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A chaotic stay at a post-apocalyptic hotel run by silly hotelier robots — extraterrestrial experiences filled with shit, giant worms, murderers, and hot springs?
Story - 8.3/10 Bear with me, this series is hard to pitch. Its strength lies not in individual ideas but in how smoothly it weaves them together, and in its pure chaos. So trying to speak on each individual thing that made it great was a hard task, when the beauty comes from harmony, not from the concepts on their own. I apologize if this review reads as repetitive or underwhelming.'Apocalypse Hotel’ is a one-off original series from Studio Cygames, a studio with some really amazing shows this year under their name, home to the ‘Uma Musume’ franchise, as well as producing 'The Summer Hikaru Died' this year. Once I realized it was a Cygames original, I knew to expect great animation, solid storytelling, and stunning character design. This series has a brilliant premise and is an absolute blast to watch each week. I love post-apocalyptic shows, and this one does not disappoint.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world hundreds of years after humanity’s departure. It follows highly intelligent robots and extraterrestrials who run an abandoned hotel, where every guest matters. It is quite an episodic series, a lot of the moments feel really random but fun. No episode fails to make you smile. From the core cast to the briefest extras, every character feels unique and hilarious. from the amazing main cast, to the episodic characters with low implications, every single one feels unique and comedic. A world filled with beauty and an animation style and quality to push this to higher levels. This series has some amazing comedy and creative direction for the whole runtime. This makes it a dark horse of Spring 2025, and maybe of the entire year. we'll have to wait and see.
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This series shines brightest in its character interactions, along with the whole hotel setting and the weird extraterrestrial customs. This whole dynamic brings the best out of this show, and the more I watched, and went through the arcs, I realized it excels in its episodic setup... random jokes, bizarre scenarios, and unbridled chaos, rather than an overarching plots. And I'm saying that as this show does follow a base narrative even for it's episodic structure a narrative that is overshadowed most of the time, making for what I find the best in this series, but there is a specific arc, that shines a light on this base, an arc that, I felt was the most detached from what made this show so good. Fortunately, this does not linger for long, but, it does give you the exact validation you need to realize just how great the episodic structure is for this series.
When it comes to speaking about the actual episodes on their own, it's actually quite a hard thing to do. A lot of this series are character interactions and hotel management, which on their own don't sound like much fun, but when you put everything together you get some of the funnies moments. This show is gloriously chaotic... frequent time skips, absurd gags, evolving inside jokes, and even dramatic moments.
I honestly had almost no complaints about this series, outside of the more story based moments that felt somewhat serious, which took from the charm of the show, as well as the fact that I'm not the biggest episodic anime enjoyer, but this series still managed to entertain me a lot, and even changed my view on this space in the anime industry.
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Characters - 9.5/10 The characters are the main factor for this series success. Its protagonist, Yachiyo the hotelier robot, feels remarkably human despite her mechanical nature She is a serious character, but has many quirks that add some heavy comedic value. Her achievement system is a fantastic gimmick, yielding hilarious moments, and fits her perfectionism in the decayed world. The rest of the cast is compiled by either the group of working hotel robots, having the likes of the Doorman Robot which was a great character in the early moments of the series, to falling into becoming just someone you would look for later on inside the chaos. It is characters like this that make for such an amazing experience, those who get their time, and then add value in the background later.Then we have the tanuki family. A group of extraterrestrials that came on earth, and stayed with the hotel for a whole lot of years. It is genuinely hard to keep track of years in this series, as the amount of time skips are insane, yet they never feel like too much. In this family we have one very important character, Ponko, one of the lives of this series, and one of the greatest characters in the series, she is such a fun and energetic presence throughout the series, we experience her whole life due to time skips, and it's amazing. From her being a child and supporting Yachiyo as a part-timer at the hotel, to her growing up, running the hotel for a while, finding love, marrying, to having a kid, to her child becoming a part-time hotelier? it’s absurd how perfectly this comes full circle, yet it is so good, and makes for such a great experience when watching.
#####On the other hand we have the extraterrestrials that come on earth to stay at the hotel. Be that the early ones that don't even know what a hotel is and make for some really funny starting interactions, or be that the ones that are at the hotel when it becomes popular and the spot to be at. All these characters are strictly episodic, appearing for at most two episodes, but when I say they are extremely unique and the creativity behind the interactions as well as the backgrounds and their design are amazing, I totally mean it. I don't think I've seen a series put so much attention into character designs in a long time, I feel like a lot of alien designs this years are really generic and overused, so seeing the amount of unique takes in this series was such a fresh experience, mind you, there are tens of original designs in this series, some purely background, yet each receives meticulous design attention, I just find it amazing.
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Visuals - 9.7/10 Visually, this series boasts a stunning and unique style, vibrant and teeming with life. The world building design in the post-apocalyptic world is just as amazing, character designs too, but I mentioned that enough already. Amazing scenery, great fluid animation, funny expressions, amazing action sequences. This show has it all. There are some moments, especially towards the end that feel serene, from the incredible vegetation, environment and lighting. We can also see CGI use, and it is seamless, such great use of CGI, it's not overly used but when it is you can tell it's done well. 
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Closing Notes In the end, I feel like 'Apocalypse Hotel' is a really impressive show of creative direction, comedy that comes from chaos, a story filled with random moments and silly situations that just make you laugh and be invested for the whole time. A series that is worthy of praise, for how harmoniously it manages to combine so many foreign concepts into one. Making the whole show feel alive, without throwing anything off balance. A series where removing any single element would diminish its impact. I really do feel that the character interactions in this series make for some of the funniest moments I've seen in the comedy genre. Enjoyment Level - 9.3/10 Favorite Character - Ponko Favorite Episode - Episode 10 ‘Clean Sheets Symbolize Pure Hearts’
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