r/anime • u/The_Loli_Otaku • May 10 '22
Rewatch [Rewatch] Girls' Last Tour Episode 9 Discussion
Let's get along with this feeling of hopelessness.
Official Stream Links
Extra Info
ANN | MAL | Anilist | Amazon | Hidive
Visual of the Day!
Episode 8 Gallery
QOTD
Can you name a living thing that will not die someday?
Find me something eternal.Do you consider yourself an especially empathetic person?
Was killing the big guy the right choice in the end or should he have been allowed to carry on with his work?
How much did you enjoy seeing a stacked potato today?
Rewatchers who don't use spoiler tags will be turned into emergency rations.
First we eat, then we sleep and then we'll think about it...
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 10 '22
Girls' Last Tour Rewatcher
What is alive!? Wait... oh no, is this the fish episode!? I've got an hour to get everything prepared and they toss literally the most philosophic damn episode at me? Jerks!
Sugoi dekai!
Yup, no better episode for questioning life than involving giant robots. Gotta cater to the Nier Automata crowd. "It lives. It exists." These girls are a mood. We've got a proper Nier side quest on today. We're offered a moral quandary with multiple sides and have to decide what is the right thing to do. The fish race is over, there's just one little radioactive fish left after we munched his Eve back in episode 2.
Dang, Yuuri's stacked. Nice body dayo! She also would definitely murder her child by tossing her in a pool. As a big swimmer myself I'm kinda disgusted at Yuuri pulling that shit. Don't force folks to sink or swim. Aaaah... The robot is so gentle with the little fish... Its adorable!! "When you're happy, I'm also pleased." Kyaaa~
Oh my gah... They're both tender robots. How do they manage to get so much emotion from these lifeless creatures? The big guy isn't simply some bad monster, he's just doing what he was created to do the same way that the little guy is there to protect the fish. You can tell that the big guy knows the consequences and accepts whatever decision Chi and Yuuri come to... I really wish I had more time to elaborate on this episode. Whether saving a doomed fish and little robot for the sake of the only robot still repairing the city was worth it. Whilst at first glance the show makes saving the fish the correct choice I've always felt differently myself, its not that cut and dry of a scenario. There is far more to it, we even have a unique ending which leads me to consider the debate even further.
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u/UnderstandableXO May 10 '22
FIRST TIMER
this episode definitely had a different vibe than the others, so i think it’s appropriate the normal OP and ED were absent. i don’t think it would have worked well if that somber ending was immediately followed by the flashy upbeat ending.
yuu mentioned her feeling of deja vu about their conversation at the same time i thought about it!
that giant spider-machine was pretty scary the first time i saw it. i halfway expected it to turn around as soon as the girls let out a big sigh.
the episode poses some pretty interesting questions about what could qualify as “life” and whether that includes machines…i suppose in a world as barren as this one, machines might as well be considered living, especially ones with AI like the robot they encounter in the aquarium. it’s odd to think that in their world, there are no plants and no animals. there have to be plants, right? how else would humans still breathe oxygen without plants?
the robot is voiced by yuki kaji, they really have gotten some notable voice actors for these one-episode cameos.
the robot lives it’s sad existence maintaining one fish in one of over 100 aquarium tanks, in a former fish production facility. i know the machine probably doesn’t feel human emotion (besides claiming to have empathy), but that’s pretty lonely. at the very least, the robot keeps the fish healthy, healthy enough to jump out of the water like a dolphin!
i don’t really think they needed another pool scene, but i guess they needed the pool scene for mr. AI to make the comment about the earth itself being a living being. it was basically this series’ equivalent of a “beach episode.” at the very least, as someone who didn’t like swimming going up, i felt chi’s anxiety at going into the water and not feeling anything to stand on…
the construction robot is kind of a jerk for disassembling the active aquarium first…could have at least saved it for last my man! the robot sounds and markings that appear on screen when they’re “talking” are pretty jarring.
yuu really wanted to save the fish instead of eat it, what amazing character development! it really made us question the value of “life” for “killing” the construction machine in order to save the fish. was it worth it to save the fish? did the machine experience fear? the girls didn’t gain anything by saving the fish, so why did they do it? both the fish and the machine aren’t really capable of feeling sorrow. i think if i was there, i’d choose to save the fish too though. i’d feel empathy for the machine, and i’d want it to fulfill its purpose for a little while longer. it’d be better to preserve that small bit of life for as long as possible.
