I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

FAREWELL, ALPHA...

Hitoshi Ashinano's Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log a.k.a. Quiet Country Café), the manga about a kindler, gentler post-apocalyptic (technically post-catacylsmic) world, has come to an end with chapter 140 (N.B. press the left arrow to go to the next page, and the panels are read right to left).

Though it's hard to tell because of Alpha Hatsuseno's robotic eternal youth, this chapter, which was published in the February issue of Kodansha's Afternoon monthly, seems to take place several years in the future after the previous few chapters, which already seemed to be jumping ahead in the future a bit (with "Ojisan"'s ("uncle"), the elderly gas station owner, death some time before this chapter being hinted at in one of the panels). It seems that the human population of Japan, which was already severely diminished at the start of the series in 1994 due to some never quite specified meta-enviromental catastrophe, possibly something to do with Mount Fuji losing its cone, has diminished even further (which seems to be due to the birth rate having dropped to almost nothing, not because of any kind of plague), although the androids still make life for the few remaining humans bucolic and carefree by still distributing goods and providing services for as long as the humans are still around (and after the humans are all gone, the androids will be like the living memory of humanity, still carrying out a facsimile of human society, at least until their parts or batteries wear out).

Pretty much as I expected, virtually all the big mysteries of the series (such as the purpose of the androids and what happened to the world prior to the start of the series) remain unexplained, but as this series was only ever really about creating a serene atmosphere for the reader and the appreciation of the small joys in life, whatever the "big picture" is isn't really all that relevant. I like that Hitoshi Ashinano left the "big picture" answers to the imagination of the readers.

It's a not-overtly-melancholy-but-still-melancholy-but-happy ending to one of the greatest manga series ever created (and certainly the greatest manga series that will likely never be licensed by any American publishers due to most young manga readers not appreciating manga that move as slow as molasses).

For more information about this series, the Wikipedia entry is a good primer and the Blog of a Yokohama Shopping Trip is a nice reading companion (albeit one that focuses primarily on what turned out to be the final few chapters).

posted by Steve Brandon @ 7:59 PM