It’s a bit of a cliche, but I’m not sure what I just watched. That’s actually a good thing more or less – it means Apocalypse Hotel doesn’t come out of a cookie cutter. Anime does love its apocalypses, it’s true. And weird hotels in fantastical environments, and lonely robots waiting for humans that will never come. But the details here are quite strange. There are talking plants spewing spores, and the ED is full of tanuki. I could see this going in any number of directions but I’m not confident in any of them.

Superficially the premise is much more estimable, perhaps even with a whiff of YKK to it. Some sort of weird toxin called Infortinum is being spewed by plants, and in relatively short order makes Earth uninhabitable for humanity. The recently opened Ginzarou Hotel (which is actually the Seiko Department Store building) is, like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel, opening at the worst possible time. A few humans flee in space arcs and the rest, presumably, perish. That leaves the fancy Ginzarou with a staff of robots and no guests.

We’ve seen this model before, roughly speaking. Only two of the robots speak – Yachiyo, the “acting acting manager”, and the Doorman Robot. He overheats every time he opens the door and because there’s no coolant, Yachiyo has to douse him with water (which he dislikes). But since opening doors is what he does, Doorman can’t help himself. He tells Yachiyo that if he stopped opening doors for two hours, it would take him two years to get his groove back. Who knew. Meanwhile the rest of the robot staff diligently keeps the Ginzarou in fighting trim, even if it’s missing its monthly goal of 1440 stays by 1440.

There are some very funny bits here, like Yachiyo freaking when a shower hat goes missing (Doorman took it). The drilling robot, on-site at the planned hot spring location, finally breaks down and joins the pile of bots on “permanent leave” in the basement. How are the robots keeping themselves – and the hotel – powered up? No answers are forthcoming, but the situation certainly has pathos. It’s hard not to feel for these helpless creatures, so faithfully preparing for the return of a humanity that hasn’t been on Earth for over a hundred years. It’s an old hat premise for anime, but it works.

Then that ending, which I can’t explain (I did love Doorman Robot’s thumbs’ up). And that ED. I’m assuming we’re going to see some sort of alien guests, or perhaps some of Earth’s fauna have evolved to sentience somehow. What I do know is that Apocalypse Hotel has a really interesting look to it, especially the scenes of a Tokyo being reclaimed by the elements (yes, nature is healing). And that’s a good sign because CygamesPictures is also producing Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu, an adaptation I keenly care about. And art director Honda Kouhei, the real star of this show, is fulfilling that same role on Hikaru.

On the other hand… Who’s the most important person on an original series? Say it with me: “the writer”. Murakoshi Shigeru has nothing in his resume to make one believe he’s capable of sustaining a good original series (I don’t think Zombieland Saga has any legs, to be honest). So that’s definitely a concern. But Apocalypse Hotel undeniably looks really interesting, and it’s very smartly directed by rising star Shundo Kana. This could wind up being almost anything, but for now it certainly has my attention.