Train to the End of the World

Episode 5

Train to the End of the World has thrown off its training weights. It's not holding your hand anymore. It's grabbing your arm and flinging you headfirst into the deep end. I respect that. Most series use their first three episodes to acclimate their audience to their style and intentions. Here, Mizushima and Yokote gently dialed up the weirdness, lulled us into their quirks, and then cranked the knob to eleven after it was too late to jump off. This fifth episode doubles down on the manic energy of the fourth, which becomes evident as soon as the cold open features an archery duel where beating your opponent with the bow is a legal move. No explanation is provided, nor is one needed. In the present day, the girls remain trapped in their Lilliputian environs, but the shaggy dog comedy of their struggles prevents this setting from feeling stale.

The pacing stands out the most to me this week. Watching this episode feels like watching a normal anime episode at 1.5x speed. The characters are motormouths. There are hardly any rests between lines of dialogue. The plot slithers and sidewinds at breakneck speed. And most important of all, it works! Shuumatsu Train achieves the vibe of an old screwball comedy where characters throw out zingers left and right. It's not “realistic” or “natural” dialogue but frequently funny and localized excellently. The scene where Shizuru and Reimi wield their full bladders like loaded guns is hilarious! What other anime will serve you golden lines like, “Help us and become a skeleton, or get peed on and become a skeleton”?

Obviously, the show's gutsy commitment to its internal absurdity is its defining feature, but the quality of the writing makes this story function. Snappy dialogue and strong character beats ground the surrealness. For instance, I had thought last week's flashback to Lil' Akira tricking Lil' Reimi into eating paper was just a cute anecdote that summed up their relationship. However, that scene actually sets up the payoff to Akira's cure, in which her best friend lovingly pins her down and shoves pages of her favorite book into her maw. That's a pleasant surprise and the sign of a tightly composed script. I also like the restraint with which the conspiracy/mystery angle has been unfurled. Each episode doles out a little, but not too much, and it does so in a tone congruent with the rest of the story. That's how you get a thirty-second lobotomy scene that manages to be both funny and horrifying. That's camp, baby.

The anime's visual direction is vital to its continued success, too. I perceive Mizushima and Yokote as equal partners in the beautiful crime that is Shuumatsu Train. This episode, in particular, extracts a lot of great physical comedy from its differences in scale. The sight of two kaiju-sized high school girls sneaking around buildings and warehouses like they're Solid Snake had me howling. Berserker Reimi brings out the requisite King Kong references, and the looser animation style makes the scene even more fun to watch. You can also see Mizushima applying his experience with The Magnificent KOTOBUKI's dogfights to the aerial bombardments featured here. There's a genuine possibility that this series will stand as his magnum opus.

I'm not joking. Shuumatsu Train may deceive you into thinking it's all goofs, but I assure you that its brain is as big as the mushrooms growing out of Akira's butt. Doctor Makoto confirms that 7G causes a person's perception to alter their reality, and that's a thematic vein overflowing with mineable ore. I think one of the defining storylines of modernity is the dissolution of reality's relevance in the public and political spheres. Take, for example, the “Boss” in this week's episode, who is a fitting stand-in for the paper tiger strongmen who invent narratives for the sake of grabbing power. Shizuru and the show sympathize with him to an extent, but he's an overwhelmingly pathetic figure—a maladjusted bully playing at god—whose ultimate and only appropriate fate is exile. Sadly, we don't need 7G to unwind the fabric of reality. Our brains are already plenty good at doing this on their own.

Shuumatsu Train, however, stops short of complete cynicism. The girls have the deck stacked against them, but Reimi still manages to restore Akira's soul. They get back on the train to Ikebukuro. Akira recites the encyclopedia entry for sadism. As long as you're not a skeleton, life goes on.

Rating:

Train to the End of the World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.