Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?

The introduction of 7G Network technology promised miraculous technological advancements; however, the aftermath of its launch plunged Japan into chaos. From drastic changes to the terrain to bizarre mutations among people, the way of life is overwritten with new rules. The town of Agano is one of the few remaining settlements, and its citizens aged 21 and above have transformed into animals.

Shizuru Chikura, a high school student from Agano, is desperately searching for her friend, Youka Nakatomi. Coming across a picture in a newspaper placing Youka in Ikebukuro, Shizuru starts packing for a trip. But with public transportation effectively shut down, her options are limited. Fortunately, Tairo Zenjirou, a senile old conductor and the only human adult in town, comes to the rescue when he teaches her how to operate an abandoned train.

With her destination set, Shizuru ventures off on a journey to find her missing friend. On the day of departure, however, her other classmates—Nadeshiko Hoshi, Reimi Kuga, and Akira Shinonome—decide to tag along at the last minute as they embark on this one-track adventure that might expose them to dangers far surpassing anything they have encountered in Agano.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shinonome, Akira Main

Kino, Hina Japanese

Chikura, Shizuru Main

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Kuga, Reimi Main

Kuon, Erisa Japanese

Hoshi, Nadeshiko Main

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Zenjirou Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Kuroki, Mito Supporting

Kohara, Konomi Japanese

Suu-chan Supporting

Izawa, Shiori Japanese

Matsutake, Keiko Supporting

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Nakatomi, Youka Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Swan Hermit Supporting

Tobita, Nobuo Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Itou, Shousei Producer

Kawamoto, Sachi Producer

Nishimae, Shuka Producer

Reviews

Jun 24, 2024

ZNoteTaku

Recommended

Director Mizushima Tsutomu isn’t concerned with making the next “hit” – if anything, he’s concerned with making the next “concoction.” A look at his filmography will show that he has directed several projects which involve the heavy collision of various ideas that, on paper, seem like they should get along like cats and dogs. How, for instance, is the idea of cute girls doing cute things in a tank battle setting supposed to work? Why would anybody expect a lowbrow teenage sex comedy that also functions as a prison escape flick to mesh together, and somehow have that work? Crazy, right? But crazy is the ... point, as lo and behold, *Girls und Panzer* exists, as does *Prison School*.

And those are just two examples! Mizushima’s understanding and approach to genre is to take what it is about each that people enjoy, and bend or twist them into new, almost-unrecognizable forms. Mizushima doesn’t care about having something to “prove” as it were, mostly because he gets his jollies out of being weird rather than being artful in the way that other directors are. And in an anime landscape where fresh ideas seemingly are in shorter supply, it’s at the very least worth considering just what he’s cooking up at any given moment.

It therefore makes perfect sense why *Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? / Where Does the Doomsday Train Go? / Train at the End of the World* functions as it does in its weirdness. It is quintessential Mizushima, in that it feels like a sensible next step in his handling of preposterous entertainment ideas. Our foursome of heroines all embark on a post-catastrophe science-fiction screwball road comedy journey through a topsy-turvy funhouse world of strange landscapes, bizarre people, and way too many bitter lemons to eat. Each stop along the path to Ikebukuro comes complete with its own warped or finagled place, where the people there are just as mystifying. One stop has a serious shroom problem (to put it one way), while another location has a miniaturized military. But where could the adorable Yoka be, the person who accidentally got this whole 7G Network mess started when she pressed the button and screwed everything up? Can the world return to normal?

From the first minute, *Shuumatsu Train* doesn’t pretend to be concerned with giving fully fleshed-out character biographies to Shizuru, Nadeshiko, Reimi, and Akira and assumes you’ve seen enough cute girls doing cute things anime to know this rigamarole already with who is who. The immediate need-to-know particulars of who they actually are comes through in the quick conversations and colliding personalities about incidentals and the grand design, and expects you to “get it” already so it can “get on” with the real point – the journey. Any development or more-dynamic character building will come not from the native environment that they know, but instead by venturing into the yonder.

