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"Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou spoilers"

Erm... Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log, or Yokohama Shopping Travelogue in some translations; official English title Quiet Country Caf�), by Hitoshi Ashinano, is one of those series that is fairly impossible to spoil, seeing as very little in terms of big events actually ever happens in it and it's a series all about atmosphere and feelings and relationships (in the Max Fischer "That's all I meant by "relationship". You want me to grab a dictionary?" not-neccesarily-romantic sense of the word, for those of you whom have seen Rushmore).

Alpha finds something slightly unusual and draws some conclusion about the nature of the world around her, or merely decides not to take the water from that special spot. There, I just spoiled about half the manga stories for you. It's a series that is almost 100% about the little things in life people treasure, including the beauty of nature... not exactly spoiler material. The series is sedate to the point wherein even the slightest conflict between the characters, like Maruko thinking Alpha's life in the country is so easy for an android that it's a bit demeaning for androids like Maruko whom work harder in the city.

Well, if you're looking for the biggest spoiler of the series, namely what exactly happened to the world inside and outside of Japan and why has most of the population been eradicated... it's never revealed, though there are some hints like Mount Fuji without its cone, indicating a massive eruption of some sort. And the androids may have originally meant to have been anthropomorphized "automatic pilots", for aircraft and boats, but they were made much more versatile and humanlike than that, maybe as a way to preserve the best aspects of humanity should the human species ever go extinct? Well, it's a series that leaves only a few hints but doesn't spoonfeed anything about the background of the world to the reader/viewer, leaving a whole lot open for interpretation and "filling in the blanks" with your own theories.

Anyhow, like always, I don't want to give any links, but try looking for Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou somewhere, if you're feeling lucky, if you catch my drift.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 12:43 AM