Category: Manga

Attack on Titan Chapter 139

Attack on Titan Chapter 139

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Finally Free (from Monthly Attack on Titan Chapters)

As you may know, the Attack on Titan manga ended with chapter 139 yesterday (April 7, 2021). And, while I hadn’t been doing reviews of each chapter, I had been reading them as they released each month. So, now that it’s over, I’d like to share some of my thoughts.

But, before I get into the actual review, there are some disclaimers that I need to make. First, none of the images in this review are going to be from the manga because I’m not trying to catch a copyright claim by reposting panels right after the release.

Second, and probably more importantly, I’m going to be spoiling the entire Attack on Titan manga, especially the final chapter in this review. If you don’t want to be spoiled, I highly suggest also avoiding the comment section of this post.

A Great Ride that Ended in Disaster

I’m about to tear this final chapter of Attack on Titan apart. So before I do that, I’d like to remind everyone that I really like this series. It was a great ride, it’s one of my favorite anime, and — aside from in this chapter — Eren is one of my favorite characters.

The biggest issue I have with the series is chapter 139. If we just ignore this chapter, I think the manga is a 9/10. But with this final chapter, I’d have to say that it’s maybe an 8/10. That’s still a really good score.

And, I get it, lowering the score of a series that’s 139 chapters long because of a single chapter may be frowned upon. However, this was the final chapter. This chapter was supposed to wrap up all the various plot points. It failed spectacularly.

The following list of my issues with chapter 139 is by no means exhaustive. I’ve merely selected some of what I believe to be the worst offenses.

Eren Invalidated Everything

One of the biggest issues with this final chapter is that Eren effectively invalidated everything that had happened previously in the series. The plot, his development as a character, everything. And for what? So some fans could get the “happy” ending they wanted?

Some birds reflected in Eren's eye from the first episode of the Attack on Titan anime
Some birds reflected in Eren’s eye

Hear me out. If you watched the Final Season of the anime, you may recall the scene towards the beginning when Eren and Reiner come face to face in a Marleyan basement. During that meeting, Eren asks Reiner why his mother was eaten. Reiner’s response was that he was to blame for the death of Eren’s mother.

However, in this chapter, Eren just casually reveals that he was the one who caused Dina Fritz’s titan to eat his own mother. Not only was there absolutely no context leading up to this reveal, but it invalidates Eren’s entire character that was built around wanting to avenge his mother.

Also, I’ve seen a lot of people saying how they like that Eren broke down and admitted he loved Mikasa. I can’t say I agree with them. Their argument is that those are his true feelings that he’s been hiding this entire time. But to me, that’s just them trying to rationalize this abrupt change in his personality.

Obviously he was purposefully pushing everyone away and making himself the villain. That’s been obvious for a very long time. But this scene just went against all of his character development.

Where did the Titan Worm Go?

I guess I also need to mention the elephant in the room, or in this case, the worm not in the chapter. Maybe you forgot, but there was kind of a big deal made about the “Founding Titan worm thing” that comes out of Eren’s body and effectively makes him immortal.

That was supposed to be one of the big points of this episode. The allies were going to have to stop that worm thing from restoring Eren’s body after he was killed. Well, Isayama kind of just dropped that part of the series and doesn’t bring it up again.

Now, to be fair, why the worm doesn’t show up in this chapter was actually explained. The issue is that the explanation is a terrible one that causes a whole host of other problems, which I’ll go into individually in the next few sections.

But basically, because that worm was the “essence” of the Founding Titan, it was erased along with all the other titans by Mikasa kissing Eren. That’s right. The power of love killed the worm.

Mikasa (Somehow) Saved Humanity

While not my biggest issue with this chapter, I think Mikasa turning out to be the savior of humanity is the most infuriating one. Her character was effectively sidelined for the previous 30 chapters, and suddenly she’s the hero of the story.

To be fair, Mikasa being the hero in the end doesn’t bother me all that much. My issue is that being the hero of the story simply involves loving Eren. So, let’s break down exactly what this means.

First of all, Mikasa loving or kissing Eren isn’t really the point. The point is that Mikasa kills the person she loves who also happens to be the one controlling the Founding Titan. If Mikasa killed Eren but didn’t love him, the curse of the Titans wouldn’t have been broken.

