少女終末旅行: Volume 6 Discussion [Final Volume]

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Volume 6

Previous Volume: Volume 5

Vocabulary List

Spreadsheet

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current volume.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn!
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!
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Oh wow, I finished it today. It was beautiful and the ending wasn’t open ended as I expected before, at least it seemed like that for me. I cried a whole lot, but the more I thought about it, the more peaceful and happy I became. It was really a good ending for them, I think. The death of their vehicle was really sad too, Chii and Yuu became so alive for me, I started loving them a lot closer to the end.

The only thing I didn’t really get is probably from earlier volume, is when that recording from camera was playing and showing two similar looking girls. Omg thise scribbles. Also was it explained how they got there in the first place? And why the world is like that, where are they, why is it layered like that? I like lore okay :eyes:

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Also, I will make now some people wink wink @jprspereira read this series because it’s so beautiful :eyes:

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Making me finally joining the book clubs huh? :eyes:

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I’ve just been making you read Yakusoku for me purposes :eyes:

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Ohhh, finally someone I can talk about the ending with.

Like… what? After all that, everything was just futile - I mean, there’s wabisabi and all, but then there’s this. They almost would have been better off staying in their home village with all those soldiers. The big message of this is pretty much literally “the real journey was the friendship we made along the way”.

I’ve just got one crackpot theory, though: they were, like, uploaded into that cube, right? Like in The Silence in the Library, the Doctor Who episode? Those lines that appear on the cube in the final panel are similar to the lines we’ve seen around other computers throughout the series, most notably the elevator AI at the end of volume 5.

I think it’s somewhat implied that the girls - or more speficially, the girls’ self-replicating robot - brought about the end of the world. Or at least, the uninhabitable mega-city. The anime’s version of the chapter shows a lot more videos from the camera, which go into a fair bit more detail regarding the history and backstory, but still don’t explicitly explain where the city came from.

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So they’re dead, right?

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Don’t think of it as being dead. Think of it as becoming one with the universe.

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so, dead

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Wow… this ending is just… just…

image

I am a sucker for bad endings, and in many ways I loooove this ending. I feel there’s a intrinsic brilliance to its ruthless realism.

There’s a lot left unexplained, but I feel this goes very well with the overall theme of the manga; a lot of my enjoyment came from being just as clueless and surprised as the girls about the mysteries of the dying world.

With some help from the anime, I added all the scribbles to a post in the volume 4, in case you are curious.

As @Belthazar mentioned, the anime has a few more scenes that explain a few more details, though nothing too drastic.

Considering ヌコ and his kin tell them at some point there’s no one left alive in the lower layers, it is hard to know what would have happened to them had they stayed at home. Of course, from a practical point of view, they’d have just died sooner, but I believe there was value to their trip beyond just strengthening their friendship. I believe that through their journey both of them found some meaning to having been alive, and in the last chapter they openly say they enjoyed being alive.

XD That’s a fun theory. It was indeed intriguing to watch the panel with the cube and its abstract circles and squares in it, and I still wonder if the author wanted to say something more with that.

I was half-hoping that ヌコ would appear to consume their corpses in the last scene… though of course that doesn’t make any sense since ヌコ and his kin didn’t go to the upper layer nor did they consume any organic matter.

Yeah, that’s my hunch too… that somehow the robot brought the manufacturing chain to a halt causing a huge famine that led to war.

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Almost finished! If anybody’s still watching this topic I could use some help breaking down this exchange after Yuu throws away her gun.

Well, I thought I understood, but the lines seem contradictory.

Something like:

Chii: You don’t have to throw everything away.
Yuu: But, it’d be a pity to leave it here.

Mebbe I’ma check the English translation when I get home.

Edit: Okies, I’m home. Yen Press translation reads:

Chii: You didn’t have to literally chuck it.
Yuu: But I’d feel bad just leaving it behind.

Which makes some sense.

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Ah that makes sense! I thought it was Yuu’s line that was tripping me up but it was mostly Chii’s. I forgot ことはない can mean “no need to”. I also was unaware of definition 3 of 何も on Jisho:

  1. (not) at all; (not) in the least; (not) especially; (not) to that extent​ as …なくてもいい, …ことはない, etc.

Thanks for answering so long after the book club finished!

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Well I’m more than a year behind but I’m glad I finished this fantastic series. I’ve been reading chapters when I’ve had time between other book clubs and it’s technically the first manga series I’ve finished! I watched the anime a couple years ago and it probably played a part in pushing me to learn Japanese. It’s a shame the last two volumes weren’t adapted because they contain some of the most beautiful moments.

I’m not too upset about not getting “answers” to the mysteries of this city and post-apocalyptic world. To me the series was more about seeing it through Chito and Yuri’s eyes, both of whom acknowledge that they aren’t equipped to ever really understand it. There was something surreal and calming about the experience. It was enough for me to get moments of humor, philosophy, and raw human emotion while looking at beautifully drawn fantastical cityscapes.

There were plenty of moments in the anime and the manga that left my eyes not-quite-dry. For some reason what really hit me was the Kettenkrad breaking down. It was probably Chito’s break from her typical stoicism that drove it home. Listening to the anime soundtrack while reading those last few chapters was beautiful and heart-wrenching.

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Wow this was a heart wrencher. I was listening to the new Julien Baker album while reading the
last three chapters and I cried a bunch. The scene where they talk about what they could have done differently was quite potent, it got me thinking about my life choices and how we always have to make decisions with limited information. The rocket chapter actually gave me a bit of hope, like the sun rising at the end of the manga, but sadly that did not materialize.

I’m glad I read this both as a learning exercise and as a work of art. Thanks to all the people that nominated, voted, read, asked, answered & discussed!

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This ending was beautiful and although it may feel anticlimactic at first, in the end I think it actually ended up as the ultimate closure for both of the characters. The series has always been hinting about the “when”, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the final chapter would come to this moment.

Ultimately I don’t feel that the ending was depressing for me, although the chapters building up to it were really sad and tough to read through, especially the moment when their bike broke. It instead warms my heart that until their last breath Yu and Chi were always able to find enjoyment in the simplest things in life we take for granted nowadays. It will definitely give myself food for thought for days.

This ending is a solid 9/10 for me. A beautiful manga to be the second manga that I’ve finished in Japanese :star_struck:

Thank you to the people who compiled the vocab list, couldn’t have finished this manga without it!

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I’ve been binge reading the series for the past few weeks, and I did not find the ending satisfactory…

I was expecting them to find some kind of remaining civilization at the uppermost layer. The chapter where the kettenkrad broke down was pretty emotional, but I couldn’t feel emotional reading the final chapter because my primary reaction was “wtf am I reading?”. It’s like, you came all this way and there’s still nothing here and what now? I didn’t conclude they were dead / going to die necessarily, but I suppose that’s the obvious assumption given their food situation. I don’t mind sad endings in general, but a sad (or ambiguous, but implied sad) ending here wasn’t satisfying. I would have preferred a hopeful (even if still ambiguous) ending.

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