Apocalypse Hotel

 Apocalypse Hotel (アポカリプスホテル) is an original 13 episode sci-fi series produced by CyberAgent and Cygames.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2025.

     In the 22nd century, humanity has fled Earth, escaping a deadly virus.  One hotel in Ginza, Tokyo, still operates due to the diligence of its renaming robot staff.  Yachiyo, a humanoid customer service model, is the acting-acting manager of the hotel and runs it with efficient professionalism.  Over the century many of the robotic staff have fallen into disrepair and the half dozen or so remaining staff do their best to keep the guest-less business open and ready for humanities return.  After a century of working their shifts without any patrons, an alien arrives and stays for a few days.  Yachiyo does her best to interact and communicate with this new life form but is unsure if she is able to impart upon it their gratitude and dedication after it leaves.

    They do not see another guest for fifty years until a ship crashes and the occupants claim to be humans.  Their ruse is uncovered quickly and their identity as space tanuki is revealed.  The family fled their home world in search of safety.  They stumbled upon a derelict ship from Earth, with no survivors, and used the knowledge gleaned to find Earth.   Since they are able to communicate with Yachiyo they are able to help her improve the hotels abilities to engage with other species who may visit from space.  Infact...they decide to settle down on Earth and their daughter Ponko begins working t the hotel.  Over the centuries, with the long lived tanuki's help, the hotels reputation grows in a galactic sense, bringing in species from all walks of life to enjoy the robot crews dedication to service, all will hoping for the return of humanity.

     With the 2025 Summer season, we have seen a single series over the past 3 cour focusing on a hotel.  Tasokare Hotel from the Winter season, this one for Spring and the pending Hotel Inhumans for the Summer.  By and far, this one is the best of the three.  It is the only original story out of the three, and once again shows how good Cygames is at content creation.  Yachiyo is a fantastic character and the takunki family was a great addition to the central characters, further carrying on the plot in unusual directions.  Instead of being episodic focused on dealing with different alien species each week, it meanders between different concepts that build up the stories background.  I never would have imagined we would see the formation of a taunki space program.  At one point they go through a decades long process of establishing a whiskey distillery for the hotel.  The antics pile on right up to the very end.

     A story that features no humans does a really good job of imbuing humanity in them. The pacing and directing are fantastic as building the world and making you love its few recurring figures.  Comedy, sorrow, wonder, excitement...this series has it all.  We really need more original content in the anime production landscape.  It feels like there has been more of them recently, with Astro Note and Zenshu.  All three of these titles should prove to everyone that original content should be encouraged and sought after as bringing high quality and fantastic stories to the medium.  Apocalypse Hotel is one of the best anime that has come out in 2025 so far and I highly recommend it to many fans of the medium.

The series is available on Crunchyroll.