#Yama no Susume: Next Summit

[s-lycopersicum]

Yama no Susume: Next Summit (2022)

 ⋄ Episode 04 — 3rd Season: Fall (Ending)

[anime-of-the-day]

Anime of the day: Yama no Susume: Next Summit

Alt title: Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit

Released: 2022

Aoi is eager to start climbing again. She finds the perfect opportunity through Koharu, a member of the mountaineering club. The mountaineering club competes in various competitions; because of this, Aoi is reluctant to join. She likes going at her own pace, and she fears holding them back. However, her friends wont let her give up to easily, so they start their training to summit Mt. Fuji once more.

[brightersoul2]

Yama no Susume: Next Summit Episode 10

[ekyanimehd]

Watch Yama no Susume: Next Summit Episode 10 online or download the full episode and the rest of the series in HD.

[tomonohebi]

[sihasbi-kun]

Happy birthday Hinata Kuraue 🎂🥳

[lefemmerougewriter]

It's a crime that more people haven't written fics for this series on AO3 (more than half of those currently there are mature in some way)! I definitely plan to write some for this fandom soon, as I've almost finished watching season 3. I watched Next Summit (which is sort of a fourth season, but also sort of a revival in a sense) a while ago, but I only started watching the first three seasons recently.

The fact that Hikari Onozuka (a college student who works at Aoi at the cake store), and the owner of that store, tease Aoi about having a boyfriend, I really want to do a fic where she reveals that she is now dating Hinata Kuraue lol. The other couple which would be interesting to do a fic with would be Kaede Saitō and Yuuka Sasahara... Anyway, it would be fun to do a fic with this slice-of-life series, which falls into the cute girls doing cute things/mountaineering.

[maryeont]

man, this was one of the most beautiful anime

[my-anime-goods]

Yama no Susume: Next Summit (Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit) - Pop Up Shop in Marui featuring goods with new illustrations from 4 August 2023.

[tetrix-anime]

Megami Magazine January 2023 Issue (#272) - Yama no Susume: Next Summit

[s-lycopersicum]

[musicinanime]

Omoi Nochi Hare - Yuka Iguchi & Kana Asumi

Anime: Yama no Susume: Next Summit

[brightersoul2]

Yama no Susume Next Summit Episode 11

[ekyanimehd]

Watch Yama no Susume: Next Summit Episode 12 online or download the full episode and the rest of the series in HD.

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Yama no Susume Next Summit

There’s an argument to be made that Yama no Susume is the most underrated anime of all time. Maybe not outright number one, but it’s certainly up there. The fact that it started as a series of three-minute shorts and never climbed above twelve minutes per episode, coupled with the lack of legal streaming options, means so few people have gotten a chance to check out- or even know about- one of the best goddamn cute girls shows on the market. Not only does it do a great job you on mountain climbing as a hobby, in all its intricacies and charms, it uses that extensive hobby knowledge to weave a genuinely wonderful story about personal growth and struggle through the specifics of undergoing such a strenuous, difficult activity. Watching Aoi Yukimura grow out of her shell as she dives deeper and deeper into mountain climbing is, no bullshit, some of the most believable, natural, and human coming-of-age drama I’ve seen in this medium, never mind her absolutely adorable back-and-forth with longtime friend (and future wife) Hinata Kuraue. Like K-On before it and Yuru Camp after it, Yama no Susume is a standard bearer for just how good CGDCT shows can be at communicating the whimsy and magic of ordinary life.

And now, after so many years, we finally have a season 4! And not just any season 4; this time, we’re getting full-length 24-minute episodes! And a simulcast on a readily available streaming service! With the same director and so many of the same staff members returning! At long last, Yama no Susume has been plucked from obscurity! Finally, the whole world will get a chance to experience one of anime’s most underappreciated masterpieces!

So why am I left feeling so unsatisfied?

Look, this review really hurts to write. I’m a Yama no Susume stan through and through, I will take every opportunity I can to sing this show’s praises. I wanted nothing more than to come out of season 4 gushing about how wonderful it was to see this show continue its winning streak. But I have to be honest with me feelings, and my feelings are that Yama no Susume: Next Summit  was a letdown. Not a bad show by any means, but an inferior sequel that fails to capture so much of the spark that made those first 3 seasons so special. Just to make sure I wasn’t nostalgia-blinded, I went back and watched a random episode from season 2 to revisit the old show with fresh eyes, and let me tell you, the difference was night and day. There was something magical about this show, something that has not fully carried through into its most recent installment. And while there’s still a pretty good cute girls anime left once you trip that special something away, it’s not until the final episode that it reaches the same heights that past seasons reached on a regular basis.

