Yama no Susume "Next Summit" Notes

← SEASON 3

I didn't have as much to write about this season since I was watching it weekly. I think once I binge rewatch it I should (maybe) have more to say, so consider this a tentative WIP, I guess.

S4E5

aninari's ED holy shit 😭🙏♥ the storytelling with it being the aftermath of mt fuji and the story with Aoi's mom getting in touch with her childhood friend after seeing Aoi/Hinata's closeness. so, so good... one of my favorite EDs, for sure, also bc he made this one look so much like fugo's sketches.

I feel like Norio's part is another sign of progress, both on Aoi & Hinata's part. It's probably no coincidence that this comes right after the recap of season 3, and that Hinata is shown letting Aoi try out for the mountain climbing club while still acknowledging that it's not for her, and also without blowing it out of proportion that she's abandoning her or something. (Although, she was waiting outside the school gate for a long time just for Aoi, lol...)

And as for Aoi, it definitely seems like a continuation of the fourth avan, with Aoi now more motivated than ever to get back to training for her revenge on Mt. Fuji. But seeing how gung-ho the club is about it, where that training is the only reason they're climbing isn't really Aoi's thing either; since the reason she's climbing is just to have fun and see the sights with her friends. Still though, it's an act of Aoi stepping out of her comfort zone and, as a result, making a new discovery of what mountain climbing means to her.

This is probably my favorite part of the episode, with the whole theme of the ep being taking things at your own pace and not comparing yourself to others. It was a good experience for her though, just as Aoi's mom said later, Aoi doesn't actually know her limits yet. Even her failure on Mt. Fuji wasn't a result of her hitting her limit, but her being naive and not preparing properly. Due to those circumstances, she didn't really have the opportunity to try her absolute best on a larger-scale climb. So I'm looking forward to more episodes of Aoi taking things at her own pace and slowly taking on larger and larger challenges. And there's no better way to do that than to tag along with the mountain-obssessed gremlin herself, Koharu! God, she was so good in this episode... The way she and her club want to constantly push themselves and always work at 100%, but understand that that's not what everyone goes mountain climbing for.

The way Koharu accepted Aoi's refusal and always kept the doors open for her to visit at any time was so- aaaaaaaaa 😭

S4E6

if season 3 was about intimacy & stagnation, i can only describe this season as if im gazing into a vast, new world. with these sweeping scenery shots of 3d backgrounds, everything just feels so much *bigger* than the last seasons; which makes a lot of sense with aoi becoming closer with all her other friends and as a result opening her up to all these new & different experiences. aoi's own world is expanding, so the depiction of the environments around her are bigger to match that

also, LOOK AT THIS HINATA AAAAAAAA,,,,, for the character designer of the show, you'd expect them to look like their normal designs, but his takes feel like the strongest deviation of them all. both aoi & hinata are so much more mature now, both with themselves and each other 😭

S4E7

Another big one! A double feature with Keiichiro Saito (SB/ED) & Toshiyuki Sato (AD) on the first half & China (SB/ED/AD/Script(!!!)) on the second.

Saito's part was great, it was really made by Sato's distinct takes on the designs, with the lighting and irotore lines at the sunrise scene being of particular importance when it comes to this episode's sense of looking-forwardness. The past seasons really took an emphasis on the past and our memories, especially the OVA, and the third season was more of a transition between it and this fourth season. Just as Hinata can't keep wallowing in the past and holding onto her role as Aoi's guardian, Aoi can't keep getting discouraged about her failure at Mt. Fuji if she wants to take it on again.

China went full-on ymd here, you can tell just from Aoi's leg shots the contrasting levels of familiarity she has between Kasumi and Hinata. When talking to Kasumi she timidly holds her legs and arms close to her body, but with Hinata she's immediately more relaxed and expressive. The way their text messages/phone calls are portrayed is also worth taking note of, which is done in great detail here. The realistic depiction of it with no bells-and-whistles when she talks with Kasumi, never even cutting away to show things from Kasumi's perspective, shows how distant Aoi feels from her. In immediate contrast (and I mean immediate with the way China seamlessly transitions between the two phone calls), the way her conversation with Hinata is depicted is taken with much more liberty, with how he cuts between the two scenes, and adds a bubble that Aoi pops up in. So much more fun and relaxed by contrast.

