Review of A Place Further Than The Universe

I had heard a lot of great things about Sora yori mo Tooi Basho, or A Place Further Than The Universe, but I found it substantially underwhelming. A Place Further Than The Universe is a comedy/slice of life anime with four high school girls as its main cast of characters, seeking to be included on an expedition to Antarctica. The comedy/slice of life genre depends on characters with strong characteristics and motivations but a lackluster beginning sets up the series for a messy journey. The characters themselves have issues as either their characteristics are inconsistent or their character arcs are completely unsatisfactory. Mari's character issimplistic and stale, and her journey is entirely controlled by Shirase. Shirase's character is all over the place, and, while her arc was disjointed yet strong, it makes me wonder why she wasn't the main focus of the anime. Hinata's character was strong but her journey was shoved aside in order to supplement Shirase's arc. The most satisfactory character in my opinion was Yuzuki. A strong motivation and powerful resolution made her episodes enjoyable.

In the end, a large reason as to why this series didn't work was because of a complete mess of a timeline and script. Episodes felt rigid and rushed as they sought to introduce a conflict and conclude with its resolution within a single episode. It felt as if they went through a checklist of plot points, solving each character's problems one at a time. Emotional character interactions often felt disingenuous, rushed, and awkward at times. The anime has no focus or successful overarching theme. The series had no sense of flow and jumped from moments of comedy, sadness, panic, fun, and happiness all too much. The anime didn't do a good enough job establishing its world and backstory, and also didn't do a good enough job of developing and fleshing out its characters.

Looking at its production on a more technical front, the series did some things right. There were some strong moments of animation and I especially liked the art style. Its ending track was exceptional and some of the soundtrack was phenomenal. Although, on the other hand, cinematography started off strong but quickly fell off. Sound design was typical and its sound mixing was questionable. Pacing and editing were pretty horrendous.

While I mostly only had negative things to say about this anime, there were some great moments in A Place Further Than The Universe. I think its premise had promise but the series' execution and plan were flawed. It tried desperately to be an emotional, easy-going, serious, and inspirational journey of friendship but ultimately failed in achieving those aspects to a reasonable degree. It honestly felt as if they wrote and produced each episode one at a time with no overall plan. It was a chore to watch this entire series and I honestly would have dropped this series halfway through if it weren't for my dedication to now writing proper reviews for all of the anime series I watch.