And if cute girls doing cute things has often been the gravity surrounding fixations on hobbies / “the main thing” that could be considered either abnormally obsessive or unusual (we all can list at least one show in which the cast revolves around a niche activity that more or less defines them), then *Shuumatsu Train* takes that gravity and maximalizes it to the universe itself. Each location does indeed have its own central “thing” that distinguishes it from every other stop, almost like the different levels of a video game in which each location has its own puzzle to crack before opening the door. It provides a sheer unpredictability to each setting even when the outcome inevitably ends with the train pulling out of the station and moving on. Sometimes, they’re simply passing through and commenting on how weird something is because…well, sometimes something is just weird and there’s not much more to say. Other times, the ridiculous level of micro and macro analysis needed to get through is itself like an overstuffed shogi board ready to collapse under the weight of its excess pieces.

Yet, miraculously, it never falls apart because it never stops being fun. The inherent appeal of the screwball road comedy is in the varying locations and peoples, and how the characters are forced to interact with both in order to make heads or tails of what’s happening. Using post-catastrophe science-fiction as the backdrop allows any crazy idea to be applied without needing to spend all this time and energy explaining why something is the way that it is. Any such explanation can be chalked up to “LOL 7G” (its activation in the first episode makes a further lack of explanation all the more acceptable) and instead put resources into making each stop more tangibly present. Beyond the “trait” that each place possesses, each also presents obstacles that are distinct enough to require different solutions rather than a single tried-and-true method. As such, the variety in the settings complements the variety in the situations.

But that maximalization I spoke of does not occur often with the heavier drama, though drama is certainly present. Tone-wise, the show rarely makes actually sincere attempts to divert away from the comic because the attempts that appear on the surface to do so are, in and of themselves, far too deliberately silly or tongue-in-cheek to take too seriously. Yokote Michiko’s series composition lets you know who is doing what and how they are functioning within the show’s overall universe either as a force for, against, or within the main foursome, but never to the point where it forgets or misplaces its popcorn origins. This is only broken with Yoka and Shizuru, the ones who got the metaphorical train running in the first place. As a result, the show’s inner structure is quite bare-minimum, but the color explodes every time, coming with some genuinely-impressive layouts and animation displays that go far harder than a show like this would reasonably be expected to have.

Coupled with the understanding that Mizushima’s Twitter account over the past several weeks has been talking about train stuff from facts to fascinations, including other incidental things about the production or locations used for making it, he clearly got bitten by some kind of bug and decided to just run full-tilt with it. He’s created something with the full awareness of what it is and avoids the pitfalls of derailment, even if it couldn’t escape production problems with its final episode. The whole is an unusually free-spirited anime, chugging along its merry way and always prepared with a fun little something to whet the appetite.

There is no room for normal on this route; *Shuumatsu Train* takes delight in its oddness, and that’s the way it should be.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 24, 2024

Atsunome

Mixed Feelings

All things considered, this show handled its extremely tight time constraints pretty well. That being said, I still must remain fair in judging this against other anime of the same runtime.

In short, this should have been a two-cour (24 episode) anime. If anything, 7/10 is generous by my standards of rating solely based on narrative explanations and things making sense, although I will admit that things could have been handled a lot worse (as I have seen in the past), so I’ll give this a pass on that front.

Shuumatsu Train is an anime original, a notoriously mixed bag ranging anywhere from masterpieces such as Madoka ... Magica to several atrocities which I will not be naming here for fear of getting off topic. It is for this reason that I reserved judgment until the VERY final episode, only deciding on my rating once all was said and done.

Without going into spoiler territory, all I can really say is that this would have been MUCH better if it had been given the time it needed to actually develop its story and characters without going at the same breakneck speeds of the eponymous train. Theorising based on hypothetical scenarios is a waste of time, however, so I will conclude this with my thoughts on Shuumatsu Train as it was.

For what it was, this anime was fun and refreshing, albeit heavily rushed towards the end. If you don’t care too much about certain elements being skipped over or moments of almost laughably thick plot armour (these are some BUFF train tracks), I’d give it a watch. However, if you’re in search of something with carefully thought-out lore and detailed character development for the entire cast, perhaps look elsewhere.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 26, 2024

Justykanna

Not Recommended

Train to the End of the World was a slog to get through because it never really feels like it's inching towards it's ultimate goal, outside of x-point is getting closer to y-point, physically. This lack of real progression can make audiences feel like they're taking more of a passive watch than anything.

