Anime

In the previous episode Kimari was so foolish to take off her face mask outside. This episode she learns that her friends will laugh at her for getting a ridiculous sunburn in Antarctica. (As will her family later.)

It’s almost New Year’s Eve and the Antarctica expedition has set up a live stream connection to Japan. During the test setup, three friends of Hinata show up, which she’s surprised about until she sees them on screen, after which she immediately covers the camera and claims a cramped leg, running away from the test. After the opening, we cut to an interlude with Gin and Kanae as they discus having the final piece of equipment needed to start working on the observatory Takako wanted to create and how dangerous the place is where they want to set it up, as that’s where Takako died. The next scene has the girls stamping new year’s card for their friends and family at home, but Hinata only has one for her manager at the convience store. When questioned about it, she ran off to the toilet, Shirase following here and discovering her outside, expressing her rage.

Throughout this episode it’ll be Shirase who keeps pressing Hinata, as she also did in episode 6, when Hinata had lost her passport and Shirase was adamant to reschedule all their flights. She keeps asking Hinata what’s wrong, keeps worrying about her, doesn’t let up until she knows what’s going on and insists on helping her once she knows what happened. It’s fitting that it’s Shirase who’s helping Hinata here, what with her somewhat blunt and plenty stubborn personality. Yuzu is too quiet and perhaps not socially clued enough for it and Kimari tends to accept people at face value, though as we saw last episode with Yuzu, she can be clueful when she wants to be.

Before we get into the meat of Hinata’s problems, a quick but important detour. Shirase plays mahjong with Kanae, Gin and another woman and wipes the floor with them, prompting Kanae to ask if she played it with her mother. When Shirase answers that she did, she mock despairs and says that they cannot win against the daughter of Gin and Takako. It’s only an offhand, joking remark, but combined with what we saw in episode nine it’s not hard to believe there’s a kernel of truth in this. Gin and Takako at the very least were best friends, might’ve been romantically engaged and Takako made a point of involving Gin with Shirase.

When a mail to Shirase comes through on the station’s general mail account, Shirase hears about it during the mahjong game and decides to read it and is caught doing so by Hinata and the others. Though feeling guilty for having done so, she still pressures Hinata into telling them what’s the matter, telling her she worried about her. So Hinata tells how she got ostracised at the track club for being selected for the big meet over the third years, how she quit the club but kept spreading rumours, which is why she dropped out of high school. That now the people who dropped her when she came under fire wanted to make up now she had gone to Antarctica.

The atmosphere among the four girls the next day is tense, as everybody is reflecting on Hinata’s story and feeling sad for her. Which in turn prompts her to call them out on it. Why do you think I went to Antarctica? Because there’s nothing here and all those problems mean nothing here, she says. This convinces Yuzu and Kimari, who are glad to forget about it if that’s what Hinata wants. Shirase though is not convinced. She knows better than the others how Hinata acts, prefering to keep up a brave face and forget about her worries, rather than having to burden other people with it.

Shirase confronts Hinata again in private, saying that she couldn’t stomach it, smiling to people who hurt her so, who suddenly wanted to apologise without acknowledging what they’d done. Hinata answers that she isn’t Shirase though. Though she says that Shirase’s insistence and pushiness is annoying, it’s clear that she’s touched by her friend’s devotion and anger for her. She thanks her for bringing her along to Antarctica and that her hands and support are enough for her.

And yet… Shirase still isn’t convinced. Just before the actual broadcast begins, she asks to speak to Hinata’s “friends” and starts laying into them for expecting Hinata to be upset and permanently damaged by her experiences, but that this wasn’t true, that every day she was taken a new step into a new life At first shocked, Kimari joins in, saying that now she was in Antarctica doing things they could never dream off and that she didn’t need them anymore.

As Hinata, slightly embarassed, tries to cut Shirase off, Yuzu is having now of it. “It’s fine! It’s friendship! A nice reminder of last episode and how much of a pure cinnamon roll she is. Shirase continues by stating that, unlike Hinata, she’s a real jerk and not afraid to let them know how unwelcome they are for hurting her friend. Everybody starts crying, seeing Shirase defending her friend so forcefully, but they’re mostly happy tears. It’s only fitting that after such a draining, emotional scene, the episode ends as the year ends and the four bash away their bad thoughts the traditional Japanese way, by hitting a drum can with a wooden beam:

The girls finally set foot on Antarctic soil, in time for Yuzu to learn an important lesson about friendship.