Mikasa wearing her (Eren's) scarf from the sixth episode of the Attack on Titan anime
Mikasa wearing her (Eren’s) scarf

And, the fact that Mikasa loves someone like Eren is why Ymir selected her as “her favorite.” I think it’s pretty funny that Ymir’s favorite Eldian is only half-Eldian, but whatever. I just hope nobody tells the pureblood Eldians.

Where this gets the most infuriating is that because the series ended due to the power of love, it means the entire series was always about the power of love. For example, Eren randomly reveals that the reason the Eldians had been cursed with Titan powers for the past few 2,000 years was that Ymir was in love with King Fritz.

You can’t honestly think that’s a good plot point. The past 2,000 years of war and suffering were all because a girl was suffering from Stockholm syndrome. And all that time, Ymir was just waiting for a girl to do what she couldn’t and kill the one they love.

Levi Lives

I know some diehard Levi fans are probably going to hate me for saying this, but Levi should have died in the end. I think that would have been perfect for his character arc.

Throughout the story, Levi has lost basically all of his comrades. Annie killed all of his squadmates and both Erwin and Hange sacrificed themselves in the pursuit of freedom for the Eldians and humanity at large. And then we have Levi, left alone.

I really liked the scene of Levi seeing all his fallen comrades in the steam and saluting them as he lay propped up and on the verge of death. That would have been the perfect way for him to die, and it would have wrapped his whole story up neatly.

Consider it this way. All of his comrades died gruesome deaths fighting against Titans. But here, as the last one remaining, Levi would have been able to die peacefully in a world that was just rid of Titans. He would have died after achieving the goal that all the Scouts before him dreamed of.

How anyone can say that it’s better that he survived is beyond me. Okay, he’s living the dream that the fallen scouts all had, I guess. But I don’t think he’s the one who needs to live that dream. The younger scouts can do that. Levi had the perfect opportunity to die in a meaningful way and missed it.

Isayama Pulled an Araki and Forgot

This one isn’t really an issue I have with the final chapter. Instead, it’s something that I think is entertaining. You may recall that back in 2018, Isayama sketched out what he planned to use as the final panel of the manga.

It features an adult with long hair facing away from us while holding a baby over their shoulder. The adult is saying to the baby “You are free” (お前は自由だ / Omae wa jiyūda).

The "final panel" Isayama drew for Attack on Titan in 2018
The “final panel” Isayama drew for Attack on Titan in 2018

A lot of people thought that this was going to either be Eren holding the baby or Historia holding the baby (which they assumed was Eren’s child). As we know, Historia and Eren were never a thing, so obviously this wouldn’t be their child and therefore that fan theory fails.

But, the funny part is that this panel doesn’t appear in the final chapter. It doesn’t even appear in the manga at all.

I’m not sure if Isayama forgot that he drew this and said it was going to be the final panel or if he decided to take the end of the series in a different direction since drawing it. Either way, though, it’s pretty funny that fans, myself included, had been using this sketch as theory fodder for the past three years and then it never appeared.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After

I almost wasn’t going to include this, but I guess I’ll mention that I think the sudden eradication of all Titans was a bit of a boring end. It was a complete Deus ex machina. The Eldian goddess Ymir just snaps her fingers and solves the problem that had plagued humanity for 2,000 years.

What makes it worse is that just in the previous chapter, many of the characters that we had grown to care about throughout the series got turned into pure titans. What was the point of that if they were just going to revert back to normal in this chapter?

They must have been pure titans for a total of 10 minutes in-universe. That’s just another example of how this chapter decided to throw everything that came before it in the trash. Reading this chapter, it almost felt like Araki told someone who had never read Attack on Titan before to write the last chapter for him.

At Least the Memes are Good

One thing I have to admit is that chapter 139 spawned a lot of good memes. Over in the DoubleSama.com Discord server, we’ve been sharing our favorite chapter 139 memes and it’s been a blast. I can honestly say that the memes have made up for how bad the chapter was.

I’m not going to share many of the memes here. However, I’ve really been enjoying the ones referencing Eren as a bird. Whether it’s manga panels in which Eren is drawn as a bird, or other bird images being used to make memes, they’ve been great.

