“Getting along with despair”: finding healing within the post-apocalypse

This paper focuses on the manga-turned-anime, Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou , to analyze the potential for the hybrid genre of post-apocalyptic iyashi-kei to transcend the neoliberal ideologies that tend to characterize each genre respectively. Iyashi-kei, translated to mean ‘healing’, is a category of self-care that prioritizes control over one’s ambiance to help individuals regulate the psychosomatic self. In observing how these qualities manifest in post-apocalyptic television, I argue that iyashi-kei healing leverages the post-apocalyptic genre to embrace the potentials of queer failure and aligning the self with the Other, while simultaneously rejecting repro-futurism.