Train to the End of the World

 Train to the End of the World (終末トレインどこへいく？) is a 12 episode supernatural original story by the anonymous apogeego.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2024.

    A young girl finds her self the winner of an eccentric prize hosted by a cellular company.  She is given the 'honor' or pushing a button that will signal the start of their newly developed 7G network, ushering in a new era for communications.  Unfortunately the activation causes reality to warp beyond recognition.  Two years later we meet 4 young high school girls, Shizuru, Nadeshiko, Reimi and Akira, in rural Agano as they navigate the world post the 7G Incident.  The incident has distorted time and space, isolating communities in their own bubbles, cut off and fr removed from each other.  Their only contact with anything outside of Agano is an infrequent delivery caravan that risks life and limb to travel the spaces between communities to deliver good and establish trade.  On this particular visit, Shizuru notices one of the delivered items was wrapped in a recent news paper and in it was a photo of a girl who looked exactly like their missing friend Yoka.  Just before the 7G Incident, Yoka and Shizuru has a fight and Yoku left to visit Ikebukuro to blow off some steam.  Unknown to everyone, Yoka was the unlucky girl who triggered the 7G Incident.  

    Each region was affected by the 7G Incident in  different ways.  The effect it had on Agano was to transform all of the adults into wild animals that slowly lose their humanity over time.  The only adult unaffected by the change is a man named Zenjiro, who has left the city years ago and returned a crippled elderly man who seems to be suffering from extreme dementia.  Shizuru discovers that he reverts to his younger more stable self when an engineers hat is place on his head, but the effect only lasts for five minutes.    Encouraged by the photo, knowing that their friend is till alive and apparently living in Tokyo, Shizuru prepares to head off into the unknown via the Seibu train line with Zenjiro's help.  He shows her how to operate the train and offers her some words of warning around the 7G Incident.  He was forced to undergo non-elective brain surgery in an attempt to stop him fro exposing the truth of the matter.  He hopes that his guidance and Shizuru's persistence can lead to the incident being reversed.  When her three friends find out shes leaving town they board the train into the great and dangerous unknown.  The four girls, with little knowledge of what to expect, head out with Ikeburuko as their final destination, hoping to bring Yuka back and maybe stop the 7G Incident while they're at it.

    This season has been blessed with some high quality and entertaining original series'.  Train to the End of the World is no exception and this was a fun ride exploring different story styles while maintaining an undercurrent of absurdity akin to FLCL.  The post 7G incident world lives by no set rules and each smaller arc runs with that by playing with different tropes.  The story is really about a journey of self discovery and growth into adulthood as Shizuru is driven by her guilt.  Beyond the ridiculous nature of the world and how 7G changed everything, the ability of these four unassuming yet tenacious high school girls to overcome everything they face is a bit out of the bounds of realism.  They definitely succeed based on plot armor instead of actual skill.  They blunder their way forward overcoming the absurd obstacles they encounter largely due to the ineffectual nature of those that have taken control of the disparate regions.

    This original story is enjoyable if at times absurd.  The artwork is unusual, particularly the character designs.  The journey was far greater than the conclusion though as we learn about the characters personalities and pasts while they explore the strange world around them.  The final episode seemed almost to deflate around the joy and build up of the story but in the end it worked well.  Don't expect any sort of major show down in the conclusion as the real goal is reconciliation.  

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.