Well, if you want a quiet step, nothing could beat
"Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou" (or "Yokohama Shopping Trip
Log"). What is it? Well, I think I'll quote a
description I read in a forum:
>It's called "Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou." What's it
>about? It's about about gun-carrying robot girls who
>live in a post-apocalyptic future.
>There. I've managed to tell the absolute truth and yet
>completely lie to you at the same time.
>Because YKK takes the usual robot-girls-with-guns
>cliche and takes it in a completely different
>direction. I call it "Waiting for Godot --
>The Anime." If you're looking for exhilarating
>excitement and flying bullets, look elsewhere.
>
>YKK's pacing is... slow. Really... slow. How slow?
>Here'd be a good synopsis for one episode:
>"Alpha, the robot girl who runs Cafe Alpha, has no
>visitors to her shop today. Instead, she makes a
>single cup of coffee for herself.
>Distracted, she makes several mistakes doing so, and
>it is sunset before she finishes. She sips the coffee
>on the veranda, enjoying the sunset."
>
>And now, if you have any sense at all, you're asking,
>"How in the world can you watch THAT?" Well, add in
>some stunningly beautiful artwork, close loving
>relationships between Alpha's small circle of friends,
>subtle philosophical meanderings, and a gentle,
>slow-smouldering yuri romance, and... whoops, pardon
>me, I think I have something in my eye...
>
>
ykk.misago.org has the manga, and there's two
>OAV series, the latter not yet finished.
There isn't really much for Doug to do in this world:
I could see him gating into Cafe Alpha, staying there
for a while doing some handywork to pay for his keep,
and then leaving (maybe even using one of Alpha's songs
on the moonharp as a gate song). It would work a soul-
healing kind of step, as that world is totally devoid
of hatred, war and strife.
On the other hand, if he stays too long and delves too
deep, it might leave a bittersweet taste. That's
because after the never-specified-ecological-nuclear-
whatever-apocalypse, mankind is obviously going out
with a whimper, but either nobody notices or they seem
to think that it's not such a big deal anyway. Doug
would probably fell the obligation to do something
about it, but I doubt he could, given that the reasons
for this decline appear to be both ecological and
biological.
NN