The moment where both the girls and the audience cried together for a very good reason.
The girls soon find that their journey to Antarctica isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. For such a positive and inspiring show, there are a large number of emotional hooks that have the potential to leave the audience in tears whenever they’re pulled.
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- In Episode 7 we finally get to see what Takako was like during Gin's flashbacks. The memories of Kanae, Takako, and Gin goofing around are adorable- making it even more heartbreaking when there's an abrupt cut to the moment where Gin and Kanae realize they've lost Takako.
- While Episode 8 was mostly hilarious, it ends on a surprisingly somber note when the post-ending scene shows Gin standing alone silently with a flower arrangement, most likely for a memorial for Takako.
- In Episode 9, Gin and Shirase finally get the chance to talk, having mostly avoided each other until then. Gin asks if Shirase hates her for Takako's disappearance, but Shirase says that her mother had warned her that the expedition would be dangerous and that since Gin had not made a fatal mistake, she couldn't blame her. Gin presses her, asking if that is how she truly feels, and Shirase breaks, saying she doesn't know how she feels. She knew only that despite her mother's disappearance, her world never changed, even though she waited every day for her to come back.
- The reveal that, on the night Takako was lost, Gin heard what very likely were her last words over the radio."It's beautiful... it's so... very beautiful."
- Yuzuki's arc is full of Tearjerkers. Having grown up with no friends since she was a child actor all through school, she was left unable to hang out properly even with those few people she tried to approach. This resulted in her 'friends' leaving their newly made group chat due to them being continuously sidelined by Yuzuki's work commitments. This means even when she finds friends in Kimari, Shirase, and Hinata she can't stand to be close to them, thinking that they will only stay as long as they can get something out of her. Even once these fears are allayed, she attempts to draw up a 'friendship contract' to ensure they won't leave her after returning from Antarctica. Kimari responds to this with a big bear hug.
- And don't get started on her reaction when She celebrated her birthday properly with her true friends... For the first time. Her saddened reaction upon realizing that the girls are really her True Companions just speaks volumes.
- Episode 12. Based on the events in the episode alone, it made for the most heartbreaking climax of the Winter 2018 anime season. Shirase had spent days leading up to their arrival in Antarctica in fear of any confirmation of her mother’s death, so she reassures herself by taking out the one million yen she stashed and counting each yen bill corresponding to a specific job she worked hard to earn for over three years. She wrote emails to her mom detailing how she had found friends willing to make the journey with her, with the monologue overlaid with a montage of their trip towards the observatory site. Upon finally reaching the inland station where Takako disappeared, Shirase finds herself completely numb. The girls frantically search the station for any sign of her mother, despite Shirase's insistence that in three years all traces of Takako must be gone, they are determined to give her closure. They finally find Takako's old and frosted laptop, with a photo of Takako and a young Shirase stuck on top
. After three weeks' travel back to Syowa, Shirase manages to boot up the defrosted laptop only to find that the original password '0417' had been changed. Upon noticing the photo again she tries her own birthday,'1101.' The computer starts and Shirase watches as Takako's inbox refreshes and hundreds of emails begin pouring in, each one sent from Shirase over the three years they have been apart. They are all marked 'Unread.' Shirase's emotional dam breaks and she cries out for her mother, finally confronting the reality of her death as her friends huddle outside her door, crying along with their best friend. This description alone doesn't begin to touch the raw emotional impact of the scene. Many a fan described this scene as leaving them utterly broken.- The realization that the laptop was what Takako forgot back at the base and left the snowcat to retrieve, only to get killed for it in the middle of a blizzard only added weight to an already depressing scene. She was willing to risk her life so she could read emails from her daughter...
