A short anime that's not centered around yelling and bad jokes? Is this real life?   I think it's safe to say now that short anime has become a "thing," in the sense that we're been getting at least two of these per season with more on the way. However, these two-to-three-minute-episode series have quickly gained a bad reputation, since the majority are badly animated 4-panel comedy series that tend to immediately fall on their faces. As I've repeated numerous times, Poyopoyo is still the only comedy anime short that gets it right. However, I can't say that it's the only short that I like anymore.   Encouragement of Climb (Yama no Susume) mostly follows Aoi, a schoolgirl who used to be interested in mountain climbing but has given up on it due to a fear of heights. But when she reconnects with her old childhood friend Hinata, she's forced to confront her fear and discovers that she still likes mountains after all. It's a heartwarming bit of slice-of-life, focusing around Aoi getting over her insecurities and gaining a few friends in the process. While there isn't a lot of time to delve into the personalities of the characters aside from the two main characters, just the act of putting Aoi a little bit out of her comfort zone to connect with these people provides a fair bit of growth on both sides. Some episodes focus exclusively on equipment, which I found pretty interesting since I'm not the outdoorsy type and have no clue about that kind of thing. Others talk about cooking and what would be logical to prepare in the mountains, which always made me hungry.   The only part that I found disappointing was that despite this show's setup, it's not really about mountain climbing; it's about hiking. Don't go into this show thinking characters are going to tackle sheer cliff walls or anything like that. While I wasn't expecting anything extreme, characters taking scenic walks through the forest wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I picked up this show. However, this is a very tiny complaint; the focus on character interactions and Aoi slowly coming out of her shell more than make up for this. While I don't think that anime shorts will stray far from the comedy adaptations anytime soon, Encouragement of Climb is a great example of another direction this format could take. You could do far worse with roughly forty minutes of your time than watch a show about friendship, food, and hiking equipment. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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