Conclusion

What do you think of Attack on Titan Chapter 139? Was it a good end to the manga? What’s your biggest complaint after reading it? And what’s your favorite meme that it spawned? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime and manga with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Girls’ Last Tour’s Deathless End of Days

Girls’ Last Tour’s Deathless End of Days

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Introduction to the Concept of Death

Last week, I discussed how Chi and Yuu were innocently ignorant about the world that came before them. This week, I’ll be continuing on my journey of discussing Girls’ Last Tour by breaking down the surprising lack of death featured in the series.

Something you may or may not have noticed while watching the anime or reading the manga is that Girl’s Last Tour tends not to show death. What I mean by this is that throughout the travels of Chi and Yuu, we never actually see the bodies of the deceased.

Why is this odd? Because these girls are exploring a massive city at the end of the world shortly after humanity’s final war has taken place. We even see that this final war was still waging during their lifetime. So, why are there no bodies strewn about the city? Surely there should be some from both the war and the starvation that ensued afterward.

A dead fish from the anime series Girls' Last Tour
A dead fish

I think the best explanation of why there aren’t any bodies depicted in this series is because we’re seeing the world through the eyes of Chi and Yuu. It’s as if the girls are blocking out all of the death that surrounds them on a daily basis as a way to cope with their grim situation.

But, as early as the second episode, the girls do come face to face with death in the form of a fish. I think they mentioned death in the first episode, but it’s not until episode two that the reality of death is shown.

And from here on, there are many hints about the mass death in the world. It’s these hints that I want to focus on today.

The Graveyard

After the dead fish in the second episode, it’s actually not until episode eight that the girls have their next encounter with death. We can assume that both Kanazawa and Ishii died, but they didn’t die where Chi and Yuu could see them. They died sometime after parting ways from the girls.

But in the eighth episode, the girls find themselves in a graveyard. At first, they don’t understand what the graveyard is, but as they spend more time in it, Chi eventually figures it out.

It’s at this point that the girls are first confronted with the idea of leaving something behind to commemorate their lives. Throughout their journey, Chi has been keeping a journal. However, she seemed to be keeping the journal more so because she thinks that keeping records of things for the future is important, and less so because it proves that she existed.

Interestingly, even in the graveyard, we were shown no signs of physical death. This graveyard is actually a nokotsudo, or columbarium. The lockers depicted would normally house an urn or other container with the deceased’s ashes inside along with other items belonging to the deceased.

However, the girls make no mention of finding remains within the lockers. Instead, Yuu notes that most of them are empty except for the few items they found inside some of them. Was this another case of the girls ignoring the death around them, or were the lockers truly empty?

Do Machines Die?

In episode 9, the girls are confronted with death of another kind: That of the machines. Unbeknownst to the girls, they had actually come across other “deceased” machines in the past. Notably, the structure they sought shelter under in episode 5 was actually the remains of a giant machine.

However, it’s not until episode 9 that they meet a living machine and discover that although they’re not “alive,” they too still have a life. The room in which the girls first encounter the machine is littered with the remains of other machines that have broken down. And the machine they meet says that it too will end up that way one day.

It’s in this episode that the girls also take their first “life.” Although it can be argued that the machines aren’t really alive, Chi and Yuu seem to want to believe that they are. Their world is barren, so believing that there’s more life than just them may be a comforting thought.

The giant machine the girls destroyed from the anime series Girls' Last Tour
The giant machine the girls destroyed

In order to save the lives of the fish and the small machine, Chi and Yuu destroy the giant machine that’s dismantling the facility. I found this to be a very interesting scene from the perspective of how it may have affected the girls.

Yuu is the one who plants the explosives on the giant machine, and when she does so, she apologizes to it for what’s about to happen. Then, after Chi detonates the explosives, she comments on how perhaps “life” extends even to machines and the city as a whole.

Based on what they both say here, you might expect the killing of the giant machine to affect them emotionally. However, that’s not the case. It would seem that at this point, the girls have become skilled at compartmentalizing the death within their world.

Evidence of Death

Throughout all of the anime, we never see a single dead human. But what about in the manga after the anime concludes? Well, there is actually direct evidence of death in the manga. Specifically, it comes after the final chapter, in the extra chapter from the volume 6 tankouban.

Technically speaking, we do see Chi and Yuu die, but at the same time, you could argue that they aren’t yet dead when we last see them. I’m not saying that they don’t die. They definitely do and this is confirmed by a panel of them in the afterlife. I’m just saying maybe they’re not dead yet in the last panel we see them in before that.

