During my isolation for seven days (in a single room away from my wife and children) I was reminded of an anime called Girls’ Last Tour (based on the manga Shōjo Shūmatsu Ryokō by Tsukumizu). The MCs (main characters) are drawn in hyper-cute “chibi” style juxtaposed on a very dark realistic cityscape of empty urban decay. The MCs, Chito & Yuuri, two young girls, spend their days driving around in a military half-track (a German Kettenkrad to be precise) looking for food & fuel. I rewatched the series while in quarantine through high speed internet access that also gave me access to the outside world.

I realized that although the MCs had physical access to the outside world they too were isolated. They had each other but while traveling the ghost world of civilization, they struggled to get along. In order to survive, they MUST get along but that is made more difficult in the context of bearing witness to the end of so many of the good and simple things. Looking at the world through my smart phone and seeing so many things changing so rapidly I shared a new sense of awe and wonder for the good and simple things with an uncertain future.

Girls’ Last Tour is not a typical post-apocalyptic story - there is no remnant of humanity struggling for reconstruction, it’s post-humanity and these might be the last two humans on Earth. So where’s the story? Who’s the hero that defeats the villain and saves the day? There is character development and world building but it’s more of a haiku than a hero’s journey. In my opinion, composer Kenichiro Suehiro’s ethereal soundtrack and director Takaharu Ozaki’s spacious cinematography communicate more than the dialogue. This isn’t Joseph Campbell, this is Mono no Aware (pronounced moe-no no ah-wa-ray). Mono no aware literally translates to “the pathos of things,” it’s about ephemera, things that only have a brief existence or are experienced for only a short time. The classic symbol of mono no aware is the Sakura, the cherry blossoms. The beauty of the cherry blossoms are here for about 14 days and then they are gone. Living in a Covid-19 world we learn a lot from a story written in the wake of the 2001 Fukushima disaster, about what is here today and gone tomorrow. It’s easy to value what you know is impermanent but the question we are confronted with in Girls’ Last Tour is:

What is it that is special in our lives that we don’t realize is only here for a short time?

In the first episode Chito (Chi), an academic with black hair, finds a cache of military supplies and focuses on the gear with practical applications. Yuuri (Yuu), an impulsive blonde, sees no value in things she cannot eat or use to keep her warm… except the guns that give her an exciting sense of power. Most of what happens is a comedy of ignorance and incompetence - something as simple as trying to get a crate into their vehicle results in what you’d expect to see from five year olds. As the lighthearted episode comes to a close the girls sit down to eat what looks like a five bar KitKat. They share the first two bars and just as Chi is about to break the last bar in half you hear the cock of the rifle. Chi looks up and see Yuu pointing to gun at her and ordering her to hand over the last bar of food.

It’s sad that in this day of social distancing and self-quarantine people stuck in the same house might feel alone. People need space, offenses are inevitable and social/physical boundaries are going to be breached. After the food incident, after Chi expresses her discontent and Yuu reveals her inability to understand, Chi falls back into the snow and gazes up into the clouds as new snow starts to fall. A song begins to play petitioning the listener to be still and just see and feel the world around you. Even though Chi is in a graveyard planet and her one companion pointed a gun at her, she pauses to be present in the peace of the falling snow. I felt like the writer was saying, “let this be enough; let this one moment of beauty be enough reason to keep going today.”

Screen+Shot+2020-04-06+at+1.12.53+AM.jpg

Watching this scene actually changed my life. Bad stuff happens, we hurt and get hurt by people we love but each day I tried to think of at least one moment of ephemera to observe and appreciate, to be fully present and fully experience. I have pulled over on the side of the road, taken off my shoes and socks to watch a sunset while feeling the grass between my toes. I have had deep and personal conversations with telemarketers about their employment options and what they want to do in life. I have chosen to trust my friends with my truer self and be more honest with them. I started a business. Mono no aware.

As it turns out, mono no aware also changes Yuu.

In each episode of Girls’ Last Tour, Chi and Yuu experience things for the first and last time. They take shelter from a sudden rain, the drops leaking through the roof onto various cans creating spontaneous music; they have a moment of awe (possibly having never heard music before) and then the sky clears and the music is gone. Yuu seems stunned by how abruptly the magic is taken from them and asks, “Hey, Chi, was the world always like this?” Mono no aware, ephemera, impermanence. How long have you got? How long has humanity got? How long are the special people in your life going to be here?

After seeing and eating a fish for the first time, Yuu becomes obsessed with finding another fish to eat. The pair find the last aquarium containing the last fish being taken care of by the last working service robot. Yuu is prohibited by the artificial caretaker and won over by its offers of alternative hospitality. Yuu comments how the machine seems like it’s alive. The machine responds that it’s been programmed for empathy. Yuu asks, “What’s empathy?” The machine responds, “It means that when you are happy, I am happy.”

Chi and Yuu make camp for the night but their rest is interrupted by a gargantuan defective construction droid trying to dismantle the aquarium. Yuu decided that she is going to risk her life to save the fish.

While I was in singular isolation related to the Covid-19 pandemic, my family experienced a deep loss. A beloved family member was not surrounded by loved ones during her final moments, a family gathering was prohibited, I wasn’t able to open the door and hug my wife. I don’t have the words to express my disdain for the circumstances that the family had to endure. I’m ashamed to admit that my impulse was to not think or feel anything and just consume trivial entertainment. Acting on autopilot, I resumed watching Girls’ Last Tour and was confronted with the following scene:

For most of the world, the pandemic has not included processing a death in the family but all change involves loss and all loss must be grieved. This is what gives us the emotional strength to reconstruct after destruction. The Covid-19 pandemic will eventually pass but a lot will happen in the meantime and many things won’t be the same after. How long have you got? How long has humanity got? How long are the special people in your life going to be here? You don’t know. The fights that become more and more inevitable while stuck in a small space together will happen. The temptation is to protect ourselves, fight back or withdraw. We don’t have to be limited to those options. We can pause and find relief in the impermanence of a momentary fight and pause to realize the impermanence of life is why our relationships are worth more than our offenses.

I hope everyone is thinking about the well-being of their community, staying healthy, has support and being supportive. My thoughts in this article are for those of us struggling to get along. In cases of domestic violence, please don’t pause contemplatively, find help and get the hell out of there. And if this article has made you curious enough to watch Girls’ Last Tour (streaming on Amazon Prime Video) don’t forget it IS an anime and it does get weird:

Have you seen Girls’ Last Tour? Did you have different take aways? Is there an anime that impacted you in a significant way?

If you’d like to get some coaching to better manage life during the Covid crisis or ways to experience mono no aware, please contact me, the first session is free.