Also really fitting that the resident Yamada fan, China, was brought in to handle the part that showcases the remnants of Aoi's old self, where in the second half of this ep she still feels—maybe not uneasy anymore since China's ep in S3—but still unfamiliar around Kasumi. So when Kasumi invites her and Hinata out for their 初詣, one that involves hiking up a mountain, it's a perfect bonding opportunity where they can learn more about each other. And the subtly expressive nature of soty's animation is the perfect means to convey that, and China's direction is just as jam-packed with details that makes the scene that much more effective once you notice them.

China already placed an emphasis on a character's gaze before in the ep in Eri Taguchi's(?) scene at 0:19 here, where Aoi shifts her eyes as she feels nervous greeting Mio, before noticing the casual clothes she came dressed in, immediately contrasting against the hiking clothes that she wore. The same technique is utilized here, where Aoi turns her sight to Kasumi as she notices her struggling to keep up with the others, then determinedly looks down, resolving to speak up and offer her help:

Before she saw Kasumi as a goal to work towards, but now Aoi starts seeing the ways she could help her instead. The BG animation cut below illustrates this well, with the way Kasumi was rushing herself, trying to close the distance she felt between herself and how much better everyone else was—very similarly to a certain Aoi of the past. Aoi is then able to use the humble beginnings that used to hold her back, now as a lesson for change & a way to help others.

The second cut here uses a technique China used before in S3E2, where a close-up is paired up with a depth-of-field effect to make the shot feel dreamy with how you get lost in the character's expression, in the same way that the character themselves get caught up in their own emotions. All before the effect immediately fades away once another character snaps them out of it and brings them back to the real world.

These two cuts are contrasted by two cuts earlier in the scene, where their pace is unsynced, each step taken using the opposite foot the other character is using, and each sway of the body always in the opposite direction of the other. But now that Aoi worked up the courage to offer her advice, their steps are now completely synced up, now ready to step into the light of change together.

Really just an absolutely beautiful episode, as expected from China, it's jam packed with details like these I could spend hours talking about. I didn't even get into Kai Ikarashi's monster of a scene. Or aninari's incredible ED that serves as the perfect summation of Aoi & Kasumi's relationship. Or the way it started and ended with the same shots to really make the episode feel like a complete package, and a true celebration of everything that makes Yamasusu great.

S4E8

Not as sakuga-heavy, but still an incredibly impressive episode. Part A's ED, Chihaya Tanaka, goes into it here, that there were lots of layouts that weren't as flashy as the more lively cuts a la ikrs's scene last ep, but all the tricky layouts all throughout the ep shows how hard the staff worked on this one.

Also, it seems that, not only was part B's backgrounds molded by their location scouts, but the actual story was affected by it too. Even though they went on the trip on time, they encountered much less snow than they expected, just like the characters in this ep!

S4E9

I'm ashamed I didn't have anything to say about this episode, but for now I'll just point people to read some other people's good tweets here and here.

S4E12

the trip bringing the same worries as Aoi's last Fuji trip, not wanting to inconvenience the others by catching altitude sickness but Hinata's there to remind her to not worry so much about others, that this is her journey. So when she does start struggling later on, she's mindful not to fall into the same pitfall she did in the past, or Hinata did in S3's finale—she's honest and upfront about it with the others, and only pushes herself because she genuinely believes that she can handle it. Likewise, near the end of their climb, when people start passing her, she refuses to let that affect the pace she walks at—once again not comparing herself to others, just as she taught to Kasumi. All these things that encompass this whole season, or even the whole series, leading up to the moment we've been waiting 8 whole years for. The upgraded art direction just made that payoff that much more impactful—the scenery that Aoi wasn't able to see last time, being a tangible achievement that proves how much Aoi has grown over the last year. That theme of progress made all the stronger by Aoi writing that letter to her future self, where she'll have surely improved even more than she has now. Her past self appearing behind her, and her future self appearing ahead of her was just... so poetic and so fitting for what this season was for Aoi—and Mt. Fuji has been the perfect stage for that. I would love to see the show continue, but everyone who sees this as an appropriate end (even more than the past seasons, all of which also seemed pretty appropriate) definitely has a point. 8 years of buildup is no small thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if that payoff were used as an actual sendoff for the series.

← SEASON 3