This is totally out there even for me. Another review that *isn't* about a new/recent novel? Sorry about that. I've just finished Michael R. Miller's The Dragon's Blade: The Last Guardian, so that should be coming this week. Please hold onto your butts until then.
Usually I don't write Anime reviews, though admittedly, I did post a review of that painfully mediocre Final Fantasy XV movie here before. However, despite Anime being pretty disconnected from my usual review content, and this one certainly not being dark, serious matter, I just *have* to write this post.
Because A Place Further Than the Universe, or originally Sora yori mo Tooi Basho, is the best Anime I've watched in years. Week after week for its 13 episode run this past Winter Anime season, I was looking forward to it. Every episode brimmed with energy and passion to the point where it got admittedly tough to hold back tears at various points - not necessarily because of sad scenes, but out of sheer joy.
From the overall plotline of the show over graphics and sound design and the actors' deliveries, everything felt so spot on, it drew me in to the degree few shows manage to. I adored every step of the way. As such, I cannot, will not keep myself from recommending this Anime to anybody who would listen.
Usually I don't write Anime reviews, though admittedly, I did post a review of that painfully mediocre Final Fantasy XV movie here before. However, despite Anime being pretty disconnected from my usual review content, and this one certainly not being dark, serious matter, I just *have* to write this post.
Because A Place Further Than the Universe, or originally Sora yori mo Tooi Basho, is the best Anime I've watched in years. Week after week for its 13 episode run this past Winter Anime season, I was looking forward to it. Every episode brimmed with energy and passion to the point where it got admittedly tough to hold back tears at various points - not necessarily because of sad scenes, but out of sheer joy.
From the overall plotline of the show over graphics and sound design and the actors' deliveries, everything felt so spot on, it drew me in to the degree few shows manage to. I adored every step of the way. As such, I cannot, will not keep myself from recommending this Anime to anybody who would listen.
The Story:
"Filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder for the world around her, Mari Tamaki has always dreamt of what lies beyond the reaches of the universe. However, despite harboring such large aspirations on the inside, her fear of the unknown and anxiety over her own possible limitations have always held her back from chasing them. But now, in her second year of high school, Mari is more determined than ever to not let any more of her youth go to waste. Still, her fear continues to prevent her from taking that ambitious step forward—that is, until she has a chance encounter with a girl who has grand dreams of her own.
Spurred by her mother's disappearance, Shirase Kobuchizawa has been working hard to fund her trip to Antarctica. Despite facing doubt and ridicule from virtually everyone, Shirase is determined to embark on this expedition to search for her mother in a place further than the universe itself. Inspired by Shirase's resolve, Mari jumps at the chance to join her. Soon, their efforts attract the attention of the bubbly Hinata Miyake, who is eager to stand out, and Yuzuki Shiraishi, a polite girl from a high class background. Together, they set sail toward the frozen south.
Sora yori mo Tooi Basho follows the captivating journey of four spirited girls, all in search of something great."
Spurred by her mother's disappearance, Shirase Kobuchizawa has been working hard to fund her trip to Antarctica. Despite facing doubt and ridicule from virtually everyone, Shirase is determined to embark on this expedition to search for her mother in a place further than the universe itself. Inspired by Shirase's resolve, Mari jumps at the chance to join her. Soon, their efforts attract the attention of the bubbly Hinata Miyake, who is eager to stand out, and Yuzuki Shiraishi, a polite girl from a high class background. Together, they set sail toward the frozen south.
Sora yori mo Tooi Basho follows the captivating journey of four spirited girls, all in search of something great."
The Review:
A Place Further Than the Universe is, at its core, a coming of age story of adventure, friendship and plenty of emotion. It is unique in so far as that it takes the journey to Antarctica, which should be the most unlikely place for a couple of teenage girls to end up. It is a story about overcoming obstacles, making opportunities happen by sheer perserverance and forming unlikely bonds.
In a sense, it is a series about overcoming not just obvious hurdles of logistics, but also the barriers in one's own mindset, breaking out of monotony and making dreams happen. While many shows, especially Anime, regurgitate the Follow Your Dreams(tm) mantra over and over, this one handles the matter in authentic ways, with hard effort and courage more so than deus ex machinae or mindbogglingly silly fantasy solutions. As a result, the series manages to feel refreshingly honest and relatable. The struggles are heartfelt and play on the audience's capacity for empathy more often than not.
Of course, all of it is packaged in a hugely entertaining way, with a cast that just clicks so well, I found myself laughing out loud a lot at their antics. In many ways I consider the cast of Kimari, Shirase, Hinata and Yuzuki to be perfect as far as character dynamics go. They strike a perfect balance between goofy and serious determination and competence.
While they are all strangers at the outset of the series, they quickly grow to learn one another's quirks and habits, and wonderfully play off one another's oddities. From Kimari's airheaded enjoyment of her newfound life of adventure, to Shirase going bonkers whenever spotting a penguin, real or not, to Hinata making of pseudo-philosophical quotes and Yuzu's general social awkwardness, the quartet, to me, form an idealized friendship of the kind I believe everybody would wish for. Their friendship is the core of their journey to the Antarctic.
