SUMMIT OF THE GODS ...is growing up getting over the mountain?

This week, we're reading THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS (神々の山嶺, Kamigami no Itadaki) - an early 2000s manga by Jiro Taniguchi, based on a novel and script by Baku Yumemakura. The series traces several climbers' journeys across decades around the world - from the European Alps, to the peaks of Japan, to the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet - all bookended by the greatest summit - Everest.

The story is told from the modern perspective of Fukamachi, a photojournalist who finds a camera which may change the history of mountaineering...as it may belong to the famed climber George Mallory, who went missing climbing Everest, which history shows as being first summited by Sir Edmund Hillary some 30 years after Mallory's disappearance

At the center of all of this is a mysteriously obstinate climber, Joji Habu, or Binka Sap as he is known to the Nepalese Sherpa community. The critically acclaimed series was actually recently adapted to an animated feature that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in France, which is NOT why I invited my favorite Frenchman Francois to the pod...