DGFischer

A Place Further that the Universe ... happens to be Antarctica.  Not to be taken in any respect with sci fi genre.  It is rather cute girls doing stuff again.  While Antarctica is relatively around the corner compared to something cosmically close as Proxima Centauri, the premise is the impossibility of a journey that is taken by four girls to a civilian operated research facility in the general neighborhood of the South Pole.  This and the rewards of the dare taken.

The unique feature of A Place Further (grammar nerd moment:  shouldn't it be 'Farther'?) than the Universe is the main characters four girls, strangers to each other, who meld into a team of explorer wannabes.  Four girls of diverse personalities who learn friendships are made in the field, and it is sometimes the common-day friends who hold us back.  Chief of the four is Hinata, a schoolgirl who feels trapped in the routine of the academic life.  She wants out.  She wants different.  She wants adventure.  This will come from Shirase, a girl from her school (another class) who has saved a million yen to make her way to Antarctica.  Years before, Shirase's mother went off to Antarctica and disappeared, and Shirase wants to know what was that strange draw to that forsaken land.  Efforts to find some way to get transportation to the deep south is aided by Mari, a girl brimming with chutzpah to try the daring and outright crazy to get on the icebreaker heading for a civilian run expedition called Syowa Station.  This brings the three girls to number four, Yuzuki, whose blogging skills would be useful for the expedition ... except her friends deserted the cause.  Hinata, Shirase, and Mari enlist as the new friends to help Yuzuki give reports of the four-girl team headed for the frozen wasteland.

The adventure has its set of drawbacks as rough seas, seasickness, harsh weather, and erratic sub-zero temperatures.  Shirase learns of her mother's explorer spirit and her love of the frigid beauty of Antarctica.  The routine of running a base camp has its odd chores.  But the glory of the land is the aurora, something the girls nearly miss.

The project could perform perfectly with the flat animation technique; that, and an awful lot of white.  But the CGI scenes of transports on the move and the intricate waverings of the aurora were astonishing.  The plot moves slowly as escapades to find a place on the expedition team and the trip to Antarctica took over half the episodes.  But once the girls arrive, the tedium of actual work in the station and the journey inland into the blast of an intense blizzard are the highlights for the four explorer girls.

But the journey has charms to make the four girls with little else to build bonds to make for strong friendships which would all this over again.  Moments of the hum-drum meets the edge of adventure.  And in the end, adventure wins.  Ask Hinata's school-bound friend who tried to convince Hinata of the security of the daily grind.  Just let the adventure bug bite!

That's the theme of A Place Further that the Universe: one will have to work hard for that quest, but once you get it, enjoy!