The Spring 2017 Manga Guide

Girls' Last Tour Vol. 1

What's It About? 

The world has ended. In fact, it ended a long time ago, and now humans are so scarce and scattered that it's rare to meet another one when you're out on a journey. Chito and Yuuri are two of the few people left, exploring the ancient, stratified city that may once have been Tokyo in their kettenkrad, a motorcycle/tank combination. Chito's brains and Yuuri's brawn allow them to survive as they wander a world littered with the evidence of wars past, finding food, weapons, and sometimes even hot water in a world that passed its prime long ago.

Girls’ Last Tour is an original manga by Tsukumizu, published in May by Yen Press. It retails for $15.

Is It Worth Reading?

Nik Freeman

Rating: 2

Of all the odd genre combinations I've seen in the past, I'm fairly certain “cute girls wander the post-apocalyptic wasteland” wasn't among them. Girls’ Last Tour is a bizarre manga if nothing else, combining the deliberately aimless conversations found in slice of life series with a bleak, near-lifeless world. Seeing Chito and Yuuri's round, big-eyed faces poking out of their scavenged military gear is off-putting no matter how much of the manga you read. What happened to the world is described only vaguely, and how the girls are still alive when practically nobody else is is given even less explanation. Combined with the sketchy art style of the series, it feels like everything is out of focus, as if the whole series takes place inside of a dull, grim dream.

What really sticks out to me about Girls’ Last Tour is how pointless it feels. Some summaries of the series describe it as being one of quiet optimism amidst horrible circumstances, or that it shows how hope can exist even in the greatest darkness. To me it just seems really depressing – Chito and Yuuri don't have any real goals aside from surviving from day to day, and they don't tend to get excited by much of anything. There seems to be no spark that really keeps them going, nothing that gives them a desire to stay alive. It seems as if they travel around not because they're intent on surviving so much as because they just have nothing else to do. Chito wonders aloud why anything happens and what the point of life is, Yuuri asks Chito why wars start, and they're only able to come to half an answer at best before quietly moving on to something else. It's not that the point of life is that there is no point, it's just that they can't find one. It makes Tsukumizu come off as having a rather depressing view of the world when her two main characters can seem to find neither joy nor meaning in life, even when they go to great lengths to hold onto it. Aside from the occasional weird comment or action, they seem more like machines than people, simply going on existing just because they're used to it.

Girls’ Last Tour, I suspect, is the type of series that sets out to make the reader think about the subjects it deals with. It doesn't seem to have much of its own take to provide on those issues, which are some the most thought-about philosophical questions in history. Even putting aside the lack of insight it offers, it doesn't even have a fresh way of posing the questions, aside from having them come out of the mouths of a couple of tired, soft-faced girls.

Amy McNulty

Rating: 4

There's a quiet stillness that pervades Girls’ Last Tour like the blankets of snow that fall throughout this first volume. Slow-paced and full of subtle moments, it's a slice-of-life dystopian, where most of humanity is nowhere to be found, but the ravages of war permeate the landscape. Yet the first volume focuses not on what became of this wrecked civilization or even if it's our own civilization many, many years in the future, but on the everyday existence of Chito and Yuuri, who are two friends who might be at home in any slice-of-life fare in a modern setting. Chito is practical but always kind and Yuuri is airheaded, optimistic, and eager to learn—and both go about their business in adorable oversized military outfits, likely scavenged for survival since Yuuri is clueless about war. They explore fallen cities looking for fuel for their Kettenkrad motorbike, food, and explosives to clear away the debris in their path. They spend the majority of the volume completely alone, eventually joined by Kanazawa, a self-proclaimed mapmaker who accompanies them for a small leg of their journey. Though we know virtually nothing about their pasts and how long they've been living like this, their personalities are clear enough on the page that they come across as fully-realized three-dimensional characters—with room to grow in future volumes.

Though there's the potential for monotony in the concept of two girls driving around in a military vehicle at the end of the world just trying to survive against a crumbling landscape, so far that hasn't been an issue. There are no antagonists to speak of so far—even the one other person they meet is kind and cooperative. Still, there is a touching theme by the end when Kanazawa loses his will to live in the face of losing his life's purpose. The girls show him that there's always more to hope for before they quietly part ways.

Tsukumizu's detailed art is stunning, particularly the devastated metropolises that make up most of the settings. At the same time, the art has a sketch feeling to it—likely intentionally—that lends some of that laidback, slice-of-life feel that's at odds with the scenario of the story. With their wide eyes and round faces, the character designs might be too cute (even middle-age-ish, disheveled Kanazawa has a soft edge to him), but that's probably intentional as well. Girls’ Last Tour volume 1 may not have heart-pounding moments or high stakes, but its gentle optimism in an isolated existence is meaningful and will strike a chord with virtually any reader.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating: 3.5 

There's something appealingly grim about Tsukumizu's post-apocalyptic tale Girls’ Last Tour. I think in large part that's due to the fact that the story doesn't linger on the reality that Chi and Yuu face as they journey around on their kettenkrad, a WWII-era vehicle whose schematics somehow survived the fall of man. (The author tells us in the afterward that the bike/tank itself isn't an antique, just the design.) We know that there are very few people left, at least on the lower strata of the vertical city, but the girls don't dwell on it; we know that a major war or wars led to the decimation of civilization, but the girls don't really care about it – they don't even consider themselves “survivors.” As far as the story is concerned, this is the world Chi and Yuu were born into, and this is what their normal looks like.

That goes a long way to setting this volume apart from other stories with similar themes. There is brief mention of war and a small demonstration when Yuu (who is definitely a few fries short of a happy meal) threatens Chi with a gun to get the extra piece of what looks like ancient CalorieMate, but the story doesn't make that feel like a major revelation; in fact, it isn't even clear if Yuu and Chi really process the lesson they've just learned. The fact of the matter is that this is where and how they live, and worrying about how things got to this point is less important than finding more supplies. I don't want to say that it feels more realistic than other similar stories, but it does feel more grounded.

That sensibility stumbles a little with the art style, which is somewhere between “unformed” and “deliberately rough.” Tsukumizu doesn't give the girls defined features – all that really sets them apart is the fact that Chi appears to be a little younger (or at least less developed) than Yuu, and has long dark hair. The backgrounds show much more detail, with some features standing out as more realistic than others, such as guns or the remains of tanks scattered in the snow. This has the effect of making the entire book feel a little surreal. The closest comparison I can come up with is Saturn Apartments, at least in terms of look and feel, although there may be more similarities as the series goes on.

Girls’ Last Tour’s first volume is the kind of book you can read in half an hour but then spend all night thinking about. It isn't amazing on the surface, or even upon reflection, but it is weirdly fascinating as we follow the girls through their blasted, snow-covered world. I'm not sure how long it can keep its story going before it begins to feel repetitive, but this volume is interesting and worth your time.