Title: Yama no Susume, ヤマノススメ
Producers: 8bit
Genres: Slice of Life
Duration: 3 min. per episode
Aoi prefers indoor hobbies and is afraid of heights, but her childhood friend Hinata loves to show off her passion for mountain climbing. As young children they once watched the sunrise from the top of a mountain, and now they’ve decided to take up mountain climbing in hopes of seeing that sunrise again. They have cooking battles with mountaineering gear, climb small hills in their neighborhood, and meet new mountaineering friends as they learn the ropes of the hobby. When will they finally see that sunrise again?
Fansubs watched: Crunchyroll
After the somewhat pleasing second episode, this series does have some potential to be better than normal cute girls doing nothing. Hinata and Aoi want to climb a mountain, but Aoi wants to climb a small hill first, much to Hinata’s disapproval and spouting out that she won’t be popular. Yeah, somehow popularity is important in this series, about climbing mountains. Aoi begins to prepare for the climb the next day by preparing and packing for the big adventure. Getting some overprotected gear, she begins to make sandwiches to show her feminine prowess, which is very important when you climb a mountain mind you. She begins to make cucumber, ham, egg and tomato sandwiches for herself and some shoddy ones for Hinata. At the bottom of the hill Hinata is waiting there in her uniform while Aoi is wearing her climbing clothes, helmet and rope around her.
While taking about how Hinata will kill Aoi for not being prepared, a little girl and her mother come running around screaming her excitement on walking up the hill. Aoi and Hinata begin to ascend the hill, which is about 197 meters hill, which is taller than the observation deck of Tokyo Tower. Over the climb, they see some nature items: large mushrooms, trees, and for some reason a lizard that Aoi finds cute. It does not look cute at all. As they climb Aoi begins to realize that climbing this hill isn’t bad at all and begins to feel safe climbing mountains and hills. They reach the summit overlooking the town, and the little kid and her mother are there already. Aoi and Hinata look at the view overlooking the town and are mesmerized. Hinata brings out a contraction that transforms into a portable cooker. They then sit down and eat, giving Hinata all the good looking sandwiches and hiding all the shoddy ones.
So you can say that the episode is about Aoi conquering her fear of heights, since she is able to climb the hill without any doubts. Even though in the beginning where she was worried, over prepared and showed her feminine prowess, she began to slowly realize the beauty of nature and climbing a mountain, through looking at a lizard which she deems cute… yeah. While all that was happening, Hinata is just rather uneventful. Sure, she is hyper and happy but that’s all she is. Her character isn’t getting much development, which I have mixed feelings about. Also, towards the end of the episode there is some inspirational music. It is actually inspirational, something odd from a short series. So there is substance behind this anime, this light hearted inspirational anime.
The third episode is quite nice and has a surprising amount of inspirational music at the end. There is a nice progression of Aoi’s character and at this rate, they may conquer Mt Everest in no time. I will continue to watch this anime because there is a bunch of potential and it is light hearted with nothing complex or evil.
