Apocalypse Hotel made the bumpy road of its creation into a virtue, by confidently mixing different styles, viewpoints, and moods accumulated during its lengthy production process. The result is a capital-O Original anime that can excel at anything between outrageous comedy and contemplative nostalgia. Various lineages run through Apocalypse Hotel, some more broadly known than others. Different styles and the hands of their representative artists, companies with their own ways of doing things, and even individuals who are nowhere to be seen in the finished product yet still made a lasting impact.
Coordinating a successful original anime is complicated, so you’d ideally wish for a stable project where everything remains clear from the beginning to the end. While the team at Cygames had no shortage of members with sharp ideas and the willingness to stick with them, its creation was a bumpy road with some sharp turns. It certainly wasn’t the easiest path to success, and yet, it feels somehow appropriate for a series that’s all about mixing recognizable elements into an exciting, fresh cocktail—something the story echoes thematically.
The thread that most viewers would pull if they were asked why Apocalypse Hotel is the way it is would be the company behind its production: Cygames. In particular, they would likely associate the fact that it’s an original anime with some truly unique ideas with Cygames’ tradition of planning outrageous concepts like Bravern, Akiba Maid War, or Zombie Land Saga. Although it’s not quite the same as those, we can’t forget that much of their brand is built around Uma Musume to begin with; a franchise so successful that you can forget the premise of "real racing horse souls transmigrate into a universe where they’re humanoid girls and the most important thing in society" is kind of wild.
There is a good reason why the idea of an original Cygames anime evokes an image of eccentric fun in people’s minds. In this case, you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that their tendencies shaped the show's funky spirit. It’s inarguable that one of the ideologues behind the show as we know it is CygamesPictures president Nobuhiro Takenaka. And yet, it’s also true that he wasn’t even meant to participate in this project. As he mentioned in an interview for ITmedia NEWS, the project was initially a joint venture between another producer within Cygames and studio Liden Films CEO Tetsuro Satomi, as it was his studio that was due to animate the series.
By the time Takenaka joined, there was already concept art as well as a general idea of what they wanted to do. It was a pitch reminiscent of Fujiko Fujio’s 21 Emon—which already presented the idea of a futuristic hotel with robots and aliens—and some sort of post-apocalyptic setting. In his interview for Apocalypse Hotel Visual Works, Takenaka adds that Satomi had brought up the likes of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and WALL-E as references for the world. It’s worth noting that, at this point, it was planned for the anime to be a purely comedic, wacky slapstick. However, since the project wasn’t advancing smoothly, Satomi told Takenaka that it was fine to tinker with it as much as he saw fit… as long as the design work didn’t go to waste.
Given the opportunity to make an original anime, Takenaka saw it fit to broaden the scope some more. The producer reached out to series composer Shigeru Murakoshi around 2020, at which point they started reimagining the entire project. While you might assume that it was a professional writer like Murakoshi who came up with most ideas, Takenaka is credited with many key concepts from the series. It was him who pitched the idea of keeping a low number of characters who could speak human languages to maintain a sense of loneliness, and to give the robotic protagonist an unknown expansion function that’d help her grow from the seemingly rational robot we see at the beginning to her more human-like, chaotic behavior as events develop.
Although the ideas began to flow, the industry hit a virus-shaped wall. The pandemic had catastrophic effects, and unstable studios like Liden simply couldn’t find a way to get schedules to work. This threatened the project’s existence, and since he’d grown attached to it, Takenaka requested to transfer its production to his own CygamesPictures turf. Even though projects like this fit the parent company’s brand, the truth is that he was faced with criticism by a Cygames board of directors that wasn’t fond of investing in such an odd idea. And so, the producer took the issue to the next parent company, CyberAgent, where he found an ally in Manami Kabashima, who backed the project.
You may have noticed that there was an important element that preceded Takenaka’s arrival: a certain someone’s original designs. That person happens to be illustrator and mangaka Izumi Takemoto, whose participation dates back to earlier in 2020. His name has been cited by all the aforementioned producers as the most recurring aspect in the positive critical reception of the series within Japan. Takenaka goes as far as saying that he was key in assembling the team to begin with; veterans were delighted about the rare opportunity to draw Takemoto’s characters, while younger artists were drawn to someone whose style felt nostalgic but in no way outdated.
Yes, we’ve yet to talk about the director. While Apocalypse Hotel is Kana Shundo’s debut as series director, she was brought over when the outline for every episode had already been settled on. In an extensive feature for the series published in Animage, Takenaka admits that he reached out to her because they really needed a female perspective to balance out what was essentially a group of unruly high school boys. Shundo, who had been the assistant series director in the first season of Priconne, appeared to be the right person for the job. If you’re acquainted with Shundo’s career, that situation might feel nostalgic. After all, she began her career at studio Gainax in the late 2000s, where she met a small group of like-minded animators—the Chuo Line Anime Sisters, including Mai Yoneyama, Hiromi Taniguchi, and Natsuki Yokoyama—with whom she became very tight.
Regardless, the Shundo appointment couldn’t have been any more fitting. Although she joined at a late stage for a director, Shundo was instructed to approach all writing as if nothing had been finalized, enhancing the ideas already on the table. Takenaka describes her role as increasing the level of detail so that viewers can more easily buy into the world, also crediting her for the vivid depiction of the protagonist, Yachiyo. Shundo also introduced structural changes that brought everything together much more tightly, such as deciding that the catastrophe should be triggered by a virus to maintain an appealing contrast, and choosing Ginza as a location because it embodies the coexistence of tradition and cutting-edge developments.
Apart from storyboarding and directing the sequence, Shundo is also responsible for the entire concept behind the opening, envisioning Yachiyo dancing alone and requesting the song from Aiko. Multiple reasons prevent the series from coming across as too dark, despite the tragedy inherent in the premise. One is that comedy permeates Apocalypse Hotel on multiple levels, alongside the colorful post-apocalypse painted by art director Kouhei Honda. Honda’s interpretation of this vacated Earth was not a place ravaged by riots and disaster, but rather beautifully overgrown, bathed in gentle lights inspired by his work on Akiba Maid War.
The arrival of diverse alien visitors and unique creatures successfully detaches the story from anthropocentric storytelling. Decades, sometimes centuries, pass off-screen in the blink of an eye. Apocalypse Hotel observes the transient nature of things with a smile on its face, fueled by the belief that there will always be something growing afterwards. Even when ambitious attempts to combine different moods misfire—such as the mini-arc in episodes #07-08 tackling military expansion and modern Japanese politics—the series' magnetic confidence and jaw-dropping execution make the downsides a fair price to pay.
Ultimately, Apocalypse Hotel stands as a testament to creative resilience. It’s not ideal to have your original anime plans bounce all over the place, changing hands and teams entirely in the process. To the staff’s credit, they made the best out of those circumstances, retaining many fingerprints from Liden Films, Izumi Takemoto, and CygamesPictures alike. With a balance of acceptance and imagination, this crew was able to take in all sorts of styles and ideas, reformulating them into an anime like you’ve never seen before. If you haven’t watched the show yet, please book your stay at the Gingarou Hotel!