They probably are dead by that point though, and are no longer simply asleep.

The first dead human of the series from the manga Girls' Last Tour
The first dead human of the series

In the panel shown above, after the deaths of Chi and Yuu, we get our first evidence for human death in the entire series. We see what appears to be some kind of animal skull, some other bones that are probably animal in origin, and a human skull.

It’s this panel in particular that makes me think we were seeing the rest of the series through Chi’s and Yuu’s “rose-colored” eyes. Why? Because it’s not until after they die that we see human remains scattered around the city. Once we’re no longer seeing the world through their eyes, we can see it for what it really is.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this discussion has made you think more about how the lack of death present throughout Girls’ Last Tour was used as a way to illustrate the perspective from which we as the viewers/readers were seeing the world. While it’s not the first series I’ve seen that does something like this, I do think it did a very nice job of revealing it at the end.

If you enjoyed this article, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime (and manga) with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Why Girls’ Last Tour is the Most Existentially Depressing Manga

Why Girls’ Last Tour is the Most Existentially Depressing Manga

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An Uncertain and Unknown Future

Before anything else, I need to warn you that this article is going to be full of spoilers for both the Girls’ Last Tour anime and manga. If you haven’t watched the series and read the final volumes of the manga after the anime, I highly recommend you do so before proceeding with this article.

With that warning out of the way, I was originally going to focus on both the anime and manga in this discussion of existential depression in Girls’ Last Tour. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the manga chapters after where the anime ends are where the true existential depression comes into play.

Chi wondering about the allure of exploration from the manga series Girls' Last Tour
Chi wondering about the allure of exploration

Throughout the entire series, Chito (Chi) and Yuuri (Yuu) don’t really know what to expect from their adventure. They continue to travel through and up the city, but what’s their goal? They know they want to reach the top layer, but they don’t know what they’ll find there and don’t even remember why that’s the goal they’re attempting to reach.

Eventually, it’s revealed that their “grandfather” is the one who initially told them to travel upward, not downward. But even with this bit of information, their purpose remains unclear. Why were they told this? Will they find civilization at the top?

While that’s their hope, it becomes clear that the girls don’t really expect to find civilization clinging on at the top of the city. They’re aware that the farther up they go, the more scarce the resources they need to survive become. And yet, this is the uncertain journey that Chi and Yuu have committed their lives to.

A Forgotten Existence

You could say that the uncertain and unknown future of the girls is exactly what drives them. Perhaps it’s the thrill of exploration. But, that’s clearly not the case. They explore their immediate surroundings out of curiosity, but it’s survival that drives them to keep moving forward.

However, throughout their exploratory detours, especially towards the end of the series, the girls do go out of their way to leave their mark on the world around them. And this is what I think is the most depressing part of the entire series.

Just three chapters after the conclusion of the anime is my favorite chapter. Chapter 32, titled “Art,” features the girls exploring a museum and ends with Yuu posting a drawing of her own next to cave paintings that are 36,000 years old today. The first and last of mankind’s art, side by side.

Yuu's drawing next to cave paintings from Altamira from the manga series Girls' Last Tour
Yuu’s drawing next to cave paintings from Altamira

Why is this such a depressing chapter? Because while we see the girls leaving their mark on their world, nobody is left to see it. This is the first time in the series I really thought about that fact.

Previously, we had seen Chi keeping a diary of their travels, and the girls even used the camera to take a picture of themselves. These are obviously ways to document their existence. But Yuu’s art and the poem that the girls inscribe at their final resting place were obviously meant to be “discovered” in the future.

The only problem is that there is no future.

Nobody will ever see Yuu’s art alongside those cave paintings. The impact of the first and last of humanity’s art side by side is lost to the world. And the same goes for their final act of inscribing a poem. Nobody will ever read it and know that two, young girls struggled to survive and made it to the top of the world.

Their entire existence was forgotten as soon as it ended.

Meaningless Lives

Chi and Yuu traveled through an unknown world in order to reach an uncertain goal. Their achievement will never be known by anyone. And in the end, there was nothing waiting for them at their goal other than death. With all that in mind, how could anyone argue that their lives had meaning?

I know that it’s often said that the journey is more important than the end goal. Most people would probably argue that the same goes for life itself. But is that still the case if your life is the final life on the planet?

