“BECAUSE IT’S THERE.”

George Herbert Leigh Mallory is said to have given this in reply to the question “Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?” On his third expedition in June 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, disappeared on the North-East ridge during their ascent, having been sighted only a few hundred metres from the summit.

In 1993, in a small Nepalese store, Makoto Fukamachi, photographer for a Japanese expedition to conquer Mt Everest, stumbles across an old camera – a Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak Special. Could it be Mallory’s camera? Did it hold the secret of whether Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit?

Taniguchi’s realistic art and Baku’s tireless script will take you to such heights that mountaineers only dream about.