Train to the End Eps 4 + 5 Review - Bad Company
Written by Rei Caldombra 5/2/2024 Video version: https://youtu.be/SlLjnV1BGr4
Previous Train to the End Post- Train to the End Ep 2 and 3 Review/Analysis - Tracks and Mushrooms — Blog Under a Log
Back with the Gatan Goton gang for episodes 4 and 5. We focus on the girls dealing with a tiny military dictatorship ruled by a nerd in the process of fixing Akira, who gets her butt mushroom pulled out and goes baby mode. These two episodes also showed us that the gloves are off when it comes to absurdity and its dark themes.
At the beginning of episode 4, we see 2 uses of stars when describing the relationship between Shizuru and Youka. The flower and the star under which they promised to cheer each other on. Focusing on stars also fits with how much space imagery we have gotten, such as heavy showing in the opening and the environments they traveled through in episode 4.
The scenery we see in this episode is gorgeous. But we basically get two extremes from the areas they quickly go through. Absolutely beautiful and absolutely absurd.
So yeah the world is straight up crazy now, not just warped. And I am absolutely here for it, please don’t hold back. They certainly didn’t when the mushroom that came from Akira just randomly explodes like in silly cartoon style humor you’d see in Spongebob. This was hilarious and shocking, really raising the bar on what we can expect.
We get firm confirmation that the stations are genuinely further apart somehow, it takes more than 2-3 hours to go from one station to the next. Originally going the entire line would’ve taken around an hour and a half according to Navitime. And ok, so they brought up the train lines being bent, that is still a thing that the show acknowledges. But the morse code still goes through with no problem, even with them being days worth of distance away too. Maybe this is really a minor thing that is handwaved for convenience. But there may be another explanation that I had to go back to episode 1 to see. Shizuru mentions that there is some kind of energy that runs along the rails. Maybe this continues to flow despite the broken rails and that gets the morse code through.
On the note of the train, there’s also a little bit of tactile pleasure with this show because of the emphasis it puts on the manual operation of the train. This being sponsored by companies related to trains may be why this is here but it is not problematic in any way. I appreciate the detail of train operation on display.
The banter at the beginning of episode 5 about negotiating was really funny. There is lots of movie parody in this episode. Military movies in general, King Kong and other kaiju style movies, Gulliver's Travels. Speaking of references, sorry but I'm gonna be a Jojo stan for a second (minor Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4 spoiler). There’s no way it's a coincidence that not only do we have our characters be under a hail of bullets by living tiny soldiers that are compared to toys, but they specifically show the girls getting hit in the arm by helicopter missiles. I can’t help thinking it's a reference to the Bad Company fight.
Overall the conflict with the boss was very fast paced, but fun and engaging. For the type of show this is, the action was well done. The girls sneaking around as giants was fun. We got some really awesome and funny moments of them fighting back, especially Reimi going beast mode over her bracelet being broken. Gifts seem to mean a lot to Reimi, and it’s sweet that Akira is going to make her a new one.
Now let’s talk about the 7G incident, as we got a lot more info on it now from the professor. She worked on 7G, and called the phenomenon after the button was pressed the “7G Wave Brain Phenomenon”. And it’s not Brain Wave as I initially thought it was, she specifically says it in that order with those words in english. Basically what I was predicting seems pretty accurate, the way people think about themselves can change their physical body. Akira goes baby mode after her butt mushroom is pulled out. I think the reason why she started acting like an infant is because the part of herself she thought she lost is her independence and confidence. The others had to forcibly take the mushroom off of her to save her. She seems to be a person who thinks highly of herself and values independence, such as her not asking for help and hiding that she was being affected by a mushroom. She was not able to deal with it herself like she wanted to, so she probably took a hit to her confidence. That could explain why she is left with a mentality like a baby, a human that is at the peak of dependence. Perhaps her self image was shattered and this left her feeling so insecure that she thought of herself at the level of an infant. The fix for Akira was fitting for the characters and the tone of the show. I feel like most people at least once heard as a kid that you should eat paper that has what you want to learn written on it. Shoving Akira’s precious book down her throat felt right for their relationship. I won’t delve deep into that side of this as it’s pretty clear and focused on in the episodes, but their antagonistic but caring relationship is very sweet and fun to watch. Akira and Reimi are awesome but this is 3 episodes now out of 5 that we have been primarily focused on them, so hopefully we will get to Nadeshiko soon. We did get that quick moment of her making a bow, which is at least a nice taste of where her character may be going. I am interpreting this as her taking the danger they are in very seriously now. The perception idea also explains why putting the hat on Zenjiro helps him get back in his right mind. Having the hat on may help him remember who he is.
