Girls’ Last Tour Episode 4 Review

Side-eye statues

(This review contains spoilers!)

          There really wasn’t too much to talk about this week, so I’ll keep this review brief.

          Thanks to Kanazawa (who’s disappeared into the night) the girls now have a camera at their disposal. As they explore the new level of the city, they start to discover strange, tall statues that all stare off to the side. Following the statues lead them to a temple where an inscription describes a god the people who came before worshipped, as well as a room with a statue of said god alongside the flowers.

          There’s one major drop in this episode lore-wise, but it’s so subtle you could miss it. I personally only found it out because some guy online pointed it out in a discussion thread. On the camera screen, the date reads August 6, 3230. We know this is a date and not a bunch of random numbers because it changes to August 7, 3230 in the next segment, which takes place the day after the previous one. So we’ve got a year! The story taking place a full millennium and more after modern day explains why the girls don’t know about a lot of commonplace stuff like oceans and cheese, as well as the overall unusual design of the city. It’s a little strange that it was snowing so hard earlier if this episode takes place in August, but maybe that’ll be explained later on down the line.

          As always, Chi and Yuu’s relationship remains the highlight, and they have a lot of fun moments together. Especially interesting is a brief scene where Yuu thinks she’s lost Chi and takes a moment to wonder what she would do without her. Of course everything turns out fine in the end, but the fact that there are some real gloomy and existential moments slipped into what is essentially a slice-of-life show with an apocalypse setting really makes you wonder if they’re setting up something for the future.

          While it didn’t give me too much material to write about, this was another very strong episode of Girls’ Last Tour. There’s just something really compelling about this series that other slice-of-life shows seem to miss out on. Maybe it’s the relaxed nature and quirky sense of humour that made Non Non Biyori work? Or maybe how the genre clashes with the setting is the culprit? Whatever the case, this remains a show I always get excited to see more of.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good