Review of A Place Further Than The Universe

A Place Further Than The Universe Of all the Slice of Life-based anime I've seen so far, this one is by far one of the best in its genre. And that although I would have expected a lot less. This anime made a chilling impression on me at the beginning, and that's only thanks to my experience. As soon as I see that we have 4 schoolgirls as protagonists, jumping happily in the picture and just fooling around in the opening. In the end, it boils down to the anime barely scratching the average. This is how most everyday stories begin which is about any 4 girlfriends.But this one shocked me with its unique implementation and its fascinatingly personable characters.

Almost everyone knows this feeling, you just want to make more of your life, overcome boundaries that seem insurmountable. Visiting places so far from home that you start to doubt. There are many people who take this leap, I am one of those who don't. Simply because of "doubts", regardless of the origin. And this topic is presented here in a very interesting way, by 4 school girls who want to visit the Antarctic, each for their own reasons.
According to the scheme "Just do it, don't let your dreams be dreams".

Of course, not only the end result is shown, but how the group comes together, their relationships, the drive of the group, the structure of the expedition, and the last 3 episodes deal with the end result of the trip, with some noteworthy dramatic elements. To be honest, I'm glad that the anime is so well-balanced. If the scenes in Antarctica had been stretched even longer, this could have damaged the atmosphere.

But not the plot that convinced me the most, this plot would only be of secondary importance if the "characters" couldn't carry the whole thing. And they did, and how !.
The naive protagonist, the multi-layered graceful hyperactive serious Tsundere. The quote-loving girl from Kwik E Markt. And practically the anime version of Ayaka (from Genshin Impact, with the same VA and almost an identical plot).
All 4 were bursting with sympathy. Not only through their natural behavior as characters, but through their natural and not forced friendship, but also dialogues and humor. There is simply nothing better than character-related humor. The fact that the author also knew how to write creative dialogues and scenes only made it better. Some also strongly reminded me of "Gintama" from the wonderfully ingenious structure of the jokes.

As expected, the animations were almost pure art. Both the backgrounds, as well as characters and movements, are all absolutely remarkable. Especially because of the colorful support.

My only negative aspect about the anime, besides the fact that it could have been a little longer, it wouldn't have hurt it. Would be the fact that the structure of the expedition was implemented questionably. As if the author had tried to avoid the bush. Since you only got the perspective of the story through the 4 characters, it is understandable why you learn so little. I would have been more interested in what was behind this expedition and how they got so far in the first place. Half-finished statements were received, but they were not worth mentioning. A little more structure would not have hurt. Even after arriving in Antarctica, most of the time it was felt with good drama. However, I would have loved to see more of her experiences there, apart from cooking. Since the anime is rather realistic, I can't ask for "sudden events". Therefore this is probably or beyond my personal wish. However, there was a lack of structure.

In the end, this anime is a masterpiece of HOW to get Slice of Life anime right. And very few really understand this, they think it is enough to insert "cute girls who talk about things and jump hyperactively and then it becomes a bomb", no. And this work provided a good template, I hope to see several Slice of Life-based titles in the future that come to a level similar to this one.

Story - 5
Art - 10
Sound - 6
Character - 8
Enjoyment - 10
Overall - 9