yōko wonders if their latest experiences was a reminder to exercise more caution in their travels.

• Earlier, I mentioned that Airi’s presence acts as a sort of counterweight against the dangers in the world: Yōko constantly has companionship, someone who possesses enough knowledge to help Yōko make decisions, bounce ideas off of and, when the need arises, use physical force to defend Yōko. Yōko herself believes that she cannot travel without Airi, and this plainly indicates that she does not take Airi for granted either – her reflections here come across as being the thoughts of someone who knows precisely what her world is, and this moment helps to humanise Yōko, showing that while she’s happy-go-lucky most of the time, more dramatic moments also prompt her to look inwards and reflect on her experiences.

• The presence of a powerful storm creating enough lightning to fill the skies, even as bioluminescent aquatic life forms such as *Vargula hilgendspots *illuminate the ocean (they’re informally known as “sea fireflies” in Japan, giving the area its name), creates a striking display that Yōko finds beautiful, and she reconciles her conflicting feelings about danger and majesty after seeing them coexist. Whereas her sister had taken a photo of the skyline here and walked away with a blurry photo, Yōko does the same with this skyline. The dark clouds and low lighting result in a similarly blurry photograph, reminiscent of her sister’s and showing that even if the world has changed, the nature of a spot can similarly endures beyond humanity’s tenure and evoke similar feelings long after people have gone. For the most part, low-light photos end up blurry because the camera will attempt to increase shutter speed in order to get a proper exposure, and any movement to the camera becomes amplified. Modern smartphones use computational photography to compensate for this, showing that Yōko is running an older phone.

• Out here in Umihotaru, Yōko unexpectedly receives an email addressed from her sister, and moments later, Airi powers down before rebooting. The moment is concerning for Yōko, who feels as though she’s lost her best friend, but to her great relief, Airi powers back up before noting that she didn’t detect any abnormalities. Yōko’s sister’s email, coincidentally, details this issue and suggests Airi be taken back to the manufacturer in Tsukuba for maintenance. This brought back memories of Halo 4‘s original story before the Composer became an issue: when Cortana begins to go rampant, John-117 decides to take her back to Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey to see if she can be saved. The journey would rapidly change, hence John-117’s remark that missions always change in Halo: Infinite. For now, however, this gives *Touring After the Apocalypse *a much more clear-cut goal to work towards.

• The storm recedes shortly after, and the next morning, Yōko and Airi are shown enjoying a meal of flame-roasted rat. While rats are supposed as tasting terrible owing to their diet, in a post-human world, rats would revert to their natural diets and are presumed to have a gamey, squirrel-like flavour. The sharp contrast between the storm from the previous day and the gentle morning weather accentuates how danger and calm coexist, and at first glance, one would suppose that nothing as dramatic as a storm and explosion occurred the previous evening. Once the pair finish their meal, they seek out the Bell of Happiness. A local attraction that’s said to bring good luck to couples and friends who ring it, the Bell of Happiness is reminiscent of the University of Calgary’s “Zipper” sculpture in the Science Theatres, which is rumoured to give students improved grades if spun before an exam.

• I’ve found the opposite to hold true: when I was a first year, my lack of comfort with university-style examinations means my first few midterms went poorly, and I’d since viewed the Zipper as a curse rather than a blessing, even though in reality, there is no correlation between touching the Zipper and academic performance. In Touring After the Apocalypse, Yōko and Airi find that the rope has receded, and it takes a bit of effort to reach the bell, but once they do, the bell makes a resounding ring heard around the harbour, helping to act as a reminder of Yōko and Airi’s friendship. Since Yōko’s sister mentions the Airi model as having a defect, I imagine that powering down briefly and restarting is probably a power supply related issue similar to how iPhones throttle the CPU and may force a shutdown when the battery cannot deliver sufficient current: Airi herself does not exhibit any anomalous behaviour as Cortana did, and she retains her calm demeanour, allowing one to rule out a processor or secondary storage error.

• For the first time, *Touring After the Apocalypse *now has a clear-cut destination, and while this creates a bit of urgency in the story, I expect the series to continue showing the merits of detours, as well. The fact that Yōko’s sister emailed her also creates an enticing possibility that she’s still alive, and while this would represent an emotionally impactful direction for Touring After the Apocalypse, at this point in time, it’s a little early to be speculating on what’s happening: it is equally possible that Yōko’s sister may have pre-programmed something to help Airi out when she reached certain locations or adopted a cyborg body. While *Touring After the Apocalypse *still presents a number of questions, its core story remains quite intriguing, and with a goal in mind, *Touring After the Apocalypse *enters its second half on a strong note.

Besides moving the needle in regard to themes, Touring After the Apocalypse‘s latest episodes also provide Yōko with a much more purposeful adventure now – when Airi briefly locks up, Yōko receives a message from her older sister that the time has come to take Airi to the manufacturer for scheduled maintenance, and this revelation creates two brand-new openings for Touring After the Apocalypse. The first of this is obvious: travelling to the research facility and either encountering the team who built Airi (unlikely) or locating a custom cradle that links Airi to a diagnostic system (plausible) provides a very clear-cut objective for Touring After the Apocalypse. While Airi’s still operational, and there doesn’t seem to be any major concerns in her condition at present, the fact that Yōko now has a destination to work towards means she and Airi are no longer wandering around in accordance with Yōko’s whims in the present, and this allows Touring After the Apocalypse to potentially explore how even when there is a destination in mind, travel can still offer unplanned surprises, too. The second opening is rather more dramatic: until now, Touring After the Apocalypse had implied that Yōko’s older sister was no longer of this world, but if she’s sending a realtime email to Yōko, there is a nontrival possibility that she could still be alive. Touring After the Apocalypse had disappointed some viewers earlier when it was revealed the radio station host in Akihabara was actually an AI, the final work of a radio host who wanted his work to linger after his death, and this revelation may foreshadow all of Yōko’s future travels: even if her sister is not at the facility that manufactured Airi, it would continue to motivate Yōko’s travels en route to a meeting, and the emotional impact of such a meeting means that the moment could very well be reserved for Yōko’s sister. If this is to be the case, then the difference of Yōko’s encounters will likely have her encountering automaton, or perhaps just the physical spectres left behind by people following the apocalypse. While Touring After the Apocalypse had gotten off to a slower start, the series has gradually ventured into very tantalising territory with its latest developments, acting as yet another reminder of how there is no correlation between the strength of a story and a given series’ art style – excellent stories can be had even when cute girls are the protagonists.

Anime: Reflections, Japanese Animation, Touring After the Apocalypse Airi (Touring After the Apocalypse), Anime, Anime Discussion, Anime review, Chitose (Touring After the Apocalypse), personal reflection, reflection, Review, Shuumatsu Touring, Touring After the Apocalypse, Yōko (Touring After the Apocalypse)