Title: Train to the End of the World (English); 終末トレインどこへいく？(Japanese)
Type: Anime
Year: 2024
Country: Japan
Genre: Surreal
Status: Completed
Platform: Crunchyroll (watch here)
Appropriate for 30+?: No, but I (mostly) enjoyed it anyway
My rating: 3.5/5 stars
(Rating scale: 5/5 = masterpiece, 4/5 = quite good, 3/5 = mostly good, 2/5 = bleh, 1/5 = I regret ever being exposed to this series, 0/5 = affront to humanity)
Train to the End of the World (TEW) is perhaps one of the worst "cute girls doing cute things" series I've ever watched, and yet it's probably the series I've enjoyed the most this year so far.
Much like Girls' Last Tour, this is an entry into the "cute girls doing cute things, but in a dystopian setting" sub-sub genre that in theory hinges upon the bizarre juxtaposition of two seemingly incongruent elements. However unlike Girls' Last Tour, (or the currently-airing Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction), TEW probably would have benefited greatly from having literally any other cast of main characters. I thought the girls were really cliche, annoying, and forgettable, with painfully uninspired dialogue, and were regrettably-yet-unsurprisingly subject to a level of sexualization that would probably make most older audiences uncomfortable (nothing extraordinary, just the anime standard treatment of high school girls). Honestly I zoned out during most of the scenes involving the girls chatting amongst themselves, and I doubt I missed much plot at a result.
Despite all this, the premise/setting/world building of TEW makes up for its flaws. Once the girls STFU, the show gets to show off its weird, fun, creepy side. This is a series that makes you go ah, this is what the animated medium is for: surreal nonsense that would require a buttload of fake-ass CGI to even attempt to portray in live action. I really like the tone of the series, which is generally upbeat but with an uneasy aftertaste that puts you on edge while never actually venturing into tragedy (as can happen with surreal/dystopian series, looking at you Kaiba). There's a good balance of exploration and action, with some decent comedy tossed in on occasion.
Maybe I'm biased because my first trip to Japan, I spent a few weeks living at a guest house in Oizumi-Gakuen along the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line featured in this anime, and I'm a complete sucker for series that utilize real places (and TEW has a whole train line of them). Regardless I absolutely loved the premise of riding a train through a vast, unknown land of magic and horror, stopping at each station to learn what became of various previously-sleepy commuter towns in bizarro-Tokyo, intensity growing the closer you get to the city-within-a-city of Ikebukuro. TEW is a bit like Kino's Journey, but with socio-political commentary replaced with the train scene in Spirited Away albeit with more menacing vibes.
In summary, TEW is weird and atmospheric and I am here for it, despite the obnoxious (and occasionally uncomfortably-portrayed) main cast of cliche anime high school girls. Perhaps the creators didn't quite nail what they set out to do, but I couldn't help but really appreciate the attempt.
As with all my reviews, the above is nothing more than my personal opinion. Have you read this series? What did you think? Post in the comments!
Do you have a list? Specifically a short list with 4 and above? I only have so much free time and sifting thru garbage for the odd gems isn't worth it anymore.
Do you mean a list of series (anime series?) that I would consider to be four out of five stars or better? That's generally the purpose of my reviews: any time I finish a series I write a review from the perspective of an older viewer/reader, for the sake of other older viewers/readers.
I do have a running list of series I've enjoyed, but the problem is it's a long list spanning decades, and my opinions have almost certainly changed from when I was a teenager, plus some series that were amazing when they came out are only just okay nowadays. In other words, I don't think my running list is that accurate anymore, especially for any pre-2014 titles. I do try to go back and rewatch and re-rate series, but the nostalgia factor makes that difficult to do objectively. Given that MyAnimeList and other rating sites exist, my explicit goal here is to rate series specifically as an older, somewhat jaded fan that's losing interest in animation/comics but still enjoys the medium and wants to help other fans "sift through the garbage" as you put it. So I don't think my old opinions of shows I haven't seen in years are very valuable for that purpose.
If there's community interest, at some point I might make a running list of everything I've reviewed and the score for each, but at the moment the community is pretty small and there aren't that many of my reviews to sift through. Plus I'm a tough rater, so while I'd generally recommend anything 4+ stars to most anybody, there's a lot of good 3+ series that I think are still enjoyable for audiences willing to overlook some flaws (like I describe in this review of TEW).