This is where existentialism really comes into play. Yes, the girls enjoyed being alive. But at the same time, is the enjoyment of life itself really enough? I don’t think so. I think everyone needs a purpose in order to continue striving to survive.

Chi and Yuu questioning their lives from the manga series Girls' Last Tour
Chi and Yuu questioning their lives

After reaching the final layer of the city, Chi has some interesting things to say. She wonders if they made the right choice by continuing to travel to the top layer. She questions whether they might have been better off going in another direction.

For Chi and Yuu, their purpose was to reach the top of the city. Once they achieved this and were ultimately let down by it, that’s when their lives come to an end. Did they still enjoy life? Yes. But as I mentioned, that alone isn’t enough of a reason to keep on living.

Would they have survived if they attempted to descend the city? No. They were out of rations, they were tired, and they no longer had the mobility of their vehicle. They were doomed. But they didn’t even try, and that’s what tells me that once they realized their goal had been meaningless, there was no longer a reason to survive.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this discussion of existentialism in Girls’ Last Tour wasn’t too depressing, because I plan to write more about this series every Tuesday for the next few weeks. Next week’s topic is going to be on the innocent ignorance of Chi and Yuu, something a bit brighter than this week’s.

If you enjoyed this discussion, let me know by clicking the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Girls’ Last Tour

Girls’ Last Tour

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Girls' Last Tour manga series cover art
Girls’ Last Tour

The Adventure Anime I Wanted

On Tuesday I binged the Girls’ Last Tour anime from start to finish and then picked up the manga where the anime left off and finished that as well. That might not sound like an amazing feat, but I’m not sure when the last time was that I was so immersed in a series that I binged it all in one sitting.

Usually, I’ll watch an episode or two each day. And going to read the manga after finishing the anime? The only other time I’ve done that was with Attack on Titan. My point is, this series is something special for it to have been able to get me so invested.

I’m not sure how long this review is going to end up being, but based on my outline for it, it’s looking like it will be around twice as long as my usual reviews. On top of that, I already have five other articles planned around this series for the future. So as you can see, I have a lot to say about it.

But, let’s start with the basic fact that Girls’ Last Tour is the adventure anime I’ve wanted for a long time. Great adventure anime are hard to come by. There are good ones, sure, but it’s rare for them to really scratch that adventuring itch I have.

The most recent anime to almost achieve that was Somali and the Forest Spirit, but even that fell short of what I was looking for in an adventure.

Emptiness and Loneliness

The series focuses on two, young girls named Chito and Yuuri who are traveling together through the ruins of a mega-city far larger than anything on Earth today. The unnamed city’s immense scale compared to the girls is what really makes the series feel like an adventure.

Yes, the whole series takes place in a single city. But the city is so massive, so empty, and so full of varying terrain and scenery that their journey feels like an epic quest. But at the same time, Chito and Yuuri’s journey is far different from most other adventure series.

Typically in an adventure anime, our protagonist(s) would come across a wide variety of other characters along the way. Even if the journey is a solo one, there are usually so many people coming in and out of the protagonist’s life that it always feels lively.

Girls’ Last Tour is the opposite.

Chito spotting for Yuuri's target practice from the anime series Girls' Last Tour
Chito spotting for Yuuri’s target practice

Throughout their entire, months-long journey, the girls only come across two other individuals. And in both cases, they part ways only a few days after meeting one another. The vast majority of this last tour is solely made up of Chito, Yuuri, and the empty expanse of the city.

An adventure with almost no characters might not sound all that exciting, but in this case, it was extremely effective. With no side characters to distract us, the focus is entirely on the dynamic between Chito, Yuuri, and the world in which they live.

We learn so much more about the girls through their interactions with each other and their environment than we do from their fleeting interactions with other people. They’re products of the empty and lonely world in which they live. And that’s no more apparent than when they come across objects left over from the world before which they lack the context to understand.

Questions About the World

One of my favorite aspects of this series is that as viewers, we have so many questions about the world the girls live in, but they don’t. It’s not that Chito and Yuri already know everything about the world in which they live. Rather, it’s that this is the only world they’ve ever known, so they don’t see the questions that are there to be asked.

