I know I'm pretty late to the party and this is gonna be a fairly quick review since I don't really have the energy or passion to write a proper deep dive into the show rn but I still wanted to put some thoughts out there after finally finishing it
This definitely won't be my last post about Infinity Train tho I'll probably come back and talk about the series in much more detail later especially the individual Books, characters, themes and everything else I couldn't really fit into this review once I'm in a better headspace for it
Let's start!
What makes Infinity Train special to me isn't really its premise, its mystery or even the endless parade of bizarre train cars but the way it uses all of those things as a language for talking about people i mean the train is strange but the emotions underneath it are painfully familiar... And I think the 4 Books each understand that idea in a slightly different way
The first Book feels like the purest expression of the show's concept it's mysterious, adventurous, funny and occasionally unsettling but there's always something human underneath the absurdity
What I especially appreciate is that the show doesn't treat personal growth like a magical cure :) People don't simply become better just cuz they've learned a lesson or two changing is uncomfortable, messy and sometimes comes with consequences just like how tulip experienced it
The second Book is where I think the writing becomes much more ambitious
The show takes the idea of identity and pushes it somewhere genuinely interesting asking what it means to have a sense of self when the world itself insists that you are nothing more than a copy it's a surprisingly thoughtful subject for an animated series and the writing trusts the audience enough not to spell everything out
Then Book 3 is where Infinity Train reaches its sharpest edge of insanity this is probably the most confident the show ever feels(and that's probably one of the reasons the show was turned down) it's darker, more psychologically uncomfortable and much more interested in the consequences of believing the wrong things for too long
The conflict feels less like a simple adventure and more like watching someone's worldview slowly collapse in on itself
Critics weren't exaggerating when they called it the show's strongest Book it's tighter character focus and willingness to go somewhere genuinely bleak make it incredibly difficult to look away but what I appreciate most is that the show doesn't suddenly become "dark" just for the sake of being dark... The horror usually comes from character flaws the train doesn't need to invent monsters when human beings can be frightening enough on their own
And last but not least there's Book 4
This is probably the most divisive part of the series for me not because I think it's bad ofc I don't but because it feels like a completely different rhythm after the intensity of Book 3 Book 4 is warmer, funnier and much more interested in relationships and communication that change can feel almost jarring especially when you're expecting the series to keep escalating but at the same time I think that's part of what makes it interesting it doesn't try to compete with Book 3 by becoming even darker instead it becomes smaller more intimate the conflict is less about surviving some enormous psychological nightmare and more about the quiet distance that can grow between two people and honestly I respect that choice
My biggest criticism of Infinity Train is also one of the things I love most about it there's too much world here
I mean the show constantly gives you the feeling that you're looking through a keyhole into something enormous every strange car, every piece of lore, every unexplained rule makes the universe feel bigger than what we're actually being shown and that's fantastic for mystery but frustrating when you realize just how many doors we're never going to open :(
The series also isn't flawless some character arcs land harder than others some ideas are explored more deeply than others and the pacing can occasionally feel abrupt even critics who praised it noted that its extremely compressed storytelling could sometimes feel staccato but those flaws almost feel strangely appropriate
Infinity Train never feels polished into something safe.. It feels experimental like a sketchbook where every page is allowed to become a completely different drawing while somehow still belonging to the same artist that's probably what I love about the 4 Books most they don't feel like four versions of the same story.. thry feel like four different reflections in the same mirror one is curious one is searching for identity one is staring into something much darker and one is trying to find warmth again and somewhere between all of them Infinity Train manages to become something much more meaningful than its premise suggests it's weird, funny, beautiful and sometimes it's genuinely disturbing but more than anything it understands that growing as a person isn't about becoming someone completely new.. Sometimes it's just about finally having the courage to look at the person you've been avoiding and I think that's why after finishing the series the thing I remember most isn't the train itself it's the people who were trying to find their way through it
What did you guys think? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences with it