Story: Train to the End of the World is a strange, strange tale with, possibly, a stranger basis. Pontarou considers himself a genius and believes he has figured out a way for humans to telepathically communicate with each other with, literally, the push of a button. Middle-schooler Youka Nakatomi is ... randomly selected to push this button to activate this new invention, which is labeled as "7G". She pushes it, and the entire world turns into, what I can only describe as wacky and weird over the course of a few minutes. Youka goes missing shortly after this happens, and Shizuru, along with classmates Nadeshiko, Reimi and Akira, along with Youka's dog Pochi, learn to drive a train so that they can make it to where Youka is suspected to have run off to - Ikebukuro.

One of the comparisons I made to the series when I first started watching it was that it reminded me of some of the Studio Ghibli films - weird, wacky and entirely too strange. While I understand that the point of this is to emphasize what the 7G did to the entirely of Japan, it got a little too strange for my liking. Yes, it keeps audiences guessing, but I never felt like it told a great story to go along with it. Look, the ultimate goal for our main cast is to use this train to get to the end of the line where Youko is. But you could basically watch the first two and last two episodes, and really not feel like you're missing out on too much - outside of the brief arc where you learn to Mito Kuroki is. It makes the series feel like it's got a start, end, and really no filling that doesn't feel like a "filler". There are actually some scenes where our characters need to fight against enemies in physical confrontations, and maybe I missed it, but they really make them seem strong for ordinary middle-schoolers. I don't get it.

All this being said, the series still does an okay job at addressing the distress that our main cast have with Youka. While her main reason for her disappearance is never very clear to us, the girls believe they know why she is missing and have a real emotional reason to find her. In a series where good storylines feel absent a lot of the time, this was not the case when referring to the reason for our main cast's search. This is the main reason that I was pleasantly surprised by the final two episodes. Were they perfect? No, there were still some bland points or others that moved too quickly, but it was a step up from the storytelling that we got in previous episodes. (5/10)

Characters: Our cast each have their own strengths, but there's not enough depth to them. Shizuru mostly acts as our lead, but her time to shine doesn't really come in until the end. She's just kind of feels "there" sometimes. Akira has a solid moment a few episodes in, but otherwise, is probably the biggest worry-wart of the group. She's able to read past the picture in front of her, likely in part because she loves to read novels, but after her little arc, she's doesn't do much. Reimi is the supposed bully of the group, the classic example of more brawn over brain, but she wasn't that exciting otherwise. Nadeshiko was similarly just kind of "there", which isn't great considering I'm say similar things about all four of our main cast.

Youka doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, and I'm a little surprised by how little she was involved in the plot until the end. My guess for this is related to her mental state after we meet her, but leaving her and Pontarou until the end doesn't feel right to me. Pontarou, similarly, doesn't come up very often, but his whole idea of a messed up 7G didn't have nearly enough depth to it. Mito meets up with our group about halfway through and reappears near the end. She's a fine character that certainly has a purpose, but her inclusion felt like it didn't have much of a purpose for dedicating so much time to her. Zenjirou has a small role, but it mostly feels like his job was to keep us informed more than anything. Or attempt to anyways. (5/10)

Art: This series looked pretty mediocre in basically every aspect. It never really shone and was unspectacular for the most part. Which is weird considering what 7G did to everything. (6/10)

Sound: This series actually had some decent tunes, which surprised me. It never went with anything significant going on in front of us, but hey, small positives, we take those. I was actually a really big fan of the ED, Eureka, by Rokudenashi. VA work seemed fine for the most part. (7/10)

Overall: I'm a little surprised by how well Train to the End of the World was received on here, but it might just be that I'm not a huge fan of the journey our characters go on. It doesn't feel like it ever has progression to it, but some people are just fine watching the weird and wacky happen whilst turning their brain off. This could appeal to those audiences. I'm just not one of them. (5/10)

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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