We see this towering city made up of multiple layers stacked on top of one another and ask why it was made in the first place. To Chito and Yuuri, the “why” doesn’t matter. All that matters to them is that the city exists and that they exist within it. As long as they’re able to continue surviving and moving forward, why the world is the way it is means nothing.

At one point late in the series, I believe it was in the manga after the end of the anime, one of the girls poses a question to the other. She asks why they’ve continued on their journey to the top of the city this entire time.

This question isn’t really about the world, but rather, it illustrates their lack of understanding about the world. They’ve been traveling up the layers of the city for what seems like years — months since the start of the series — and yet, they don’t know why.

They know that at the outset of their journey, they were told specifically to travel up the city and not down it. But why they were told this is unknown to both the girls and us as the viewers. It’s one of the great questions of the series. For what purpose was their journey? Why did they continue without knowing what they would find?

Life at the End of the World

I mentioned that the girls only come across two other people throughout the course of their journey. This is because, by the time we join along, the vast majority of life on Earth has been eradicated. But, this does open up some interesting questions, such as “what happened to cause this outcome?”

I’m going to begin getting into some spoiler territory in this section. And the following two sections are going to heavily focus on spoiler content. I suggest skipping to the conclusion if you want to avoid all of that.

I’m going to venture a guess and say that Chito and Yuuri are no older than 17. They’re pretty clearly still children, but based on Yuuri’s body type when we see her swim in the fish tank, I think it’s safe to assume that they’re supposed to be around 15 – 17 years old.

However, they appeared to be much younger, maybe between 10 – 12 years old at most when we see them first set off on their journey. And, before setting off, they lived with their “grandfather” in a town populated by what seemed like a lot of people. So, what happened to everyone else?

Yuuri making a snowman on Chito's head from the anime series Girls' Last Tour
Yuuri making a snowman on Chito’s head

The obvious answer is that war happened. However, it’s clear throughout the series that there have been many wars since the construction of the city. From what I can tell, there were at least two, but probably three major wars that resulted in the eradication of life on the planet.

The first of these wars was the nuclear war that plunged the world into a nuclear winter. The second war was the one that utilized the giant robots capable of destroying vast amounts of the city. And the final war was the war over the last remaining resources.

This is the war that Chito and Yuuri fled, and it explains why there’s hardly any life left on the planet. Everyone else either died in the struggle over food or ran out of food and starved within the next five or so years. Chito and Yuuri only survived thanks to their travels.

Girls’ Last Tour Anime Ending

If I had to point to my least favorite part of the series, it would undoubtedly have to be the ending of the anime. This is for two primary reasons. First, there’s the entire thing with the Nuko. And second, there’s the fact that the anime ended where it did.

To start, I should point out that the name Nuko comes from the word neko which is Japanese for cat. Neither of the girls has ever seen a cat before, so when Yuuri finds the adolescent Nuko, she assumes that it’s a cat — a creature she had only heard stories of.

The Nuko then attempts to repeat the word neko, but says nuko instead, which is where it gets its name from.

We don’t really know what the Nuko are, and that’s my main issue with them. They’re some sort of creature that eats and breaks down volatile materials. For example, when the first Nuko is introduced into the series, Yuuri feeds it bullets. And later on, we see larger Nuko eating nuclear missiles.

Along with eating volatile materials, Nuko are also able to communicate via radio waves. And, their bodies are quite unique. They can either take the form of elongated, cat-like creatures or humanoid mushroom-like figures that can apparently fly. I’m also going to assume that their white coloring is due to the nuclear winter, as we see the fish are also a pale white.

Are Nuko aliens? Were they man-made creatures designed to clean up the waste littering the world? We don’t know. And because of that, their inclusion in a series that’s otherwise fairly grounded in reality is just awkward.

As for where the anime ended, it concludes at chapter 29 out of 43 of the manga. This is a problem because it leaves the ending very open despite that not truly being the case. For anyone who watches the anime and doesn’t read the conclusion of the manga afterward, it’s a very different series.

Girls’ Last Tour Manga Ending

The ending of the Girls’ Last Tour manga is probably the most special thing about the whole series. And that’s exactly why it’s a shame that the anime ended where it did. I don’t think it needs a second season, but a movie would probably be the perfect length to conclude the story.

I plan to write another article focusing on this, but let’s quickly go over one of my favorite chapters of the series. Chapter 32 is titled “Art” and follows the girls as they explore an art museum full of famous works such as “The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli.