Whether the perception affecting the physical idea applies to the world itself like I mainly talked about is still up in the air, but this seems likely. I theorized before that a lot of the change seems to be the melding of things. This episode makes it seem very likely. Agana is way out in the countryside so it would have more animals and biodiversity. The area where the goat people attacked is one where the goats were famous. Each area seems to have people transform into what I assume their area is more known for. Maybe they transform into these objects because as citizens of that area, they feel like they have a connection to these objects. To the point that those objects are part of their identity. That may be the intended message of these, but it is hard to say for sure since we go through these areas so quickly. I have one more theorizing point concerning the 7G incident. The townsfolk saying that the town first grew then shrunk definitely lends credence to my theory that the 2nd button press is extremely important
So yeah we really are going full dark now, Zenjiro’s wibbly wobbly syndrome is from being power drilled through the forehead apparently. They’re going out of their way to make it not gorey, which I think is fine. That makes it digestible for a larger audience without compromising the dark themes. You don’t need to see the drill going in to get how brutal that is. Our seemingly main villain who headed the 7G event may be straight up evil. We saw him directly participating in the surgery, cheering it on in a silly way.
It is hard to say much about him now. From what we have seen of him he recklessly pursued 7G as a technology and was not afraid of the consequences. Here we see him also showing a severe lack of concern for the horrible thing he is doing. One natural assumption to be made is that directly being the cause of the world being messed up would have changed him. I think the opposite is true. I think this guy is just a caricature of an overly ambitious, sociopathic person who only cares about meeting whatever goal he has that would get him recognition. Considering the level of social parody we have gotten from this show already, which has included many western references, I think it’s likely he will fit into the “silicon valley tech bro” stereotype. His actions definitely fit it in my opinion. I’m sure he will have a little bit of pathos like we got from the boss, but not to the point of deep retrospection and redemption. We got a taste of what this show is building to, but I bet we won’t get much more until we get to Ikebukuro.
Let’s talk about our main baddie for this episode. While the show doesn’t go deep on it or anything, the town under his rule is clearly portraying military dictatorships and classism. And the problem is solved by outside forces lending aid to the lower class so they can liberate themselves. This is clearly portraying many historical events of this happening, and portraying the leaders of such countries as insecure losers who are willing to kill innocent people to get what they want. I don’t think the boss himself is all that important, of greater importance is how what he said affected Shizuru. Episode 4 brought up the relationship between Shizuru and Youka again, and episode 5 is delving more into it. When the boss talks about how he was told he was incapable of being a soldier, Shizuru gets flashbacks to moments between her and Youka, particularly that last moment between them on the bridge. Earlier we see that Youka and Shizuru both encouraged each other and said they’d be there for each other.
Now it is clear that I was wrong about my initial interpretation of their fight in the 1st episode, where I thought it happened after the 7G incident. It happens before and seems to be about Shizuru breaking their promise.
When Youka said she wanted to go to Ikebukuro to pursue some dream, perhaps Akira discouraged her. This made Youka feel betrayed, maybe saying Akira is a liar and only kind on the surface rather than being truly supportive. We’ll have to wait and see about how their relationship further develops.
That’s it for these two eps, please look forward to me covering the next two if you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
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