I am not joking when I say that this series made me weep multiple times throughout. There are obvious tearjerkers towards the end, which the series builds up to very neatly, but even just random moments of overflowing energy had me on the brim with just how well executed they were. Not just the delivery of dialogue, but also the visual accompaniment, "camerawork", sound cues and insert songs running in the background. There is so much life here, it almost seems crazy for a show about going to the coldest, most devoid of life place on the planet.
Speaking of the locations, I was truly impressed by their presentation as well. A lot of research went into getting them just right not just on the matter of visuals but also overall feel for the environment. From the obvious starting point of Japan, with school life and what not, over to Australia and down across the ocean and into the harsh ice, I think A Place Further Than the Universe managed to take the audience to these places in a way few other shows do. We are party to the girls' journey and every step of the way feels significant and evocative. It is a true masterpiece in getting the viewer to commit to the journey and, in the end, this will be as close to Antarctica as we are likely to get in our lifetimes.
That this was an Anime Original production with no novel or manga basis amazes me, but is also part of the reason why this show excelled the way it did. There are no missed beats, no moments where the viewer will feel like they're missing out on something between scenes, between lines, that was elaborated on more in the original work. SHAFT's movie trilogy adaptation of Nisioisin's Kizumonogatari for example had so much content and character stripped from it, that I absolutely hated the results. Every time a series gets adapted into an anime, you can be certain that people will be complaining about x or y being cut for time and pacing reasons (sometimes to a degree that even Hollywood novel adaptations don't often see). With A Place Further Than the Universe, the pacing is on point in every single episode. Everything is sketched out well and belongs right where it is, with the animation choices, camera angles and visual effects underlining things. There is not a single scene I thought didn't need to be in there, and by the end I felt the series achieved all it set out to and, honestly, didn't need to go any further just to pad things. On top of that, every episode deals with its own set of problems and usually resolves them in a satisfying fashion while opening the door for the next stop on the trip. I have nothing but respect for the production team and director for making such a polished, well-put show.
However, while my recommendation is admittedly glowing and universal, I will stress here that I do not think this series should be watched dubbed, if it ever gets dubbed to begin with. The voice actors' performances across the board are brilliant and half of what makes this series work. Even with supposedly increasing dub quality by English publishers, I have little faith that they will be able to maintain this level of quality. Even if you don't understand a word spoken by the cast, the emotions their voices deliver are palpable, audible, even to the untrained ear. They go hand in hand with their expressions and the general mood of every single scene, above and beyond what I've seen in any Anime dub to date. The voices of Hanazawa Kana, Minase Inori, Iguchi Yuka and Hayami Saori are integral to the experience. Though I will admit that I dearly hope for a German publisher to license it for a dubbed Bluray release over here, so I can force my family to watch the thing...
Thankfully, the entire series is available on demand via Crunchyroll with various subtitle languages, so whether you are a native English speaker, German, Spanish, French, Italian or Russian, you'll be able to enjoy this series entirely subtitled, and even for free (in 480p) or with a Crunchyroll subscription. I'm not going to sell you on one of those, but I will say that this anime looks glorious in Full HD, which you get with the subscription (or a Free Trial, go for it).
To put my own gushing into wider context, some stats:
On Crunchyroll alone, the series scored 5 star ratings across the board for each episode, at well over a thousand ratings each. The entire series stands at 5 stars with about a hundred votes cast, and only 7 stray voters (5 of which rated it with 4 stars). On MyAnimeList, the great aggregator, the weighted score sits at 8.64/10, with around 25,000 votes, and just made its way up out of the 100+ range onto the #61 ranked position on the entire site, which is bound to go further up as more people finish watching the finale over the coming days.
While I don't intend to go all ad populum here, I think it worthwhile to point out that the overwhelming majority of people watching this show adored it, despite many having initial misgivings about following a "moe" show, as they tend to be quite bland and pointless, if entertaining. This one is still entertaining, but anything but bland and pointless, thankfully.
On top of that, the entire first episode appears to be available on Youtube, in HD, on Crunchyroll's Youtube Channel, so you're free to dive right in and decide for yourself if you enjoy the tone of the show. I'll embed the video below for your benefit.
All this said, I truly believe that A Place Further Than the Universe is currently the strongest contender for Anime of the Year (though admittedly, we're only a quarter into the year with four more seasonal blocks still to come). This show has left me so completely satisfied with it, that I had no hesitation at all to rate it a perfect 10/10 and call it a Masterpiece of the genre. I hope you'll find at least some sense of the same appreciation for it as I did, should you choose to give it a chance.
