Yeah, there’s no mistaking it – this show has something really special about it. Some anime just have that little something extra, where you can really tell the staff is seriously committed to making an artistic statement. It seems to happen with originals (like Tsuritama and Kyousougiga) a lot. Again, Apocalypse Hotel was reportedly fully completed before the first episode aired, an indication that – for whatever reason – this production was treated well from the beginning. It’s highly encouraging as regards CygamesPictures, a relative unknown in anime but a studio starting to have the look of a significant player. With Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu in their hands, I hope the good vibes carry over.
I got a little of so many things I love in this episode. For starters, the tentacle couple was a star couple in every sense – they were Inoue Kazuhiko and Shintani Mayumi. Ponko has taught Yachiyo some alien linguistics, which she uses to converse with these guests – the first in some time. How long isn’t fully clear, but given the way she talked about how the tanuki family blew through the hotel bar’s stock and the fact that tanuki obviously age extremely slowly (space tanuki, anyway), it may have been a good long while. I also noted that Doorman Robot didn’t overheat this time (or later, when Ms. Tentacle came back) but there was no explanation forthcoming for that (could be subtle foreshadowing of global cooling).
Tentacles and tanuki power through the remaining booze (cocktails) in one evening’s blowout (which includes the official Ginzarou drinking chant and Mami telling Ponko she was the product of a drunken mistake), and that leaves the hotel dry. Ponko is an extremely enterprising little thing, and first suggests foraging elsewhere. That gets shot down, but she presents a bottle of single malt Scotch she found while cleaning. Yachiyo gently forbids its consumption, on the grounds that it was the owner’s bottle. She then relates a bit of history about said owner and his dreams, among which were building a big onsen for guests and creating his own single malt.
Intrigued and worn down by Ponko’s persistence, Yachiyo then suggests they make some new booze. This is possible, theoretically – all the raw materials exist, and the knowledge of the process is in Yachiyo’s memory. But as Owner-san said, working hard is no guarantee to getting good whisky. Good whisky is, in fact, extremely hard to make. It’s not art or science alone – it’s both. It’s craftsmanship and experience and terroir and climate and a hundred other things. And perhaps more than anything else, it’s patience.
Here’s the thing. It’s no exaggeration to say that whisk(e)y and anime are two of my absolute greatest passions in life. So to have an anime I’ve come to love geek out hard over whisky production is almost too much – a definite “my cup runneth over” development. I’m not going to sit here and write paragraph on paragraph on why I love whisky and on the romance of it – believe me, I could. But the episode gets the sense of it just right. It’s a mysterious and capricious process. You put that clear liquid on those oak casks and you wait, with no guarantee of what you’re going to get when they come out. The angels take their share, you wait, and you taste.
The gang have tasted the owner’s bottle of Highland 20 year-old as a roadmap – including Yachi-YO, who Ponko makes do so over her protestations. And this unlocks an “Easter Egg” protocol, which gives her fuller lips, bigger boobs, and a general sex appeal upgrade (which Environment Checker Robot will later notice immediately). But the first batch of barrel samples is just… okay. I did like that they used proper Glencairn glasses here – and the rest of the malting, mash, distillation, and aging details were spot-on. If I were to nitpick I’d say it’s a shame to see them drinking good single malt in tumblers, never mind with a cube. But that would be just that, nit-picking…
When ECR comes back from his trip to Okinawa (no explanation given here either), after he notes Yachiyo’s power-up he immediately tastes from the barrel himself. His problem? It’s unpeated and thus doesn’t scratch his itch. Peat is a chapter of whisky geekery all unto its own, and I don’t support the notion that whisky has to be peated to be memorable. But I love a good peater as much as anybody. Unfortunately the closest peat to be found is in Hokkaido, but ECR and Bumbaku hustle on up there and scare some up. Peat is burned, the malt is dried over a peat fire, and another batch of new make distilled and casked. Fifteen years later the thief goes back in the bung, and finally, Gingarou Distillery has something that can go in the bottle.
Whisky is perfectly suited for the lovely sense of melancholy that pervades Apocalypse Hotel. When Ms. Tentacle – now single – returns to the hotel, Yachiyo serves her some Gingarou 15-year and a story (in the manner of bartenders since time immemorial). Time takes something away from whisky, but adds even more. And the whisky journey never ends – it’s forever changing. All we can do is savor that difference, enjoy the change and fondly recall what was as we look forward to what will be. Given the context of this setting, that’s an especially poignant thought.
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