It seems that the weirdness can be explained.
Summary:
- Train to the End of the World finally explains some things about the story.
- Apparently, 7G can rewrite reality.
- This has spawned some fan theories.
Among Spring 2024 anime, Train to the End of the World (Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku?) is definitely the most unusual. The premise itself is crazy: 7G (it’s like 5G, but better) twists the world, turning most people into animals.
As such, fans have been making theories about what is actually happening in the show. A group of girls taking a train to seemingly meet their friends. The scenery and things outside the train get progressively weirder and weirder.
Thankfully, in Episode 4, some things have become clearer — but that just started spawning more and more theories.
The Anime Is Incredibly Weird
The anime starts with a bizarre scene where 7G gets introduced as a new revolutionary technology. It quickly shows how dangerous it truly is by turning the world into an imitation of an abstractionist painting — and after that, the anime essentially belongs to the post-apocalyptic genre.
As the girls take the train to Ikebukuro, they encounter weirder and weirder stops. We get things like human-goat hybrids, miniature people (yes, this seems to be a Gulliver reference), parasitic mushrooms and whatnot. The anime doesn’t hold back at showing how weird the world has become, but there seems to be a reason for that.
What Happened in the Latest Episode?
In Episode 4, we get a flashback between Youka and Shizuru. Youka is the girl who was selected to flip the 7G switch in the very first scene, and Shizuru is one of the protagonists.
What’s interesting is that all these weird things the girls encounter on their journey are something Shizuru and Youka discussed during their school years.
The prevalent theory among fans is that when Youka flipped the switch, most of the world got rewritten with the girl’s subconsciousness in mind. As such, pretty much everything we’ve seen so far comes from the fantasies of the characters themselves.
While the anime is yet to actually explain more, it’s a good theory — and it was basically confirmed in the latest episode that 7G rewrites reality, and it does so according to people’s thoughts. It’s not explained how exactly it does that, though.
Still, the anime is intriguing, and having more information on what’s actually happening definitely helps. Fans are eagerly awaiting the next episode, though it seems that the anime might face some production issues soon: when it started airing, Episode 4 wasn’t even finished.