I’ve been turning off subscriptions to streaming services lately, with the idea being that I probably have too many going at any one time and that when I actually DO feel like binging some series or another I can always turn them back on.

Amazon Prime was the most recent to get turned off, but before I pulled the plug on it I spent some time going through their catalog of subtitled anime.

That’s how I stumbled across Girls’ Last Tour, which sure looked like yet another show about cute girls doing cute things.  This time, the hook seemed to be that it was two girls driving around in a kettenkrad, a sort of weird German motorcycle/tank hybrid thing from the 1940s.

I’m always up for some CGDGT, so I settled in to watch an episode or two… and wound up watching the entire twelve episode series without a break.

Soooooooo.  If you have ever opened your pantry or refrigerator, surveyed a dozen or more food options, and said something along the lines of “oh, man, there’s nothing to eat” and closed the door… you might want to be careful about watching Girls’ Last Tour, because you are going to feel miserably guilty before the show hits the halfway point.

Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, it’s set about 1200 years in the future, at a point where we have finally managed to kill off every living thing on the planet, and the two girls in their kettenkrad are constantly moving forward looking for anything they can eat and any source of gas to keep their wheels and treads turning.

Most of what they find to eat is non-perishable military rations in various flavors, and there’s a recurring gag about “this one is xxx flavored.  I wonder what xxx was?” where xxx might, for example, be chocolate or cheese.

And yes, it eventually makes sense why they are driving a vehicle from before the semiconductor age.  One of the not-terribly-subtle themes of the show is that weapons can long outlive their makers.

This is not normally my type of show.  Normally, I want crazy upbeat shows about cute girls becoming idol singers or painfully nice guys getting saddled with a harem consisting entirely of mythological creatures with improbably-oversized knockers, and the only upbeat things about Girls’ Last Tour are the opening and ending songs.

Which are just impossibly catchy, to be fair.

There, I feel much happier now.

One thing that IS positive about the show is that, while the girls do occasionally run into other people, they’re generally pleasant people.  It’s super common for post-apocalyptic media to fall into the trap of Every Other Human Is Out To Kill You, Don’t Trust Them, but this particular apocalypse seems to have been so thoroughly apocalyptic that the few remaining people are just trying to get through their days.

It also ends very well, with an episode that gives a lot of hints about just how the world got into its current godawful state and gives you just a little hope for the future of the main characters.

Basically, this isn’t my sort of show in general and yet I really enjoyed it.  There are enough moments of tiny happiness that you can almost forget the oppressive setting, and it definitely gives you a certain sort of perspective on life.

Like, I dare you to watch this show, open the aforementioned pantry or fridge, and NOT be  overwhelmed by and thankful for the sheer variety of food staring you in the face.