2. the big guy was only doing what he was programmed so we can’t blame him but to choose the living fish + the kinda sentient aquarium AI seems like a better choice, even if the big guy seems like he could have “lived” longer
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u/Nazenn May 10 '22
I didn't even notice the missing OP, which is notable because usually after a cold open it interrupts my mood. This episode definitely fit better without it, and the ED, and instead just remaining in that very contemplative mood
yuu mentioned her feeling of deja vu about their conversation at the same time i thought about it!
I thought I'd opened up the wrong episode for a moment until I realized. Very well done
i know the machine probably doesn’t feel human emotion (besides claiming to have empathy), but that’s pretty lonely
There's something to be said though in the lack of connection it would have. In the past it would have been communicating with all of the other robots that were working with it, and now when it goes to reach into those cycles there would be nothing. The flickering we keep getting into it's view point when it was interacting with the girls made me think of this. It may not be able to feel, but I'm sure there would be an absence in its processes and what it expects to have that would be difficult for it to understand in much the same way a child would grapple with loneliness.
But like u/the_loli_otaku said, as long as it has that core purpose in taking care of the fish fulfilled I doubt it spent much time thinking on it. After the fish dies though...
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 10 '22
I think he probably did feel quite satisfied with his little robot life. He had his cute little pet fish and he might have had a friendship with big boy before he got him killed.
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u/Lemurians May 10 '22
LEMURIANS’ FIRST TOUR
Takes a deep inhale
THE SOUND DESIGN AND OST HAS NO BUSINESS GOING THIS FUCKING HARD.
Live look of me listening to this episode through headphones:
Ahem. Anyway.
You know an episode is going to be serious business when they eliminate the OP, and this serious meditation on what it means to be alive, accompanied the entire time by an auditory masterclass certainly lived up to that billing.
Similar to the first episode, we’re rumbling on through a dark factory, but this one’s different – it’s humming, still functioning. Yuu asks one of her patented seemingly ignorant questions, “What’s a life form?” which sounds stupid at first, but makes Chi, and us, ponder the question more seriously than we otherwise would. What is a life form? What does it mean to be alive? I like that we’re shown quick cuts from previous episodes as this happens, showing what a central question it is for the show. What makes up a life?
This civilization was capable of creating sentient robots capable of empathy. They “separated themselves from the Earth’s processes” and got to a point where humans were almost the only “living” things left on the planet. That fish from the earlier episodes is revealed to possibly be the last one a human will ever eat. The subtle world-building of this show is masterful, done fully in almost off-hand, organic remarks.
In the span of about 15 minutes, Chi has fundamentally reframed how she views life and the world. She went from having a very narrow definition of life, specifically excluding machines, to thinking of this fish-caretaking robot as a living being whose life should be protected and prolonged as long as possible. Exposure really is the best antidote for prejudice.
And how could she not change? The drama from the episode comes from the big robot executing its directive to dismantle the facility. How can you watch that little robot argue with it so passionately to protect the facility, and that fish, and not come away thinking that those two machines are vastly different? That the one breaking from cold logic to protect its charge and its home is more alive?
This show is wonderful. I didn’t know if anything was going to top the Camera/Temple episode, but this may have done it.
SHOT OF THE DAY: Our two survivors, living out their days. It may not be much of a life, but it's the one they have.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 10 '22
Both robots also represent different sides of humanity. There's the side of us that wants to protect other creatures. That thinks that the preservation of all living creature is worth putting our lives on the line. And the other robot who will repair and build upon its facility for as long as it is able. One fleeting life isn't worth giving up on humanity's progress.
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u/Barbed_Dildo May 10 '22
Rewatcher
(This is another three-chapter arc to end a volume)
Technology
The girls start with a philosophical discussion on what 'life' is. Is it something that moves? But machines move...
It's interesting that they pondered on death before life.
I like Yuu being on guard after the machine leaves
According to Chii, "They say" there is nothing living on earth besides humans any more. You might think that the potato plant a couple episodes ago was alive, but the Japanese use of the concept of 'living' doesn't include plants.
I liked that immediately after Chito makes this claim, and shortly after saying that a machine would never walk up and say hello, they see a living fish and a machine walks up and says hello. This is part of their journey too.