So what changed? What was that special something that no longer exists, or at least doesn’t exist nearly as much? The obvious Big Problem to point at is the fact that this season wastes its first four episodes recapping the past three seasons, so we only really have eight episodes of new material. And yes, that’s definitely a huge, completely unnecessary issue that threatens to derail everything before it even gets going. Especially since studio 8it wastes so much time and resources re-animating all your favorite moments from YamaSusu’s past that the production is very noticeably stretched thin throughout the remainder of the actual new stuff. It reminds me a lot of RWBY Ice Queendom, where it wastes its best animation just recapping past glories to get newcomers up to speed and then struggles to keep up the momentum for the story it supposedly exists to tell in the first place. And much like in Ice Queendom, the recapped events are so condensed, with so much of their critical connective tissue removed, that it fails to do justice to just how damn excellent the storytelling in the first three seasons were. I can’t imagine anyone watching these first four episodes and crying over Aoi’s failure to climb Mt. Fuji, or Aoi and Hinata’s reconciliation on a mountaintop after a falling-out, or any of the truly wonderful moments that made me fall in love with this show when I first watched it.

So you’re left with a reader’s digest of past events that were done better elsewhere and a new story that lacks the production quality to do justice to its own big moments in the same way. And unfortunately, it doesn’t help that I’m not the biggest fan of the new aesthetic this season is going for. Look, superimposing anime girls onto stylized photo-realistic backdrops works for some cute girls shows- Yuru Camp, Bocchi the Rock just this season- but YamaSusu’s visual strength has always been tied to its gorgeous background art and how well it portrays the lush wonder of the wilderness without being so detailed that the more simplistic character designs get lost in it. There’s a clear sense of identity to how this show used to look, and that identity is just lost when you replace that meticulously crafted background art with random wilderness photos. Maybe if the production hadn’t been so stretched thin, they could’ve made this aesthetic work better, but as is, it never comes together in a way that makes up for losing the old look.

But hey, just having eight full-length episodes doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. YamaSusu’s first season was literally less than two full episodes long, and season three was the equivalent of six 24-minute episodes. This show’s done plenty of incredible things with less time on its hands. So there’s no reason Next Summit, for all its production woes, couldn’t have still knocked it out of the park. But there’s another problem, a problem far less forgivable than spending one-third of your runtime on recaps that can be easily skipped if you can’t be bothered. And that problem is simple:

Unlike seasons past, Next Summit isn’t a story.

See, Yama no Susume, for all its cute shenanigans, is an actual ongoing narrative at the end of the day, moreso than most shows of its genre. Sure, it meanders here and there, but at heart, it always remains focused on Aoi’s personal journey through the medium of mountain climbing, and how her relationship with herself, her friends, and the world around her changes as a result of her experiences. It infuses every inch of this show, from its episodic divergences to its lengthy, impactful arcs. Even back when the episodes were only twelve minutes long, you’d rarely go for more than a couple episodes back to back without some kind of meaningful moment for Aoi. It’s a slow-paced story to be sure, and it isn’t afraid to go on a few tangents, but it never forgets to return the focus to Aoi and the path she walks before long.

But in Next Summit? It feels like it’s made up of nothing but tangents. Even with the full-length episodes, every episode is still split into two parts, so you’re basically getting two normal-length YamaSusu episodes back to back that never amount to anything beyond their own boundaries. The girls go fishing with Aoi’s dad in one half episode, they meet Hinata’s mom in another, Kokona and Honoka have some heavy yuribaiting that ultimately goes nowhere in another, and Aoi has some bizarre fakeout yuribaiting with her co-worker from the sweets shop in yet another, completely unrelated twelve-minute chunk, and none of it ultimately connects to anything else. It’s all just a bunch of moments, strung together in an arbitrary order because there’s nothing for these moments to build to, no ongoing emotional journey the narrative seeks to take us on. Sure, plenty of these larks are entertaining in and of themselves, but they’re momentary delights in a show that used to excel at long-term investment. What happened to the Yama no Susume that spent like four long-term episode’s worth building up to, paying off, and cooling down from that first harrowing climb up Mt. Fuji? What happened to the show that let characters’ emotional states develop and linger over multiple episodes, even when those episodes didn’t necessarily connect with each other plotwise? It’s not until the very final stretch that this season decides to have an ongoing story again, and it feels like everything before then was just killing time until the show decided to actually be about things again.