It only took them ten episodes, but now the hard work begins for real. The supplies have to be brought in, equipment to be refurbished, the base to be made liveable. And the girls have to do their share too. The good news is that they’re going to sleep in the “Lakeside Hotel” and they’ll have a room of their own each. Which comes as a relief to Shirase, Yuzu and Hinata, no longer having to share a room with Kimarin and her annoying habit of talking in her sleep. Something I can relate to, as I allegedly do so myself. They also get their first encounter with a real live penguin, which causes Shirase to flip out in excitement to the extend they have to physically restrain her. Through all this tomfoolery Yuzu has been a bit distant, the reason for which is soon revealed.

She’s gotten a text from her mother and agent that she’s been accepted for a part in a television drama, but worries that this means she won’t be able to hang out with the other three anymore. Hinata, ever the most practical of the girls, points out that they’ll be living separately again after the expedition returns home anyway. Yuzu protests and Kimarin tries to reassure her by stating they’re all best friends anyway. When Yuzu doubts this, Kimarin seems at the verge of crying until Hinata stops her. As Yuzu continues to wonder when they became best friends, when they weren’t when she first them, she becomes convinced it was when she was in Hokkaido and starts sulking about it.

As her friends talk her out of it and tell her they didn’t do anything without her, she wonders when they knew they were friends and why they never asked her to be theirs. Their friendship might be obvious to Hinata, Kimari and Shirase, but Yuzu needs more formal assurances. It makes sense. Before she first met the other three after all, she had never had had real friends, her one attempt in high school a failure. There had also been hints that she’s a bit more, eh logical than the others, less able perhaps to understand these sort of things without formal declarations.

In any case, it leaves her friends somewhat bewildered on how to handle her. When Hinata wonders if Yuzu was waiting for them to ask her, Shirase suggest just doing so, to which Hinata replies as above. But no fear, Kimari has a plan. If she’s up to it. In the meantime, they still have work to do, as Christmas approaches and preparations for the Christmas party are being made. Yuzu has some doubts about the importance of Christmas, but meeting a fan of hers at the base puts her at ease and she decides to take the role.

But she’s still anxious about her friendship with the other three girls, something that all their reassurances haven’t been able to assuage. Therefore she asks them for a favour, to sign a formal friendship contract so she can be at ease that they are friend. This time Kimari does start crying, running up to Yuzu and hugging her. Most people would know that something like a friendship contract is doomed to failure, so it says something about Yuzu that she thinks this could be a solution, something that goes beyond her isolation as a child idol. Rather, her seeming inability to read this sort of social clue. her anxiety about not having a message replied to immediately, it may be that she’s on the spectrum, is somewhat neuroatypical.

In any case, her friends care enough for her to prepare a surprise birthday party after the Christmas party has run its course, all organised by Kimari. It turns out that Yuzu’s birthday took place during that part of their trip they were all too busy puking their guts out. So they decided to celebrate it once they were in Antarctica and baked her a cake.

Seeing Yuzu tear up out of gratitude and talking about how this is the first time friends had actually celebrated her birthday made me choke a bit as well. She’s such a pure cinnamon bun and she deserves this happiness. Ultimately the efforts of Kimari, Shirase and Hinata are not in vain and Yuzu accepts they are really friends. In a lesser series this could’ve come over as sappy and trite, but the way Sora yori mo Tooi Basho does it is so well done because it comes straight from the characters themselves, isn’t forced on them and importantly, it’s done with humour.