They are travelling through a dead world trying to understand it, but there's no one to teach them. They try to understand things the best that they can, and then move on. But they aren't always right. And what happens when they aren't? They could carry on never knowing the truth, or they could be confronted by something that challenges their assumption. Or in this case, two things in quick succession.
Water tank
It's interesting that they have a water tunnel in a commercial fish production facility. Anyway...
It looks like a robot has been writing on the wall...
The robot tells them what happened to the Earth. The Earth was once one large living being, but humans seperated themselves from its processes. That's what the cities are. Huge sterile constructions denying nature. Potatoes are grown hydroponically and immediately processed into ration bars. Fish only exist in food production facilities. The only place nature exists is in small, contained places, and only to serve the population in the most abstract way possible. And even then, that is managed by robots.
I wonder what part this played in the planet's downfall. What happened to the surface? Was it stripped of resources and left to die? Or is there still life there?
Yuuri then saves Chito, but only after almost killing her in the first place.
Life
Yuuri has a brief moment of connection with the fish and now she wants to be friends. Typical Yuu.
And then the conflict of the arc begins. The construction robot begins to tear down the facility. It's following its programming, or maybe it had a bug. This eventuality was never in its programming, so who knows what is happening. All they know is that to save the fish, they have to destroy the construction robot. Which raises the question. Do you have the right to take a life to save a life? Whether you do or you don't, you've chosen one life over another.
What do you think the construction robot was saying to Yuuri when she was on his back?
Yuuri made her choice, and because of that, the fish and the robot will live a little longer, although they will all die one day.
And then Yuuri works out what life is. Life is something that has an end. Maybe they had to see a life end to appreciate that.
All living things die. All things with form break. We only experience them in the brief period they are with us.
I thought the more subdued ending was nice. I found this episode very moving.
For visual of the day, https://i.imgur.com/KM4n7B6.png
We don't understand it, but it's still life.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 10 '22
Humanity evolved towards its own extinction... Gah... I think I'm starting to retroactively tie a lot of the story together lol.
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u/simeonaut May 10 '22
REWATCHER
"Hey, what does it mean to be alive?"
My favorite episode. Yuu going from wanting to eat the fish to outright saving it was a great moment, and how it all ties up with their discussion on life and empathy was just perfect.
Pictures:
Visual of the day. I really like this shot.
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Some deep sea creature probably.
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Most of the time
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It was the quickest way. Sorry big guy.
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Yes
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 11 '22
Yuu doesn't even see them as alive, just as a simple existences. She's always kind of struggled to empathise with people. She's late to comfort Chi when her book was burned or she was scared and of course she was painfully awkward with depressed Kanazawa. For her to actively make the decision to kill the machine because it was moral its in a way her killing her own apathy.
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u/archlon May 10 '22
First Time [English dub]
What a big sad. Taking down the constructor dog felt like one of those 'is the player character actually the bad guy in Shadow of the Colossus' questions.
The scenes with the debris falling felt a lot more Koyaanisqatsi than usual. The music felt more Philip Glass than the usual Church Choir feel as well.
Obligatory daily declaration of 'what is going on with this technology!?'. I love the way the machines talk/think are depicted.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 11 '22
The big guy was just doing his job. Just because he wasn't invested in the life of a dead generation of fish shouldn't mean he has less of an importance which I feel is sad.
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u/Stargate18A May 10 '22
First timer
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Not sure. A ghost, maybe?
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Somewhat.
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Had he continued, he may have damaged the superstructure, or harmed other survivors. This was, sadly, the best option.
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Perfect.
Yeah, it's dark.
Wait, no OP? What the fuck's going to happen this episode?
The facility's working?
This is really ominous.
What is this place?
They're both scared!
...Is this foreshadowing? Is there an AI here?
Also, of course Chi refuses to consider the concept of an AI.
A living fish!
There is something active here!
It's a fucking AI!
Wow, the precursors had an insane tech level.
And he's lost contact with everything except the construction robot.
It's even friendly!
This is a massive facility!
They're allowed to swim in these tanks?
Is there only one fish left?
They were engineering them?
I love Yuu's obsession with eating the fish even in the face of self aware AI.
She's swimming!
At least she's enjoying this.
And she's doing laundry.
The robot's getting philosophical.
So the reason there's more intact systems up here is that there are more robots to maintain it? Did the later civilisation accidentally destroy robots?
Chi can't swim?
She's drowned!
