(Discussed further in Episode 6 of the podcast I am in, Digitized Desperadoes. Here's a link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtJpcsp7zY )

Before I watched A Place Further than the Universe, I assumed it was another wholesome and substanceless slice-of-life CGDCT anime, like Yuru Camp, in the same season. After it aired, it gained massive popularity on online communities like Reddit’s /r/anime and the MyAnimeList ratings/forums. During that time, I endured a barrage of posts of praise of this show. And so, delving into it, what did I think? Did the hype hold up? Was it worth it?

Simply put, no. This show deserved next to none of the hype, and I am completely underwhelmed at every single aspect of it. Nothing stands out, at all. It’s an incredibly generic tale of people with a dream, attempting to achieve that dream, and succeeding. It takes no risks and it executes every single trope imaginable, all played straight with no subversion. All of the storytelling and concepts are laced with moe archetypes and pathos-filled scraps of narrative.

To me, I would compare it to a “feel-good” movie, like those of the American Hallmark Channel. It hits every beat of plot structure, establishes conflicts, resolves them, and, boom- catharsis. It’s all so formulaic and predictable. Here’s an example- one might say the main character is raven-haired maiden Shirase, the daughter of a woman who explored and penned a novel on the Antarctic, before dying on an expedition. Her entire character is that she wants to go to Antarctica to resolve her lingering grief over her mother’s death. That’s… it. Her entire arc is based around her mother and, occasionally, one of the other members of the expedition. You learn no more about her life, nothing about her father, nothing about what her mother did beyond write a book and die in Antarctica. Her beginning, middle, and end is defined by her mother and no one else. The viewer does not see her become her own person, she does not make any noticeable growth out of her attachment.

And I think that’s the failure of this story for me. The characters are patently uninteresting and filled to the brim with moe cliches. One character is a hyper-intelligent savant who dropped out of high school. Her flaw? She’s kind of clumsy, and oh no, she has issues with people being nice to her! How cute! That’ll sell those blu-rays. One character is a fairly popular idol-type girl who has no friends. Her character is that she doesn’t get how friendship works. And that’s all kinds of problematic- they clearly portray her loneliness as something like a disease, that can only be cured by lots of warm hugs and karaoke. They ignore the mental hangups involved with being a loner, they ignore how this could be construed as abuse from her mother who forced her into becoming a young actress. They romanticize her loneliness, turn it into something awkward and adorable rather than potentially crippling. I hesitate to do this, but look at Oregairu or WataMote. Those loners create intricate personal fantasies about why they’re a loner or how they do or do not deserve it. That, as someone with few friends growing up, is the realistic aspect. But no, don’t worry, that lonely girl will totally have perfect mental health if you just pat her head and tell her you’re her friend. No trust issues, no depression. It’s fine.

There’s nothing wrong with the premise. It’s definitely fascinating to watch an actual Antarctic expedition- these kinds of things are fully out of the public eye, deemed uninteresting due to the complicated logistics required. The information provided in the anime seems realistic, for the most part, and I appreciate that some level of research went into it. The execution, however, is where it all fails.

Loneliness and dreaming are both heavily romanticized in this anime. Shirase is problematic for yet another reason. Her dream is seen as strange among her peers, not surprising for the community-over-individual leanings of Asian society. But the story continues to build her up as someone we should all respect, learn from, and emulate, without even thinking. The show’s point of view protagonist is inspired by her, and decides to take a rash trip to Antarctica just because she thought it sounded kind of interesting, and she was bored. This is a harmful way of thinking, and I believe it’s a fantasy to the point of being absurd. Shirase is just as much misguided in her dream as the others are for following her.

The idea of dreams as something that “can’t wait for you” is just hilarious. Dreams are an aspect that grow and evolve with our own mindsets and society. They are a culmination of our aspirations and our desires, the road to our ideal self, and hopefully, our ideal world. They’re abstract and incredibly hard to actually achieve, otherwise, they devolve into a glorified to-do list. You don’t need friends to accomplish your dreams. You don’t need absurd amounts of money. You don’t need a company of like-minded individuals. You don’t need to suffer. You don’t need to defeat your demons. It’s your dream. Make it on your own terms, on your own time, even if it takes you 100 years.

That’s not to say the morals in this show are bad, by any stretch of the imagination. There are a few nice and hopeful quotes from certain emotional moments that I agreed with. Specifically, I like some of the musings on perspective, on how we are all living our lives and no one else’s, despite it all running simultaneously. That’s a very mature thing to think of, and it helps to remind oneself that we’re not the only person. It’s mentioned once, and that’s all you need. I don’t need to hear about grabbing your youth by the balls five hundred times in one anime. I don’t need any more flashbacks to your mom dying or you hesitating. Just keep it simple, and don’t relentlessly force your ideals into your viewer. If they get it, cool, if they don’t, that’s just how art works.

One of my more serious and citable problems with the show is the sheer inconsistency of tone, or rather, that some of the scenes and settings do not work in the defined narrative. The narrative is a coming-of-age, inspirational tale of some high schoolers doing something very difficult in pursuit of joy, accomplishment, and release. So why is half of it dedicated to awful gags and… “cute girls doing cute things?” Sure, I can stand that your mom is very very dead for long enough, but I don’t want to see you stammer on camera for the millionth time or cry because you don’t get how human interaction works. Oh, don’t you want to see some adorable and #relatable anime girls say that durian is gross but eat it anyway? It reeks of moe culture and marketing. There are even a few scenes that try to push a moral, despite being nonsensical gag scenes that really have no bearing on the actual story!

You know what, this story would’ve been a great one-off movie. Cut the stupid gags, cut the incessant flashbacks, cut the girls… “doing cute things.” Just keep the real story, keep the expedition stuff, and sure, keep the dead mom. It would make a decent feel-good inspirational story a la the Hallmark Channel. Maybe even cut some of the non-stop crying, screaming, and insert songs with sad piano backing because it makes you feel the emotions.

No real comments on the animation. It’s nothing special. They ham up the facial expressions and body language, but that’s because… that’s the whole thing. It’s never distracting in a good or bad way. It’s just functional. The music is standard piano/wind instrument emotional fluff that you’d expect from a sad commercial or conflict in a rom-com.

It’s bland, it’s disappointing, it’s full of senseless moeblobs with incredibly trope-filled and uninspired writing. I wouldn't call it terrible, but I definitely do not recommend this anime. 4/10.