Actually, hot take time: I think Next Summit should’ve been a movie, not a TV production. The more I think about it, the more I feel like so many of the issues holding this season back would’ve been fixed by jumping on the bandwagon and making it a movie like every show and its mother has been doing recently. For one thing, it would give the animators a more flexible schedule to really give it the production polish it deserves, rather than try to air it alongside an animation-heavy sports shonen like Blue Lock. For another, it would force them to cut out so much of the faffing about and keep the story focused on what it should’ve always been focused on: Aoi’s personal journey. Cut out the recap episodes, extend the emotional focus of those last couple episodes over 90 minutes, maybe pepper in some of the better one-off half-episodes and tie them in more closely with the main story, and you’d have a tight, focused package full to bursting of everything that made this show so amazing. Wouldn’t that be so much better? Wouldn’t that keep the spirit of Yama no Susume alive like it had never left? Shows like Yuru Camp and Takagi-san have shown how to make movie sequels to slice-of-life stories really fucking work; surely, a team as talented as the YamaSusu folks could’ve done the same if they thought of it. Maybe if they had, I could come out singing its praises as much as I so desperately want to.

Because my god, the actual finale of Next Summit is so good. It’s a payoff to arguably the biggest unresolved plotline in this show, a climax to its most emotionally resonant arc that brought the fireworks in a way nothing else in Next Summit even came close to. For one brief, shining moment, I saw the Yama no Susume I remembered again, the Yama no Susume that showcased the best of what CGDCT shows are capable of. And it made me cry not just from how good that ending itself was, but how sad it made me that it took until the very end to recapture the spirit that once flowed freely through this show like a boundless river. If the only reason this season was made is to deliver that climax, then it’s more than earned its right to exist. But I just know it could’ve been- and should’ve been- so much more.

And if this season was your introduction to Yama no Susume? Then all I can do is beg you to please, please, please track down and watch the first three seasons. Everything Next Summit does well, the rest of this show does ten times better. Every bit of emotion Next Summit makes you feel, the rest of this show will make it seem like child’s play. Season 4 is only the barest taste of the magic that makes Yama no Susume so special, and if you’ve felt any bit of that magic watching it, then you owe it to yourself to experience it in its true form, free and bursting and absolutely astounding on a regular basis. I promise you, this show will sweep you away like few other slice-of-life anime can. Season 4 was a good time, but it just doesn’t do justice to one of the finest works of cute girls fiction you’re liable to ever find. But hey, if it can at least convince more people to check out the rest of Yama no Susume, then maybe it’ll all be worth it in the end. Until then, though, I give Next Summit a score of:

6.5/10

And so begins the Fall 2022 anime wrap-up. Expect more reviews and a seasonal rundown in the coming weeks!

[rablackauthor]

Anime Favorites 2022

I'm not normally a big fan of music-themed anime, so no one is more surprised than I am to find two music-themed series at the top of my 2022 list. BOCCHI THE ROCK! is on a lot of people's lists, and deservedly so, but Healer Girl isn't getting a whole lot of attention. Okay, maybe it wasn't the best anime of the year, but it was definitely one that I needed most. I'm still processing the loss of my own singing voice, and I needed these characters who built their lives and the good they did in the world around their songs.

Here's the rest of the list:

Favorite New Series

Healer Girl

BOCCHI THE ROCK!

SPY x FAMILY

Favorite Returning Series

The Demon Girl Next Door

Yama no Susume: Next Summit

Ascendance of a Bookworm

Problematic Favorite

Akebi-chan's Sailor Uniform

My Dress-Up Darling

Lycoris Recoil

Favorite Non-Anime Animation

Fairies Album

The Owl House

Pantheon

Favorite Yuri Couple

Shamiko and Momo, The Demon Girl Next Door

Chisato and Takina, Lycoris Recoil

Suletta and Miorine, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Favorite Het Couple

Gojo and Kitagawa, My Dress-Up Darling

Lev and Irina, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut

Loid and Yor, SPY x FAMILY

Favorite BFF's

Aoi and Hinata, Yama no Susume: Next Summit

Serufu and Purin, Do It Yourself!!

Anya and Becky, SPY x FAMILY

Favorite Opening Title Sequence

"Tokimeki Rendezvous," The Demon Girl Next Door

"Feel You, Heal You," Healer Girl

"Hajimari no Setsuna," Akebi-chan's Sailor Uniform

Favorite Closing Credit Sequence

"Tokyo Sunny Party," Heroines Run the Show

"Nani ga Warui," BOCCHI THE ROCK!

"Believe like Singing," Healer Girl

And lastly, one that's particular to a writer-type like me...

My muse's favorite avatar

Anya Forger, SPY x FAMILY

Myne/Rozemyne, Ascendance of a Bookworm

Suzumi Hiyori, Heroines Run the Show