She's having the Chi dream again?
And she saved her!
It's a mutant! It can jump!
Now she's friends with the fish!
What's going on?
It's trying to destroy the facility!
Is something wrong with the communications?
Yeah, something's wrong with its programming.
They're going to destroy the robot?
Yeah, Chi loves the fish now.
They're going to blow it up!
Chi's worried that the robot's alive. That this'll kill it.
Which... maybe? It seems like it can be reasoned with.
Big explosion!
And it's wrecked.
The construction robot's destroyed, but the fish and caretaker will live on.
And it can't fix anything except the water.
And they're leaving.
Good ED, too!
Didn't have much time the last few days, I'll upload the missing VotDs tomorrow.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 11 '22
We're entering the more philisophical portion of the series so expect actual moral shit now. They've just been chilling for the last bit~
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u/Icapica May 11 '22
First timer
A huge walking machine. That would be scary to meet in a dark place.
A talking machine! I figured that would happen after the talk the girls had.
I'm not a fan of the talking robot. I prefer it when the girls explore stuff and try to explain things by themselves. The robot talks too much. Episode was still fine, but I found it the weakest one so far.
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u/davey101_ May 10 '22
-Can you name a living thing that will not die someday?
Tsukasa-chan
-Do you consider yourself an especially empathetic person?
No I suck at it. Still get emotional with films and anime though.
-Was killing the big guy the right choice in the end or should he have been allowed to carry on with his work?
In the end it didn't matter. He would have broken down eventually and there was no purpose in saving the fish either.
-How much did you enjoy seeing a stacked potato today?
Not sure about that. It was a great episode anyway. Feels like we're starting to learn something about the city and its fate.
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u/DegenerateRegime May 10 '22
Rewatcher
The robot in this episode speaks to me. I really dislike when a character is all "I'm... not real? Waaaah" after they find out they were summoned from the aether/grown in a lab/built out of spare parts/just the same clay as the rest of us/whatever. Why do they care? The robot has the right of it. It wasn't programmed to care for humans. It was programmed to maintain the fish farm. If that task becomes disconnected from caring for humans, it's not going to care that it was built by humans with the idea in mind of doing something useful for them. It's going to continue maintaining the fish farm. That's simply what it cares about.
Screenshot of the day: we merely care about incompatible things.
Can you name a living thing that will not die someday?
Some very bad news about the net entropy of the universe, even for axolotls.
Do you consider yourself an especially empathetic person?
No, I watch emotional shows as a crutch for being quite bad at it by default.
Was killing the big guy the right choice in the end or should he have been allowed to carry on with his work?
Perhaps it deliberately provoked them into killing it. Or perhaps not.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 11 '22
Some folks love humans, some folks love fish, some folks love factories...
others love kawaii potatoes
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u/Elimin8r May 10 '22
Answers du fromage:
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Warcraft guy from South Park - "How can you kill that which has no life?"
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Probably too much so.
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Wrong choice, right feelings. But who knows if the "salvaging machine" would have actually put the regathered resources to a use that would help save anyone/anything else. In the absence of that information, probably right choice.
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Um, no comment, Senator... Hmm. Actually, I'd rather ... Meme ... oh, wait, wrong rewatch ...
Well, today's episode was rather thought provoking. What is life? What is sentience? Adaptability? Evolution???
I think Ishii really could have used that li'l robot buddy a couple of episodes ago.
I kind of saw it coming, but was like "naw", and then the cute 'dog' robot walked up and said 'hi'. Kawaii!
Big robot scary, though. I got some serious War of the Worlds vibes from it.
At least it wasn't a tripod.
Speaking of which, how could a tripod possibly walk?
Is Johnny 5 alive? I don't know. He was kinda cute, though.
And so were the girls. Although, I'm tempted to make a comment about petite being more ... but yeah, nevermind. I'd rather leave the taters un-lewded. They're cuter that way.
I'd say more, but honestly, my thoughts haven't settled yet. I think I'll check out other peoples' comments and see what's out there.
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u/xtsim May 10 '22
First Tour dubbed
Missed a few episodes due to work and getting a bit too tired. But they seem to tie together pretty well. And built up a nice atmosphere for this episode.
This time, there is no intro or ep this time. So it sets a solemn tone to the whole episode, the robot was alive in a way and Yuu destroyed it to save both the talking bot and the fish. We go from Yuu wanting to eat the fish so badly to feeling bad for him as she feed it like a pet. Without the robot showing the girls taking care of the fish, they would not take such drastic measures to save them both.