In a sense, it is a series about overcoming not just obvious hurdles of logistics, but also the barriers in one's own mindset, breaking out of monotony and making dreams happen. While many shows, especially Anime, regurgitate the Follow Your Dreams(tm) mantra over and over, this one handles the matter in authentic ways, with hard effort and courage more so than deus ex machinae or mindbogglingly silly fantasy solutions. As a result, the series manages to feel refreshingly honest and relatable. The struggles are heartfelt and play on the audience's capacity for empathy more often than not.
Of course, all of it is packaged in a hugely entertaining way, with a cast that just clicks so well, I found myself laughing out loud a lot at their antics. In many ways I consider the cast of Kimari, Shirase, Hinata and Yuzuki to be perfect as far as character dynamics go. They strike a perfect balance between goofy and serious determination and competence.
While they are all strangers at the outset of the series, they quickly grow to learn one another's quirks and habits, and wonderfully play off one another's oddities. From Kimari's airheaded enjoyment of her newfound life of adventure, to Shirase going bonkers whenever spotting a penguin, real or not, to Hinata making of pseudo-philosophical quotes and Yuzu's general social awkwardness, the quartet, to me, form an idealized friendship of the kind I believe everybody would wish for. Their friendship is the core of their journey to the Antarctic.
I am not joking when I say that this series made me weep multiple times throughout. There are obvious tearjerkers towards the end, which the series builds up to very neatly, but even just random moments of overflowing energy had me on the brim with just how well executed they were. Not just the delivery of dialogue, but also the visual accompaniment, "camerawork", sound cues and insert songs running in the background. There is so much life here, it almost seems crazy for a show about going to the coldest, most devoid of life place on the planet.
Speaking of the locations, I was truly impressed by their presentation as well. A lot of research went into getting them just right not just on the matter of visuals but also overall feel for the environment. From the obvious starting point of Japan, with school life and what not, over to Australia and down across the ocean and into the harsh ice, I think A Place Further Than the Universe managed to take the audience to these places in a way few other shows do. We are party to the girls' journey and every step of the way feels significant and evocative. It is a true masterpiece in getting the viewer to commit to the journey and, in the end, this will be as close to Antarctica as we are likely to get in our lifetimes.
However, while my recommendation is admittedly glowing and universal, I will stress here that I do not think this series should be watched dubbed, if it ever gets dubbed to begin with. The voice actors' performances across the board are brilliant and half of what makes this series work. Even with supposedly increasing dub quality by English publishers, I have little faith that they will be able to maintain this level of quality. Even if you don't understand a word spoken by the cast, the emotions their voices deliver are palpable, audible, even to the untrained ear. They go hand in hand with their expressions and the general mood of every single scene, above and beyond what I've seen in any Anime dub to date. The voices of Hanazawa Kana, Minase Inori, Iguchi Yuka and Hayami Saori are integral to the experience. Though I will admit that I dearly hope for a German publisher to license it for a dubbed Bluray release over here, so I can force my family to watch the thing...
Thankfully, the entire series is available on demand via Crunchyroll with various subtitle languages, so whether you are a native English speaker, German, Spanish, French, Italian or Russian, you'll be able to enjoy this series entirely subtitled, and even for free (in 480p) or with a Crunchyroll subscription. I'm not going to sell you on one of those, but I will say that this anime looks glorious in Full HD, which you get with the subscription (or a Free Trial, go for it).
To put my own gushing into wider context, some stats:
On Crunchyroll alone, the series scored 5 star ratings across the board for each episode, at well over a thousand ratings each. The entire series stands at 5 stars with about a hundred votes cast, and only 7 stray voters (5 of which rated it with 4 stars). On MyAnimeList, the great aggregator, the weighted score sits at 8.64/10, with around 25,000 votes, and just made its way up out of the 100+ range onto the #61 ranked position on the entire site, which is bound to go further up as more people finish watching the finale over the coming days.
While I don't intend to go all ad populum here, I think it worthwhile to point out that the overwhelming majority of people watching this show adored it, despite many having initial misgivings about following a "moe" show, as they tend to be quite bland and pointless, if entertaining. This one is still entertaining, but anything but bland and pointless, thankfully.
On top of that, the entire first episode appears to be available on Youtube, in HD, on Crunchyroll's Youtube Channel, so you're free to dive right in and decide for yourself if you enjoy the tone of the show. I'll embed the video below for your benefit.
All this said, I truly believe that A Place Further Than the Universe is currently the strongest contender for Anime of the Year (though admittedly, we're only a quarter into the year with four more seasonal blocks still to come). This show has left me so completely satisfied with it, that I had no hesitation at all to rate it a perfect 10/10 and call it a Masterpiece of the genre. I hope you'll find at least some sense of the same appreciation for it as I did, should you choose to give it a chance.
DarkChaplain is a big nerd who spends too much time reading and thinking about books, organizing them on his ever-growing shelves, and yet increases his backlog by the month. DC is also an avid Gamer and owns more PC games than he'll ever be able to play. He is certainly spoiled for choice!
The Reading Lamp
Follow Me on Twitter @TheDarkChaplain
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