Shuumatsu Touring

Im going to repeat what i said on the forum of one of the episodes: "the feeling of uneasiness i have watching this is something else, everything is so colorful, characters are cute and happy. but this is only on the surface, the environmental storytelling is fantastic, narrating a very sad and oppressing story with clues put in intelligent ways. for less attentive people this anime will look like a nice and wholesome trip, but in reality it is not." shuumatsu touring its much more, and its the job of the viewer to catch every hidden clue and paste together the answer to the big ... question everyone has from the first episode. the second strong point is the background art, one of the best i have ever seen, in 20 years of watching anime, very few shows were able to have such beautiful backgrounds, like yuru camp, record of lodoss war, index, railgun and yama no susume. this anime managed to solidify its position in my background hall of fame. studio nexus did a fantastic job with eminence in shadow and its backgrounds, but with this they took the experience they got with it and improved it in every sense. the ost is beautiful but i wish it was a bit more present during the episodes so far, the first ep was perfect on this regard. shuumatsu touring takes the spot for my anime of the season, but its not taking my anime of the year award, that goes to mono.

What kind of horror actually makes you tick your heart? Is it a monster suddenly jumping out at you? Is it characters getting disemboweled and mauled? Or is it having no mouth and being forced to scream?

For me the scariest kind is the one you do not expect at all. Horror that is subtle but noticeable, the kind that lingers and leaves you uneasy instead of just jump-scaring you. It keeps you guessing about what might happen next. This anime captures that feeling perfectly.

Sometimes an anime will hide brutality, bleakness and chaos of their world as a subtle implication behind moe characters. Recent shows that ... remind me of that trope are Prima Dolls, Momentary Lily and Turkey!! In all of those there is always a scene that catches you off guard. You can feel something is going to go wrong. Sometimes bad things actually happen, sometimes they do not, and sometimes the show showers you with cute scenes, funny moments and running gags to pull you out of that subtle dread so you can relax and smile. Then in a later episode it will remind you again that this is not heaven the characters are living in. Those shows follow a familiar formula, but this anime does not quite play by the same rules.

This one is not subtle about the fact that this world is not heaven. It is a post apocalyptic setting, so yes you can have things like fishing in the apocalypse or gathering weeds in the apocalypse. But it is still an apocalypse at the end of the day. It is meant to be saddening, lonely and unsettling. No matter how many smiles the characters show, no matter how many jokes are thrown around, no matter how many bright rays of sunshine appear, no matter how many goated anime opening song they plays in the background, it never truly feels calming or happy. It stays uneasy most of the time, and you cannot really blame it for that. The last time an anime put a "world end" in its title it tore my soul apart and I could not forget it for weeks. I am honestly afraid this show will do the same.

So no, you cannot enjoy this two cute girls traveling anime like your average CGDCT show no matter how hard you try to ignore the not-cute parts.

The animation is decent, not top tier and not low budget either, but it does its job well. It uses CGI sometimes, but the transitions between 2D and 3D are not jarring. I can safely shrug it off as "must have been the wind."

The OST is great. I do not know if it was intentional but the OP song really fits the tone of the show. It is neither happy nor sad, it sits perfectly in the middle.

Overall this is a great anime about exploring a post apocalyptic world. There are not many like it to compare it to, but it stands on its own. Enjoy it however you like. Personally, I am scared.