Category: Sora no Oto

Let me first talk a bit about Anime-no-Chikara, which basically is Aniplex’s attempt to create Noitamina #3. Let me first say, that I really support this idea: a timeslot of nothing but anime original stories. HOWEVER, there is a lot to be worried about. Remember Noise? That one was taken off the air, despite featuring nothing but excellent and well produced series.

In order to work, Anime no Chikara really needs to figure out why Noise failed where Noitamina succeeded. Here’s my theory:

When Noitamina premiered, it played to a hole in the market. While horror was done before, the series like Honey and Clover, Paradise Kiss and Noitamina debuted an entirely new genre in anime: the one focused at college students, and consistently delivered great adaptations with their own originality and uniqueness. Later, as its popularity grew, it slowly turned into a high quality time-slot for new ideas, mostly because of series like Ayakashi and Mononoke, which balanced themselves very nicely. Noise instead just tried to deliver great series. There wasn’t something that gave them that extra edge, the thing that made them stand out.

So, how can Anime no Chikara use this? Well, I think that to start off, the circumstances are a lot more in its favour. We’re in the midst of a crisis. Especially the anime that are about to debut were produced and created in the middle of that crisis. There are announcements like this, in which way too many producers go nothing but “moe moe moe”. Now, there’s definitely moe in Sora no Oto as well, but it doesn’t try to shove this moe down the viewer’s throat, which is a problem that I have with a lot of other moe series. If Anime no Chikara can set itself apart by consistently producing quality series that don’t try to win over their viewers with moe, and it actually becomes known for this, then I might think that it’ll be able to stand a chance. And in a way, with completely original anime, you can go anywhere, instead of being bugged by what light novels or mangas are popular. In fact, now that i think about it: one of the biggest reasons why Noise failed may just be that it lacked a good catch-phrase.

Anyway, about this episode. I’m impressed. We already knew that there was some kind of no-man’s land which was probably created through nuclear fallout, but actually seeing it had much more impact. What we saw there very much looked like huge craters, and it’s very much possible that those were caused by nuclear bombs. Who knows how many bombs were necessary to produce the entire no-man’s land, though. My guess is that the entire area was just bombed flat, and throughout the ages some parts managed to recover, while others turned into desert.

Then: the Japanese. Seriously, talk about a mystery here. I first thought that the Japanese people were sort-of wiped out at the same time as the destruction of no-man’s land, however this episode suggests otherwise. The signatures on the protective thingy were both in Japanese, and in French. For pre-destruction era people however, it would not have made any sense to pick out THAT thingie, of all the possible ones around. Therefore, something must have happened after the bombing that either forced people to change language, or everyone in the area was just wiped out, only for the French to resettle the area after whatever threat was gone.

Oh, and the animation was really good in this episode. A-1 are no Madhouse, but with the right story to animate they do know how to create good and compelling animation.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Great to see that it’s indeed the creators’ intentions to flesh out and develop the characters in the first half of this series. Sora no Oto just has one less annoying character. Noel got a lot of depth in this episode, without making it too predictable of an episode. In this episode she really showed that she’s more than a sleepy airhead, but has a passion for what she does.

As for the setting, my guess would be that we are in the French part of Switzerland. The fact that the characters speak in Japanese is probably done out of convenience: even series as Red Garden and Chevalier, which have nothing to do with Japan, are spoken in Japanese. Another hint of why there is now way that this show is set in Japan is how the saleswoman didn’t mind to be called by her first name. These cultural values are very common in Europe, but I don’t see it happen in Japan, even with a number of centuries in the future. It’s also very plausible for French countries to have English software, especially in the military. Heck, I live in the Netherlands and about half of the software I use is in English.

One big question that I still have is: what happened tot he architecture? My guess would be that the buildings we see here are built by by the locals after something wiped out all of the modern buildings, and that they were modelled after local architecture and resources that were available. That must also mean that most of the futuristic technologies like the giant robot were completely annihilated for some reason.

Also, in this episode Kanata learns to play the trumpet. It was a bit fast and too much of a change, but I know the feeling that the creators tried to portray: for a long time you’re struggling without improving in the slightest, despite knowing the basics, and sometimes it just takes one realization to significantly improve yourself. I practice Karate myself, and I’ve had tons of these moments. In this episode it was obviously exaggerated, but it worked nicely.
Rating: * (Good)

I finally have the name of the mysterious disease you see pop up in so many different anime: it’s malaria. THANK YOU, Sora no Oto, for finally giving it a concrete name! Seriously, I’ve been puzzled by ages at how weird the Japanese colds are: You keep seeing shows that talk about “cold” and “fever”, but it turns out that those were just too lazy to do any research. I think only Tokyo magnitude did the same. Apart from that I don’t think I can recall any other series that gave these “fevers” a descriptive name. I’ll give this show a number of inaccuracies though, like Kanata recovering very fast, and Rio seemed to think that only children could catch it, which I doubt is really true. But then again, I don’t see her for someone with lots of medical knowledge.

In any case, this was a good episode for Rio and Kanata: both of them were fleshed out pretty nicely in this episode, and we also got to know their background. Very nice to see that this series is making use of its episodes. There’s one thing I didn’t like, though: Kanata became fascinated with music when she saw a blond girl play the trumpet. It’s an event that shaped her entire life. Now coincidentally, Rio also learned to play the trumpet from a certain blond woman. I mean, coincidences are one thing, if they make the story flow better… but what’s the point of it here? There’s no reason whatsoever for Kanata and Rio’s past to be linked somehow…

What I’m asking for now is the same kind of depth for Kureha, Noel and Phylicia, and an end where all of this development comes together. Characters with depth are nice, but you also have to use them correctly.
Rating: * (Good)

Yeah, with this episode I’m sure: the thing that’s keeping me interested in Sora no Oto is the setting. This episode did a great job of fleshing out the abandoned school building that the lead characters live in. I’m interested in the customs that these girls have, the history behind the people who once were in the school, and the overall culture in the country of Helvetica. It’s imaginative, detailed and inspired. I love how this episode took its time to introduce the various rooms in the building. That’s why I think that this show rocks.

As for the characters… yeah. They could be better, they could be worse. Rio is about the only one with a bit of an interesting personality. The other four are just archetypes. In this episode, they behaved too one-sided and according to their role (the big boobed mother-figure, the optimistic girl, the tsundere and the sleepyhead). If someone has an optimistic character, it doesn’t mean that she’s happy 24 hours of the day!

I’ve seen much worse, though. They’ve got the potential to grow, and as long as the drama isn’t going to get either too heavy or rely too much on these stereotypes, they shouldn’t get in the way of the rest of the series, and they’re fairly enjoyable so far.

The director himself is promising, but not flawless. He’s done Elfen Lied and Denpa-Teki na Kanojo, so he’s great at building up tension, but usually doesn’t seem to care about believability, which is pretty much shown in the character stereotypes here. Still, I can see how he can make this story work. I’m not that sure about the series composition, though. Hiroyuki Yoshino doesn’t really have a good track record, having been involved in quite a few unbalanced series with an original plot. Still, A-1 has struck me as a company who doesn’t like to interfere as much with its content as Sunrise or Satelight like to do, so perhaps this will allow him to finally show what he can do without being marred by production executives.

Because yeah, the big advantage of this series is that it’s an original story for as far as I can tell. No manga, no light novels. There’s not going to be an issue of chapters that don’t translate well or manga fans that go berserk because a certain part was left out or done wrong, and the potential for this series cutting off in the middle of its story is also very low. It’s great to see that amidst the crisis, there are still anime that dare to go with original stories that haven’t been tried and tested before.
Rating: * (Good)