(Today, friends, MiniPrimes—my daughter—has another review for us, this time of the entire season of A Place Further Than the Universe!)
A Place Further Than the Universe ended only a few weeks ago, in my mind too soon. To someone who hasn’t watched it, it’s just another one of those stories about normal ordinary high school girls. Except I don’t think there’s a TV Trope for normal, ordinary high school girls going to Antarctica. Also, if you think about it, it’s all something that could very well happen in real life. But somehow that very element is worked into the story to make it better and even more vivid.
There’s also worked into the story a mixture of comedy, seriousness, and half-tragedy, all fitted into 12 episodes with none of them infringing on or spoiling the others! Quite apart from the story-line, the studio that did the art was very talented and the landscapes look like detailed up-to-date photos.
Working together with your friends and overcoming obstacles with your team are also shown as very important and Shirase says so near the end. And though she never made her “catchy, witty and sensational report,” I do think she made a very good speech. Though it might have been easier since by then she knew everybody there, at least it was certainly better than when she introduced herself.
Shirase’s life and background story are I think what interested me the most, from her losing her mother in Antarctica to her finally accepting the fact that her mother was really dead. The last in particular made me realize how hard it might be to realize someone you loved was dead especially if you had no definite or exact proof. One scene in particular interested me, the one where Shirase’s looking at Takako’s computer. Because even then I couldn’t help thinking that maybe Takako had left it behind and then tried to go back for it. Which would then make the laptop in a sense Takako’s bane.
One other thing I liked was the relationship between Mari and Megumi. It’s a relatively common trope to have two friends and then one of them for some reason wants to break up the friendship even though the other wants to preserve it. Except Megumi accepted (though somewhat indirectly) Mari’s offer of continuing the friendship and even responded to her texts!
It’s also neat to see Yuki trying to balance friendship with her public popularity. At first she makes rather a mess of it, trying to compromise with ‘friendship contracts.’ But in the end I think it was the experience of having real friends for the first time (or to put it plainly the power of friendship) that enabled her to find the right balance. And in the end I think she found it worked better than friendship contracts.
The last thing I want to say is that it’s so good I have no idea how anyone came up with it. And I also love the face expressions.
Note from MiniPrimes: Whoever did the plot succeeded in making a “catchy, witty and sensational” story.