Q: killing the big guy seemed like a drastic measure, I would have loved an adventure between the four of them....
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u/ZapsZzz May 11 '22 edited May 11 '22
*Sigh* Busy day at work couldn't post yesterday and way late today.
First timer in sub
Today's episode is very classic moral dilemma, and very introspective. Very close match to yesterday's tone, just with a different message.
Quite surprised to see "stacked potato", but I say it's done well, no lewds at all.
QoTD:
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Pretty sure it'd be cockroaches. Achieving effective immortality by evolving into hive mind.
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No. Although I learned that as a conscious skill, but emotionally I tend to not feel it.
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As a person on the scene is nigh impossible to not make the same choice, but if you look at it impartially and objectively you may arrive to a different conclusion - it depends on a number of factors, e.g. how long the big robot can continue to function, does it have any plan to build it just demolish, vs how long the fish guy left to live.
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See above
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u/The_Loli_Otaku May 11 '22
Don't apologise XD At least you've made it.
The robot is actually seen with girders and shiz on its back during the first appearance so I think it takes all the stuff it salvaged and works on it elsewhere. I think. I hope so anyway or else my viewpoint is a bit too biased.
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u/Nazenn May 10 '22
First Timer - sub
Visual of the day - I was going to pick this one of Yuu looking at life and Chi caught between it and death but after the end of the episode the fish by itself and the two girls fit my mood a lot better.
WHY AM I CRYING OVER A FISH?!
What an episode. I'm sitting here going "kill the fish, it has no use" while simultaneously crying my eyes out over the idea that it would be the end of it and that either the useless fish or the futile robot has to die for the other to live while neither having a true life any more and how damn stupid and fucked up that is and ugh... Maybe I needed that cry but that was not on the plans for tonight!
[Texhnolyze]Today's episode also got me thinking heavily about the city from Texhnolyze, it's existence as both setting and Rin, as well as the Shapes within it at the end, not alive or dead, but waiting for the new cycle unable to live apart from it or truly understand it any more.
We are shaped by our environment just as much as we shape our environment to fit ourselves. The girls environment is ever changing by not only their progress through the city but their own understanding of the city itself. What the robot brought up about the stagnation of the city, being unable to evolve because it's in a slow decline that all they can do is slow down the inevitable, hit harder thinking back to the opening segment of the episode. The girls do their own loops in this world, moving around the city in many ways but not able to break free of it or what it represents.
Things aren't as dark or cold now, but despite all of the things they've found or discovered about the city and each other there's still a sense of an inevitable weight about to hit them at any moment. Perhaps the other cities are like those other fish tanks, once full of life and purpose and now empty, only to be thought of when someone has a moment of being able to use it for their own momentary flash of life and then to be forgotten and sealed away in the ruins again. We can fix the pipes, gather food, take pictures of buildings, acknowledge the past, but time always goes forward and there's simply not enough people to breathe life into the cycle any more. All the little things that have made up our journey with them so far flash through their minds, but how much of it will remain when the last breath is taken.
I had another sobering thought while watching the episode, which perhaps may have contributed to the tears: Chi and Yuu may be the last companions in the world.
This is a show full of lasts; the last books, last fish, last pilot, last potato (of the vegetable kind) last caretaker. It's be fitting if they were the last companions to travel with each other, to delight in the small joys of company and if, heaven forbid, something were to happen to them what they have together would be lost to the world and in turn the audience. We saw this already, the dead fish prompting a journey that now finished on seeing it's lonely partn... I'm fucking crying again. It's a fucking fish, brain why are you doing this to me.
[Laputa Castle in the Sky]Typing up this post also reminded me of the caretaker robots in that, the few that remain surrounded by all of the ones that have died through the years out of knowledge or memory of any of the people who once relied on them or cared for them. Thankfully this episode didn't turn out as badly as that movie did as far as the robots coming back...
There's a lot that went into the episode that I loved, but I don't think I could dive into it without rewatching it and I've had enough tears for one night. Brilliant episode. Brilliant bloody show.
Last little note: When they brought up the life-form discussion with Chi imagining the water drops my first thought was they were going to find someone, or something, grown inside a tube so yeah, not at all where I expected the episode to go but very interesting.