Reviews

Oct 10, 2020
(TLDR Review at the bottom of this review. As always, thanks for reading in advance.)

Do you ever just look at some paper filled with words and think, "Wow! Whoever thought of this idea is a genius." Maybe you do. Maybe you don't.

In life, the value of things make no sense whatsoever, so much so that a £0.99 (~$1.29) Burger King cheeseburger suddenly has less monetary value as a £2.49 (~$3.29) exact cheeseburger simply because one of the Burger King is located right next to a train station. You may be wondering. Who needed to know that? Well, it is the same concept with what I was on about with the thought behind writing things on paper. As humans, we value things differently, part of the reason why opinions exist, like this review, and the various others that you will probably come across. It is because of that we value things differently, we take things for granted or we make precious of everything around us. Some are born into the best life has to offer that requires no effort to achieve such a position, hence may be a reason behind belittling the things around. Others are born with little to nothing, working day in, day out providing for their kin who had trouble standing on their own two legs before the said person was even born, bringing forward the few obvious reasons of why someone in such a position would have a high value of everything around them. There really is no set value for anything, and that is what brings us to Tsukumizu's Girls' Last Tour. And the endless amount of questions that come along with the little things that people take an interest in for what they have done for us.


Narrative:
In a post-war torn world, travellers Chito and Yuuri travel around in what is left from the ancient people before them, and well, they don't do much but travel. Really that is all. This isn't anything deep or intricate, but that is it, it isn't trying to be the next philosophical thing, it simply understands the world it is set in and embraces the simplicity in what seems to be the last few humans left travelling the world finding and learning about the people of the past. The pacing is done well too, it takes one chapter for Chito and Yuuri stumble upon the different treasures they come across, then into the next chapter, the next treasure is found, and so on, so forth. The only time this really changes is when the two encounters some other life form on their journey, with this, however, it would make sense for such an elongated encounter relative to the events of the story to exist, it only allows for more character development in the different people. Which leads me onto my next point. People. In this story, there are a limited number of people which correlates well with the events prior to the start. Which such a limited amount of people, all scattered far and wide in what is left of a global catastrophe, whilst reading this, you begin to see how little we are when:
1. We are not in united
2. On a global basis
It is said that 10 humans can fit 1 sq m. 7.8 billion people would mean 780 sq km required space to fit humanity into one area as close together. That would only be about 0.0001529% of the earth's surface… Even if you took everyone who ever lived, 109 billion people would only take up about 0.002137% of the earth's surface. This kind of percentage (the latter) is the same as you having someone choose a random card of 52 you have in mind, guess it correctly AND predict a 6 sided dice roll correctly, no bias involved.

We truly are small.

And as small people, even though our existence is insignificant on a universal scale, we take an interest in things, and those interests push us to keep moving on. Whether it be drawing maps that only you may use, or building aeroplanes to venture to the next city. We keep going. Girls' Last Tour does an amazing job of telling such a fact, these little things that we use so much that we don't think about how they work anymore because it just does what we want it to do. The value of things we have created has been forgotten, naturally, from when they were first made. In the multiple displacements, they are from their previous location, Chito and Yuuri show the incredible things humans birth, no matter how big or small. The little things like books, statues and cameras, are just one of the few things that show the countless number of creations that had been amassed pre-war-torn world era. Why do we create such things even though we know that one day it will simply fade away? I will tell you now that, unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question, in fact, there is no rational answer, and that is a good thing. Chito and Yuuri show that even though there is an end, the journey is worth the trek anyway, even when you feel like you are lost, with nowhere to go. Girls' Last Tour can seem disturbingly optimistic in this sense, but it is that optimism that gives the story its glory. It isn't just Chito and Yuuri, Kanazawa and Ishii are the same, with a dead civilisation, what is the point of flying around or making maps? It just goes to show that no matter which point in time humanity is at as a whole, people still keep moving. People still keep achieving. People still keep going higher.

The characters of the story are interesting. We have the knowledgeable but feeble Chito tagged with the glutton-minded that is Yuuri. The two do well together, their dialogue between one another is believable and makes for an interesting aura the two emit whenever they are talking to each other, something like two long time school friends on a voyage. Chito's character is also quite interesting in that she relates to the original question proposed earlier, she values whatever the people of the past have created, and it is done in a way that isn't too dramatic. It can be quite easy to make it dramatic, which wouldn't be a problem given the world at hand, but it offers space for the sense of learning to come across if it wasn't as dramatic, which it had done. Chito is learning along her journey and takes a great interest in doing so, you can make stuff seem greater than others would perceive it, and that runs well with her character and her surroundings. Yuuri is a funny one. As supposed to Chito's quench for knowledge. Yuuri is simply there for Chito. That's more or less her character. However, it works, because she is the reminder for her. Yuuri may not be as smart and have an inconvenient love for food, but she is there to remind Chito of the simple things she missed out on, like the need for protection, or how she isn't lonely. The character does feel believable to their atmosphere which really made for a great narrative in addition to the story altogether.


Art:
The art is amazing. It looks like the leftover of someone sketching something then giving up halfway through, and whilst that may sound like a negative description, it is fused in with a cute design for the characters, and great placements for landscapes. The idea of a war-torn world works well with the art design thinking about it since the world is dead anyway, a bit of what could be described as 'madness' in the drawing flows well with the world at hand. Not much else to go on about with the art side of things. Is it original? Honestly, I am not sure, I wouldn't be surprised if such a design existed beforehand, but it seems as if Tsukumizu has taken this style and made it their own. Great art nonetheless.


Enjoyment:
Very enjoyable here. The different encounters with different items not only lead to learning about the past, but the story also allows for the characters to physically do something with those items. "What weird and wonderful memories will come up with this?" you ask yourself.


Overall - 8.75 (9)



TLDR Review:
Story - 9: One grand, but simple, journey about moving towards what they want through the motivation of their aspirations.
Characters - 9: Interesting characters helping one another, learning of the past and also remembering the little gifts of life.
Art - 9: Sketched kinda art with cute design and great placement for landscape
Enjoyment - 8: Weird and wonderful memories to make out of what encounters come
Overall - 8.75 (9)


Hands down, I recommend Girls' Last Tour to anyone. I can't really say much to it because you can interpret this in different ways, another way would be to make everything close to you precious because it may be lost one day. But I think that it is a simple fast-to-read story to get into if you want good quick manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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