Where to Go After the World Ends: A Short Reflection on Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

I…don’t really know what to say.

“The world is only as far gone as we perceive it to be,” is something I imagine the character of Alpha would say in response to the somber attitude of her peers, friends, family. For those not like her, time is cruel, passing, universal. For her, it is a continuum on which she will likely continue long past when those she is closest with will go. Not everyone, Kokone and the other robots will be around. But, many.

Reviews, in a sense, require closure. Some final statement about the nature of…art, space, food, equipment, lots of other things that are in some way useful or memorable to us. They close a chapter, with another that may or may not lie on a future page. But they are definite. Some of the series I talk about come in with a sense of being much larger than one review, and for those series there is a conscious choice on my end to not leave a final score or note.

A manga like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is one that sticks with you, for a while—maybe not everyone, but a lot of people. For a series with seemingly no plot beyond the barren wasteland surrounding a lone coffee shop 100 years past when it would have had any regular customers, it leaves a lot to process. Whether its the aforementioned juxtaposed views of time or the endless shots of landscapes that are themselves characters in an otherwise solemn story, it just…hits hard.

To watch the final episode, listen to the final song, read the final chapter of a personally beloved project is often a process of mourning and teleportation. To jump from a whole different universe back to the real world in midst of final goodbyes is a stressful endeavor. If it sounds like I’m being dramatic, well then you must be new here. What is love if not theater, a performance we do for ourselves, an act to keep up even as it kills us to do so?

It wasn’t really the plan to say anything of consequence here. There are internal plans somewhere in my head that involve a more serious analysis of this manga. Many have already done that, at which point I would direct you to look for yourself and give them a read. For now, the end of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is one that will be sitting with me for quite some time. Good thing the coffee is almost ready…

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Originally published at http://animatedobservations.com on September 1, 2024.