At the end of the chapter, Yuuri draws a picture of her own and affixes it to the wall directly next to a large stone with cave paintings on it. I love this scene because it shows humanity’s first and last pieces of art side by side. It’s a perfect representation of many of the story’s themes.

Yuuri and Chito reflecting on their lives from the manga series Girls' Last Tour
Yuuri and Chito reflecting on their lives

Moving on to the true end of the series, I mentioned that it wasn’t as open-ended as the anime made it out to be. That’s because while Chito and Yuri’s adventure does continue on for a bit longer, it has a definitive end — their deaths.

Upon reaching the top layer of the city, the girls are confronted by nothing. There’s nothing above them but a starry sky and nothing on the layer other than a single, square structure with no entrance. The ground is covered in snow, and it’s clear that there has never been permanent life on this layer.

It’s at this point that the girls contemplate their lives and journey while eating their final pack of rations. After determining that they’ve enjoyed their lives, they fall asleep together against the structure and succumb to the freezing temperatures in their sleep. With that, humanity and life as we know it ends.

And before anyone says that they didn’t die because they mentioned thinking about what to do after waking up, that’s not the case. They said that as a way to reassure themselves so that they wouldn’t fear death. There’s an extra chapter after the final chapter in which it’s made clear that they’ve died because we see them in the afterlife.

Conclusion

I know I’ve been praising Girls’ Last Tour for the majority of this extra-long review. But in the end, I think both the anime and the manga are 8/10s. They’re very good, but they do still have some problems, such as the awkward inclusion of the Nuko or the magical digital camera.

But, if you’re looking for a great adventure series that focuses on themes as varied as friendship, mortality, and existential hopelessness, I can’t really think of anything better. And, once you’ve finished the anime, I highly recommend that you pick up the manga starting at chapter 30. Finishing the manga should only take you maybe an hour.

Since I usually comment on the OPs and EDs of series at this point, I’ll just say that I like them both, but that I like the ED more. However, the true best song of the series is the insert song/ED for episode 5 known as the “Rain Song.” I plan to write a full article dedicated to that song in the future, so look forward to that.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

That’s Just Senpai’s Dick

That’s Just Senpai’s Dick

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That's Just Senpai's Dick manga cover
That’s Just Senpai’s Dick

Overview

It’s been over a year since my first manga review, so it’s about time I reviewed another. I was originally planning to do a dual review of the Scum’s Wish manga and anime, but I dropped the manga and didn’t actually want to watch the anime so that fell through.

Luckily I was recommended this masterpiece called That’s Just Senpai’s Dick (Sore wa Tada no Senpai no Chinko / それはただの先輩のチンコ). And, since it’s only one volume made up of eight chapters, it’s a nice, quick read which I appreciate since manga isn’t really my medium of choice.

So, what’s this manga about? It must be a hentai manga due to the title, right? Actually, no. According to MAL, it’s a comedy, ecchi, fantasy series, but I’d argue that doesn’t really describe what you’ll find inside. It’s not fantasy in the popular sense, and although it includes dicks, I wouldn’t really classify half of it as ecchi either.

It’s an anthology of seven short stories which take place within the same world in which dicks can be cut off, stay “alive,” and eventually grow back. While I’d say a few of the stories have ecchi parts, they’re all pretty different and cover a wide range of genres including comedy, romance, action, drama, horror, and slice of life.

And, while I’ll say that this manga is probably 18+, that’s mainly due to a few visuals and implied scenarios in it. Like I said, it’s not a hentai manga.

That’s Just Senpai’s Dick

The first chapter sets up the world in which all the other stories take place. We follow a high school girl who just wants to have a relationship with her favorite senpai’s dick (no, she doesn’t really care all that much about the person attached to it at this point).

This is when we learn the lore of the world, that it’s just like our world, except dicks can be cut off with specially-made guillotines without the owner dying. In fact, the dicks don’t die either, and instead become semi-sentient. The only problem is that they eventually do die after about a week, at which time they regrow on the original owner.

The main character of this story is having trouble keeping her senpai’s dick alive due to a number of different obstacles. However, in the end she opts to just harvest a new one every time the previous one dies.

