A Place Further Than the Universe

Well, that episode hit close to home.

Wonderful episode, really. It's amazing how they've managed to make every episode be this good. If we keep this up, the finale might actually make me cry, and I'm a heartless bastard.

Also, it would seem the fandom aren't the only ones who ship Takako and Gin.

Now the real question becomes, how much more Shirase/Hinata material will we get by the end of the series?

To be honest, a return to the Shirase/Kimari material seems more likely for the final episodes. The b-team have had their focus episodes, and now we’re moving back to the main pair.

That is true, yeah. I do think Shirase and Hinata have a more entertaining dynamic shipwise, though; plus, Kimari/Yuzu is cute too. Not that Kimari and Shirase aren't, but.

I find it interesting that the manga adaptation makes Shirase the main pov character right from the start instead of Kimari. She also sends text messages to her mom, which I don't remember her doing in the anime…

Makes sense. Shirase is the central character, so I guess the manga just cuts out the middleman.

@Lyendith: There are a few shots of her starting a message to her mom after she... I think after she and Kimari are accepted on the expedition, or maybe after she meets Kimari? I think she deleted it in the anime though.

Episode 12 is out, and I'm gonna need a few minutes to get all this dust out of my eyes.

That last scene was excrutiating indeed… like we're forced to accept Takako's death along with Shirase… TT__TT

^It somehow gets even worse when you realize Takako was trying to recover the laptop, her point of communication with Shirase. She must have had a lapse of judgement, but that's all it took...

...Damn it, you made it worse.

That said....where’s the body?

Likely she never made it to the base; if she had she could have weathered the blizzard, at least for a bit.

That said, I was thinking the same thing. As much as it hurts to say, and as awful as it would be for Shirase... Takako has to be around there somewhere.

I... I need an episode 13. Because that last scene! I need something to decompress from that.

Good thing there is an episode thirteen coming next week then.

this episode cements this series as my Anime of the Year. And its set a VERY high bar for something to pass it.

Of couse Hero on Ice 3 will win all the awards next year from Crunchyroll, but this is MY anime of the year, and is in my top 10 anime of the decade.

score: 11 out of 10

I know there's one more episode left, but this episode definitely stuck the landing in regards to wrapping up Shirase's journey.

It was always a journey about Shirase seeking closure. It never really was a question of whether or not her mother was alive. You even realize that she always specifically worded her motive as wanting to find the place, not actually search to find if she's alive. And yeah, the email scene hit me like a fucking ton of bricks.

It's only the end of Winter and this is already a AOTY contender.

Fuck. Shit. Godammit.

Ugh. Gimme a moment here.

Yeah, no. That last scene made anime of the year for me. It might have crossed into my personal best list, even.

Fucking hell, only two other pieces of media have ever made me cry. Then this comes along...

Ok, calmer now. Not taking back any of what I said, but adding to it. Great job on this episode setting the tone. Right from the first scene you get tense knowing this is going to be heavy. And the quick setup of Takako going after something she forgot in the station, alongside the entire series showing Shirase's emails, was wonderfully written. Finally, props to the voice actress, she finished selling the entire thing.

Agh... I want to see that scene again, yet I really don't want to...

Gotta admit though, I got caught off-guard. I was expecting the big emotional climax of the season to be Shirase nearly ending up like Takako, but being stopped by the girls, maybe by trying to do what they ended up doing this episode or by going after her mother's body. In hindsight, this makes a lot more sense.

Also, all girls are best girl here. Running into the bunker to find a trace of Shirase's mom was the best show of friendship I've seen in a while.

edited 21st Mar '18 12:05:38 PM by TheLovecraftian

What the hell, you can't do something like that to my heart. I cried my eyes out with the girls at the end.

But yeah, wow a powerful episode. This series really sticked the landing. Shirase finally got the closure she was seeking all this time, and we along with her. That last scene was just powerful, The increasing email count and the endless row of "Dear mom...". I bursted into tears along with Shirase.

I can only mirror what everyone said - this is Anime of the Year material. The whole show has been on point and this episode has pushed it to an even greater height.

Status: Not okay.

edited 21st Mar '18 3:08:18 PM by Shlugo_the_great

It's a hard choice between this and Made in Abyss episode 13 on which anime episode made me cry the most. In Yorimoi 12, much like Shirase you don't know what to expect and then the truck hits you at the very end − or rather, slowly rolls you over. In MIA 13 you know the truck is gonna hit you and you can brace yourself for it, but you still end up in a mess.

For the ending, I'm guessing Gin will adopt Shirase as her stepdaughter for real.

I was hoping we'd have a Kanae episode at some point, but it seems a bit too late for that…

edited 21st Mar '18 3:12:08 PM by Lyendith

It's like.... we knew her mom is dead and so did Shirase, but she still needed some closure, but she was afraid that she won't find any even if she goes there, but she went anyway, and then they found her laptop and all those email and....

...So yeah, this episode hit me like a ton of bricks.

Dang, Yorimoi and Violet Evergarden are neck and neck in the category of "Best Feels-Inducing Anime" for this season. (Though I'm actually glad to enjoy both.)

Just in case any of us thought we were done being destroyed, by the way, someone pointed out something they noticed in episode 12:

There's one email sitting in Takako's Outbox.

Y’all may enjoy this.

Hmm... It's hard to get a character's voice down, especially when imagining how they would write, but it doesn't quite feel like Shirase. I like the concept though.

Too much cursing, I think. Shirase doesn't really curse over the course of the series. Still, it's a nice idea.