Still, having seen this theme a number of times --- apparently used railway lines under water, which seems quite unsafe --- I can't help wondering what it represents...
My take on this artistic trend is all the abandoned local lines across the country. A symptom of "Demographic transition" as it is called which has hit Japan especially hard the past decade or so. Schools closing due to lack of students, towns dying, abandoned stations, and abandoned train lines. Not to mention dialects being lost to posterity.
Pretty much how I imagined it as well. An absolute collapse following the "incident". So much so that her mother chose to allow her to change schools. Hiho never would have been allowed to transfer to Ooarai without parental consent after all.
FYI, it would be helpful to mention what said tag is. That being said, I have obviously looked and noticed the change. Good catch. But there is a better way to go about that.
This happened to me when I saw the GUP movie at the AEON Cinema Minatomirai in Yokohama a few years back. I had absolutely no idea what 4DX was... All a sudden the seat started to move, air shot by my head out the headrest as the tanks started to shoot. IT WAS NOT COOL WITHOUT WARNING. Scared the bejesus out of me.
