Review of A Place Further Than The Universe

I was hoping Sora yori mo Tooi Basho be an anime where cute girls wear ridiculously puffy winter coats against winter scenery, an adventure approached with the comfy manner. Instead this series focused too much on the serious side and contained loads of drama. Seriousness and drama aren't something I would mind. The problem is the believability. If there is a serious anime about teenage girls travelling to Antarctica, it should be taken seriously instead of half-assedly throwing in obstacles and factors that need to be taken into consideration before the trip. And suddenly at the very next scene we're looking at slice of lifesilliness and personal issues. This makes the series seem rather messy.

Same thing with the drama. When tragic past stories, betrayal and bullying are present, the motivations for the trip become rather questionable. Other than Hinata's natural ambition and Shirase's mom, the main reason for our trip seems to be escapism. This would be great if it wasn't so confusing due the drama and seriousness being half of the anime.

The other half is slice of life comedy. That's where this show shines at. Penguins are a running gag in the show. This is presented in an impressive manner to say the least. Some of the side character's especially Mari's mom create the most memorable comedic moments in the show. Yet, constantly when these moments are present and the characters are goofing around in comedy scenes, I find myself asking the question "so what about the trip to Antarctica? Is that still a thing?"

After the actual trip stars, the series goes for much worse. The following episodes contain at least one melodramatic crying scene each, often more. Along the melodrama, there is always a scene where character shouts their heart's content out loud just to make it seem like there is at least something still going on in the series. These scenes can be rather cringey and feel pointless.

I could have forgiven most of these things if I had found a way to respect the characters. Unfortunately the author made this very hard for me. I strongly dislike it when characters are used as a plot elements or puppets by the writer to compensate their lack of skill in creating substance and events that make sense. For example, in the very first episode, our main character loses 10 000 USD worth of cash. She just drops it. One could argue that this happens because of her characteristics or clumsiness, but it really doesn't. It happens because the author used her as a plot element to introduce the main characters to each others. The same thing is constantly done with melodrama. Instead of there being actual reasons for these characters to cry all the time, they just do so because it was the only way the author knew how to deliver feelings. Quite frankly, shallow content such as this one with zero emotional depth presented is not reaching my end.

*edited and re-submitted, originally with 120 votes
*the purpose of this review is not to claim that my views on this show are somehow "better" than someone else's, just to offer an alternative perspective among the all-positive praise