And Now For That Warmth

While I can’t say that this second story is the most absurd of them all, I did find the premise to be one of the best. Unlike the girl from the previous arc, the main character this time around has no attraction to any one particular dick. Instead, she has a dream.

Her dream is to collect enough dicks to fill her back tub with them so that she can take a dick bath. It’s an ambitious dream and I was rooting for her all along the way. This one may have been the funniest of all the stories, especially when you see the scenes of her tossing around piles of dicks.

Also, it’s at this point that we learn that despite the cutting off of dicks being a possibility in this world, most girls don’t do it. In fact, this main character’s friends find her hobby to be a little weird.

Vol 1 Chapter 2: And Now For That Warmth from the manga That's Just Senpai's Dick
Vol 1 Chapter 2: And Now For That Warmth

Buried Relief

The third story was probably my favorite of them all because of how much of an emotional roller coaster it was. This story had horror, slice of life, romance, and drama. And if you know me, you’ll know I like my drama.

While I don’t want to spoil the endings of any of these stories, I think that goes double for this one. What I’ll say is that it’s about a romance between a girl and the dick (named Giovanni) of her ex-boyfriend. It’s a great story and I didn’t think that a manga about dicks could make me feel the way this chapter did.

It Was Like When I Caught That Grasshopper

Story number four is actually two chapters long and due to that is the most developed story. This one tackles more real-world topics about puberty and growing up, but in a very surreal way.

Basically it’s about a girl who finds a dick that attaches itself to her body. She’s unable to get it to come off, and must track down the boy who it belongs to. However, along the way she experiences what it’s like to have a dick for the first time, and her experiences are roughly equivalent to those of a boy going through puberty.

I actually think these two chapters had a decent amount of interesting things to say about sexuality, even if the plot was a bit strange. Also the grasshopper metaphor is definitely not the metaphor I would have chosen.

Rain of Life

Rain of Life was definitely the most absurd story in the entire anthology, and it technically wasn’t even about dicks, though they are involved. Instead it’s about a girl who collects the dicks of famous people, and then throws out a sex toy she had.

This sex toy then lands in some radioactive sludge and turns into a giant, sex toy monster, because why wouldn’t it? The monster then goes on a rampage through the city and the military has to be called in to fight it.

Remember how I said this manga had some action? Well this is the action chapter. Oh, also the sex toy monster grows stronger and larger by eating dicks, so there’s that. Some of the dialogue in this series, man.

The Last Dick

The Last dick is a continuation of the story from the first chapter of the manga. Remember how I mentioned that the girl kept on cutting off her senpai’s dick every time it regrew? Well now we learn that dicks actually only regrow a certain number of times.

This is a tale of two choices. Will Sakashita-san choose the boy she loves, or his dick? I thought it was actually a fairly compelling story about how her feelings have evolved over time, but what really made it good was the twist at the end. I mean, it’s still no Buried Relief, but The Last Dick is good too.

Fireworks

Fireworks is the third part of the trilogy which started with That’s Just Senpai’s Dick and continued with The Last Dick. I can’t really say too much about this story because it would spoil the ending of the previous chapter, but it follows Sakashita-san after the choice she made.

And, let me tell you, if you think the twist at the end of The Last Dick is something, wait until you see the twist at the beginning of Fireworks. In the end, Fireworks was a good way to conclude the series, though I do wish we got an epilogue of sorts like this for each of the previous stories.

That said, there is a bonus chapter at the end of Fireworks which has a mini epilogue for the second story, And Now For That Warmth.

Conclusion

I’ve only completed two manga, but That’s Just Senpai’s dick was definitely the better of the two. And, because I enjoyed reading it so much, I think I’ll give it a 10/10. I realize that this manga probably isn’t for everyone, but I really liked how it took such an absurd concept, told absurd stories with it, and was still able to have meaningful points.

Also the fact that it was a short anthology series also helped with the rating since I can’t do long manga. I simply prefer anime as a medium. If this series ever receives an anime adaptation, I’ll watch it. I’d expect it to be a short, and it might not be as good as the manga, but I’d still watch it.

If you enjoyed today’s bonus review (because Wednesdays are supposed to be my days off), then click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama, and if you want more manga reviews in the future, let me know in the comments.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for not only supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month, but also for reading this manga too, even though it’s about dicks, so I could discuss it with him. To learn more about becoming a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

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