It’s only fitting that Sora yori mo Tooi Basho would keep its most important event for the last episode:
That’s right, Shirase finally gets to spend quality time with penguins. Even if they stink. She deserves it, after all heavy emotional shit of episode twelve. In that respect the final episode is more of a victory lap than anything else. The series did what it set out to do and did it perfectly, everything what happens now is gravy. But of course as this is the final episode and the four have to go back to Japan, it’s also a bittersweet, melancholy farewell to Antarctica for them and for us.
The episode starts with Kimari and Hinata on day duty, in a montage of routine jobs that show how well the four of them have been integrated into the expedition. As the woman complains above, they were so cute when they first came over and now look at them. They’ve grown up, though in Shirase’s case she’s grown up to be an absolute demon of a mahjong player.
During one of their last outings, Kimari gets a bit melancholy and asks why they have to leave now, why they couldn’t stay over for the winter. In a normal anime this would be the conflict driving this episode, especially since we had Yuzu, Hinata and Shirase all confronting their own personal demons and overcoming them, so it’s only fair for Kimari to get her turn. But with Yorimoi it isn’t necessary, because Kimari in many ways is the most stable of the four, having already achieved her goal of making the most of her youth by going on the expedition. So here it only takes a finger flick of Hinata to set her straight again.
So instead we get a spot of baseball, without which seemingly no anime series is complete. And it’s the unstoppable pitcher Gin pitching to Shirase, daughter of Takako, the only person to have ever hit her throws. And of course Shirase manages as well. It’s a warming scene, another victory lap.
And then we get another haircut, as in the previous episode, but now it’s Shirase who gets hers cut, not by Kimari thank you very much. It’s of course very much symbolic of letting go of the past and the passions that drove her. And of course it reminds Gin of Takako, who had the same brilliant, dazzling smile as Shirase now sports.
Just in time for the official farewell party for our four high school girls and you’re not crying, they’re crying. But they’re happy tears and it’s a sentiment I very much share. The summer expedition was a success, as was the experiment to take the four on the trip, everybody has overcome their personal demons and even if they’d never meet up again they’ve forged a true friendship between the four of them. It’s a happy ending, their stories told, now they just need to get home.
As they leave, Shirase hands Gin her mother’s laptop, having no need for it herself. It’s a gesture that shows how much they’ve grown towards each other. When they prepare for a final broadcast aboard the ship taking them out from Antarctica, Shirase is back to her nervous, stiff self. Until Kimari looks up and sees the last thing they wanted to see. The aurora. Meanwhile, over at the expedition base, Gin looks at Takako’s mail and sees one message left in her outbox, a message from three years ago, and she sends it on to Shirase. It was the last time in the series that I felt the tears coming up again. It should’ve been corny, too on the nose, but the series has earned it.
Finally, after everybody has gone their own way, Kimari has gotten home, been welcomed by her family and texts Megu-chan, her best friend, who tried to break up with her in episode five. It’s then that the series plays it final troll, as Megu-chan reveals that she’s not there, but actually in the Arctic! A fitting end for a great, emotional series that was as funny as it was cathartic. Unlike Yuru Camp, there’s no need for a second series, as it told the story it wanted to tell, but boy would I love to see those characters again. Ten/ten, best anime of the season, if not the year.
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