When you and your late mother’s best friend share one true love together:

This episode again focuses on the relationship and history between Shirase and expedition captain Tōdō Gin, her mother’s best friend. We first met her during episode four’s training exercise, where it became clear these two shared a history, then later in episode seven she revealed Shirase’s mother wish for an Antarctic observatory and how the new expedition was going to lay the foundation for this. Gin and Shirase had a moment together, but there’s still a distance between them, which this episode will shorten, but not before the girls have to help this asshole:

To be fair to this asshole, he does function as the catalyst for Shirase and Gin to get closer to each other, as it turns out this asshole, Zaizen Toshio, is in love with the captain. Having heard that Shirase is supposedly a friend of Gin, he’s looking for her to help him confess to Gin. Hearing him out, the girls are less than enthusiastic about this and wonder if he knows how much out of his league she is. It does however give Hinata an idea to spice up the ratings for their Antarctica reports. If they include the love lives of the crew, people might be more interested. And who better to start with than with “the beautiful, smart, determined” expedition captain? If she gets a bit embarassed about the whole thing it’s a bonus.

At first the other three want Shirase to talk to Gin, but she protests that there’s a distance between them. When Kimarin brings up that they seemed to get along well when they were talking on deck in episode seven, Shirase is surprised that they were watching. Hinata counters: “why would you ever think we weren’t”? Which perfectly captures the relationship between those three, with Yuzu on the sideline this time. Gin’s best friend Kanae meanwhile is trying to convice her to talk to Shirase, making the exact same remark about that conversation. So it’s no surprise she helps the girls get their interview with Gin, though in the end it doesn’t help much. Rather, it’s another coincidental meeting between Gin and Shirase that helps them connect again.

Throughout the episode there are flashbacks to when Shirase was still a smol Shirase and her mother left her alone with Gin, which tended to be awkward unless penguins were involved somehow. For Shirase, Gin was just her mother’s friend, somebody she didn’t know well. Gin herself meanwhile had no idea how to handle children at all. And of course, once Gin returned from Antarctica and Shirase’s mother didn’t, when she as leader of the expdition was responsible for ending the search for her once it was clear it was hopeless, there wasn’t any time or opportunity for them to build up a bond.

Gin is right: Takako is trying to leave her alone with her daughter, to build that bond. The question is why she did that. Obviously she isn’t around to ask anymore, nor is the episode interested in spelling out her reasons, but it makes me wonder. We haven’t seen any other of Shirase’s family members save for the grandmother she lives with; her father is nowhere to be seen, if there is one. Takako seems to have raised her on her own. As seen in episode seven, she and Gin were high school friends, with Takako dragging Gin along on their Antarctica adventure. Takako and Gin were best friends, or perhaps something more than friends? Might Takako been hoping to start a family with the three of them, or have Gin be there as surrogate mother if something happened to her? And did she succeed?

As the other three girls and Kanae watch, Gin confronts Shirase with how she really feels about her. She still carries the guilt of leaving Takoko behind and wonders if Shirase blames her for it. Shirase denies that, arguing that her mother’s death was not Gin’s fault, that she did everything she could. As Gin presses her further, she breaks down saying she didn’t want to talk about it because she doesn’t know how she feels. All she knows is that her mother isn’t coming home.

Three years is a short time to have to come to terms with the death of your mother, but we hadn’t seen Shirase talk about how much it hurts to know she isn’t coming back yet. It’s been easy to forget that she must still be hurting, that she started this whole Antarctica obsession because she wanted to go to the place where her mother is. Her grief is still raw, but she doesn’t want to show it because she doesn’t know what to do with it.

For Gin too that grief must still be raw. Having your best friend losing herself in a blizzard, powerless to save her, hearing her last words on the radio and unable to reach her… Gin must be hurting as well, but like Shirase, she hides it most of the time behind her stoic, sensible exterior. It’s only in this moment that we see her true feelings, a moment that she keeps returning to. After her heart to heart with Shirase, once the ship is moored in the Antarctic ice, she finally gets a moment where she can break down and cry, only to be spotted by the asshole who set it all in motion, who realises he can’t do anything for her, thus ending his crush.

After all those deep felt emotions, it’s nice to end the episode with the confirmation that Shirase can still be incredibly petty, as she and the other three finally set foot on Antarctica, jumping on the ice together. Shirase seems to be having an emotional moment, the other three comfort her and then the mood is completely shattered as she starts an epic rant against all the people who mocked her for her dream to go to Antarctica. At first stunned, the other three join in, followed by the entire crew:

In your face!