The 14 Mountain Alps Traversal Arc is so good
I finished the arc last night, and it’s been sticking in my mind ever since. This arc felt like an odyssey, a journey into the heart of darkness, almost Apocalypse Now esque, and I had the thought last night that this arc could have even been amazing as its own self contained story, as a movie or something.
Throwing Mori into this intense and long traversal with a bunch of assholes (very cool assholes mind you) was a great choice by Sakamoto. I’ve seen this said elsewhere, but the hardship of the traversal is almost overshadowed by the struggle of being a part of the group of abrasive guys making the traversal, not brought together by friendship and camaraderie, but by their own ambitions.
The cast was phenomenal and makes the arc in my opinion. Komatsu, the grizzled and fucked up old head who doesn’t give a crap about anything other than finishing the traversal. Enjoys being the leader and putting down those under him. He goes as far as to attempt to make it seem like Kase was still alive after his incident happened, to try to rally the remaining guys to keep going.
Kase, the wealthy, high bred, finance guy who is oozing with arrogance and also carries a disdain for poor people. He doesn’t climb as much anymore but his arrogance won’t let him even have the thought that maybe he’s not up to snuff for the traversal. He has you fooled too until he starts lagging behind and meets his unfortunate end.
Kuneida (or Murata) the star surgeon with some skeletons in his closet. Another guy with a bad attitude and some bad habits. We see him struggle to stop playing his MMO in order to take a surgery call (LOL) and his attitude towards women is less than ideal. You know this guy is a bad apple but you can’t put your finger on it, until his mental deterioration due to his guilt is what seals their fate.
Then you have Niimi, easily the most likeable and developed of the bunch, but he definitely still gets his hands dirty on this traversal, tricking Mori into getting himself fired, and making it clear that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else as long as he reaches the peak of K2. His story unlike the others who meet their end is definitely a tragic one, and while Niimi is presented as a guy who is like Mori to some degree, with his death we see that they’re actually very different, as Niimi was climbing to prove his worth to society and at his core wanted to be with society. “Let me in”. Mori climbs to get away from society.
Finally we have Mori, thrown into the fire with this wretched bunch and at the end is the only one left standing. I loved that double spread panel that shows everything that happened up there and says something like “Only the mountains know what goes on up there”. But I think my favorite panel in this series so far is another double spread we get shortly after that which depicts Mori moving or climbing forward with the ghosts of the other four team members all around him. It reads “I know”.
Him and the mountains are the only ones who know what really went on up there. You get the sense that he will carry with him what happened up there forever. Phenomenal arc and I’m so excited to see where the story goes.
Also for anyone who has seen Apocalypse Now, imagine an Apocalypse Now type movie with the story of this arc. If done correctly I think it would be fucking amazing.