A few years ago I wrote a particularly well received essay on climate grief, natural disaster, and other confrontations with apocalypse. It traces many overlapping visions of apocalypse: the Everglades, iyashikei, 3/11, phosphate mining, red tide, Biomutant, and Yokohama Kaidashi KikĹŤ. Ahead of a new publication that feels like a thematic and emotional follow up, I wanted to reshare this essay from Bullet Points Monthly.
While not officially translated to English, widely circulated subs of the 1998 and 2002 OVAs established the works' popularity. It is in these OVAs—as Alpha rides 20th century modes of transportation on the ruins of public infrastructure, as both the natural space and the artificially feminine figure inhabiting it are represented as quietly, yet undeniably, sapphic—that I see my home state. The apocalypse, called only “The Age of Evening Calm,” is past. Humanity may continue to dwindle, but the disaster has stopped.