A Place Further Than the Universe

Episode 13

Well, here we are at last. It's time to say goodbye to A Place Further Than the Universe, so it's fitting that the characters spend this episode saying their farewells to their temporary Antarctic home. There are still a few final boxes to be checked, including sampling a taste of the local ice and getting perhaps a little too close to some penguins. Shirase also has her hair trimmed to match her mother's old style before giving a final speech in front of the expedition crew. The girls enjoy their first aurora sighting on the way out, Takako's laptop offers a long-lost message, and there's plenty of closure to be had all around.

You could certainly call this episode a victory lap for the series, but it also serves a necessary purpose. Things ended on a very emotional note last week, to such an extent that Shirase's character arc threatened to upstage the rest of the story. As important and compelling as the trip inland was, there's more to this series than just the search for Takako. This trip is a group effort for the main characters, and the show came into this week with plenty of storylines to wrap up. This farewell tour reinforces the idea that the journey to Antarctica has been an overall positive experience for the girls, and their personal reflections give us a better sense of how it's affected them.

The writing stays neatly on-message throughout the episode, sometimes to the point of repetition. The focus remains on how this expedition required everyone to work together, regardless of whatever emotional baggage they may have been carrying. This is stated most openly in Shirase's speech to the crew, but it's echoed in several other scenes. Mari's insistence that the girls return to the station together in the future speaks to the bonds they've developed, and comments from the crew's adult members create the impression that our heroines have been fully adopted as members of the team. Antarctica itself also gets a final chance to show off, with plenty of striking scenery to emphasize the unique nature of the place. It's clear that these experiences, which are special to this time and place, will be the bonds that hold this crew together.

There's room for individual growth amongst all that team building, and A Place Further Than the Universe is keen to show us not only how the characters have changed, but also how they've affected one another. We see Mari's newfound initiative in the way she makes plans to keep the quartet together, and Yuzuki finally seems at peace with the idea of being a celebrity as she gives out autographs. Hinata now has reliable friends to back up her reliably friendly personality, and she even gets to bask in the adoration of her old convenience store coworkers. Shirase's journey was covered in detail last week, but her new haircut and the conveniently timed message from Takako show us how she's beginning to move on after finally getting some closure. Perhaps most interesting, if a bit cheesy, is the news that Mari's old friend Megumi has set out on her own journey to the Arctic. It adds a new dimension to the journey by showing us how the main characters' actions have inspired other people to seek out their own adventures. Comparing that to Mari chickening out on her plan to cut class in episode one, you get a good sense of just how far these characters have come.

So while this episode doesn't reach the same dramatic heights as the one that came before, that was never its goal either. Its purpose as a finale is to help the cast and the audience put things into perspective. We're given a more concrete sense of what all these experiences mean in the grand scheme of things, and while that requires this episode to get pretty talky at times, it's not without its own emotional peaks. It brings the story to a satisfying close and invites us to relate to the cast one last time. From where I'm standing, that's quite a meaningful victory lap.

Taken as a whole, A Place Further Than the Universe has been a wonderful little series. After showing plenty of early potential, it kicked things into high gear around the mid-season mark and never looked back. The comedy helped endear the characters to the audience, and those connections were put to good use whenever things got serious. The writing did a good job of handling some raw and powerful emotions, and the direction complemented the story without upstaging it. The tone and themes were positive without glossing over anything or making life too easy for the cast, and we saw plenty of meaningful character development over the course of the season. This is a title that I'd recommend to just about anyone, and it's a good example of what an original anime production can do when it's allowed to tell a story from beginning to end.

Rating: A-

A Place Further Than the Universe is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.