What is friendship? How do you know when you’re friends with someone? The Christmas episode of A Place Further than the Universe grapples with this deceptively complex topic as Yuzu’s insecurities and past hurts rise to the surface and...
What is friendship? How do you know when you’re friends with someone? The Christmas episode of A Place Further than the Universe grapples with this deceptively complex topic as Yuzu’s insecurities and past hurts rise to the surface and threaten to cut her off from the other girls, just as they finally make it to Antarctica. The trigger? A birthday cake for Jesus. Yup. But what unfolds over the course of the episode is far from cheesy or surface-level, as the girls—instead of heaping Yuzu with platitudes and assurances—engage with these questions about friendship in deeply personal ways. There are no pat answers here. And as a result, this episode offers a great deal of insight into the nature of friendship—including friendship with God!—and sharing the good news with the broken-hearted.
“You don’t like Christmas?” asks Shirase, noting Yuzu’s listless expression while serving Christmas cake to the Syowa Station workers. “It’s not that I don’t like it… But it’s like a birthday, isn’t it?” This is not a good thing in Yuzu’s eyes. Instead, it’s a painful reminder of just how lonely her young life has been, and the fact that, in all her fifteen years, she has never once celebrated her birthday with friends. More than that, she’s never had friends—and she still doesn’t, as far as she can tell.
But this is where Yuzu is terribly wrong! She is surrounded by three girls who already consider her a best friend—and so they should! Together, the four of them have traveled all the way to the Southernmost continent on the planet against crazy odds (and fearsome sea sickness)! But Yuzu’s experience of childhood betrayal has made it hard for her to trust or distinguish the hallmarks of genuine, fun-loving friendship, even when it slaps her in the face with a playful snowball. She makes this painfully clear when she asks the girls to sign a Friendship Contract as an assurance of their relationship. Oh, Yuzu! My poor, sweet, naive child actor-idol Yuzu! That’s not how friendship works.
Kimari, Hinata, and Shirase have their work cut out for them. They know that simply telling Yuzu they are friends or even asking her to be their friend will feel insincere at this point, mere words spoken to placate a hurting child (Yuzu is the youngest of the four). But they can’t let things keep on this way, with Yuzu isolating herself, feeling left out and miserable, but also completely clued out of the affection they all have for her. Yuzu’s blindness hurts them in turn—especially high-spirited Kimari. Yuzu needs the good news of their friendship and love, but she can’t seem to see or hear it…
Shirase starts the conversation: “Friendship isn’t about lots of words.” She should know, being the master of understatement—or no statement at all!—and the most reserved of the group. Hinata tries to pick up from there, offering the point that it’s about feelings, but Yuzu still doesn’t get it. Her follow-up questions stumble over one another as understanding continues to elude her. So Shirase goes for complete honesty, “There’s probably no real way to define it. It’s not like a parental or spousal relationship. It’s more vague than that.” And then she adds something completely unexpected, but heart-felt: “No one’s to blame if it fades.” With this, Shirase addresses Yuzu’s fears head-on: what if these friendships don’t last? What if she takes the risk and relaxes into friendship with these girls only for them to go their separate ways once back in Japan? But Shirase is not done. Sure, there’s no guarantee that friendship will last, but that’s essentially what makes it genuine, and what makes it possible for you to throw yourself into it, unrestrained, for as long as it does last. For Shirase, it is the temporality of friendship that makes it so beautiful and authentic.
There’s wisdom here in Shirase’s words, and the way they echo a certain verse, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” It’s true that Jesus is encouraging his disciples not to be anxious about provision here, but it’s also no coincidence that he uses an example of how much God values beauty—pouring his creative efforts into making even fleeting, temporary expressions of beauty—in order to make his point. Friendship does not need to “last forever” to be beautiful or indeed eternal. It can have a transformative, lasting effect even if it’s short-lived like a day lily.
In the next shot, we see a moving illustration of this truth as the leaders of the expedition, Toudou-san and Kanae-san, quietly toast their lost friend, Shirase’s mother, who inspired the endeavor.
Later, Yuzu brings up the matter again with Kimari, to whom she’s been trying to apologize (over text) after the Friendship Contract fiasco. Kimari tells Yuzu about Megu-chan, her best friend since kindergarten whose parting words as Kimari set off were to end their friendship. But Kimari has been sending her photos and messages all this time, thinking about how Megu-chan might react to this or that, and what she’s up to back home. “I can just tell how she’s feeling,” explains Kimari. “I think that’s what friends are for me. It’s totally vague, I know…” she confesses.
Her words may fall short, but Kimari’s actions here demonstrate something profound: the grace of loyalty. Despite her friend’s jealous behavior, Kimari has persisted in reaching out to her, inviting her into the adventure and including her in its narrative, while yet also giving her space without pressuring her for a response. Kimari is content for their friendship to be one-sided for a spell, while Megu-chan figures things out. She demonstrates how faithful friendship can be, and she also provides a counterpoint to Shirase, who lets friendships fade more easily. Instead, Kimari fights for them, even though she may not realize that this is what she’s doing.
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