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SPECIAL MusicSo Ra No Wo To Specials
MANGA MusicSo Ra No Wo To

REVIEWS

• 

  TGK94

  85/100
  A criminally underrated slice of life anime about the power of hope in times of strife.

  So Ra No Wo To: Cute Girls Do... War Drama?

  

  Since it seems impossible to address So Ra No Wo To without mentioning this, let me begin by talking about the elephant in the room: no, this anime is not just K-On! but in the military. Yes, it has central cast of five cute girls; yes, it has virtually the same artstyle; and, yes, it has music and slice of life elements. But beyond this superficial level, the shows are entirely different. I love K-On! to death, but if you come into this show expecting cute, low-stakes misadventures and happy tales of adolescence, you will be in for a surprise.

  Okay, glad we got that one cleared up.

  Enough about what So Ra No Wo To isn't. Let's talk about what it is. As the plot synopsis suggests, this anime follows Kanata Sorami, an rather naïve 15-year-old bugler who joins a group of four military officers (read: cute girls) at an outskirts outpost in a war torn country. Throughout the series we see these five living out their lives as best they can in this comfortless world, and we slowly begin to understand the nature of the conflict that has occurred, and in some ways, continues to occur around them.

  From the way I have described it, this anime probably sounds like a very bleak and serious affair, but this is a bit deceptive. Sure, it may take place in a barren, hopeless setting, but if there is one feeling that underlies all of So Ra No Wo To, it is not hopelessness but optimism. Kanata, our main character, is filled with an unrelenting (and perhaps even immature) optimism, and spends much of the series spreading this optimism to the other four girls. In this sense, despite its dark premise, So Ra No Wo To is not an especially heavy show. There are certainly somber moments, but thanks to the spark that Kanata brings to it, there is a substantial serving of comedy and general lightheartedness to offset the potential solemnity.

  In terms of actual episode-to-episode content, So Ra No Wo To is a slice of life anime through and through. Principally, it alternates between more serious, character drama-focused episodes and lighter, comedy-focused episodes. Uncharitable viewers might be inclined to refer to some of the lighter episodes of this series as "moe shit," and while I object to the idea that any moe is shit, I would advise you to be wary if you tend to dislike moe slice of life anime. None of it ever reaches the cutesy heights of, say, K-On!, but it is certainly quite, um... fluffy... at times. If you're like me though, and you enjoy a good show about doing cute girls doing cute things, then you will enjoy these lighter episodes as much as you enjoy the more serious ones. Certainly, So Ra No Wo To is as much an anime about sadness as it is about hope, so I don't think it would be complete without its lighter episodes (or its darker ones, for that matter).

  While we're on the topic of its moe elements, let's discuss this show's aesthetic. As mentioned earlier, its artstyle bears a striking resemblance to that of K-On!. The animation never quite reaches the peaks of that show, but it does do an excellent job of rendering both the cute moments and the more dramatic events that make up this anime without either side feeling awkward or out of place. In terms of sound design, So Ra No Wo To also does quite well; both voice acting and background music are on-point. More interestingly, the opening and ending songs reflect the serious vs. lighthearted dichotomy of the show itself, with the opening being a weighty, traditional sounding piece while the ending is of a more upbeat, cutesy sort (as you might expect of a cute girls doing cute things anime).

  Now, this has been a very positive review thus far, but unfortunately I do have some minor criticisms to make of So Ra No Wo To as well. As much as I like Kanata's bundle-of-joy personality, she, along with many of the show's other major characters, suffers from being rather archetypal. All the characters do develop over the course of the series but not, I think, far enough to sufficiently differentiate them from the well-established anime cliches that they are clearly based on. This is not a particularly damning issue during the cute girls doing cute things segments, but when the show turns to drama, it is certainly limited from achieving its full aspirations. The weakness of its characters does not ruin the show by any means, but it does prevent it from becoming something truly great.

  As it stands, So Ra No Wo To is a good and much underrated slice of life anime whose issues are few and far between in comparison to its many successes. Combining cute girls doing cute things with war drama is a bizarre and ambitious choice if there ever was one, but this anime does a remarkably good job of making it work.

  Anyone looking for a slice of life show with a little more thematic depth than the norm would do well to check this one out!

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• 

  ABPAEAE

  92/100
  A great military slice of life that could've benefited from slower pacing.

  A fantastic story that could've greatly benefited from a slower pace spread between two or three seasons (I'll dig into the pacing later). Sound of the Sky is a military slice of life at its core, and had very little to do with music aside from one character who only focuses on the musical aspect of this show in a handful of scenes spread thin and widely across twelve episodes. Many people seem to relate Sound of the Sky to K-On! and while some of the character dynamics are similar, I think some of these recommendations are simply because both anime are tagged under "music". It even got me confused writing this review originally. Editing this review in hindsight, I would recommend a viewer of either anime to watch the other.

  The story of Sound of the Sky is the spotlight. Slice of life as a genre generally relies on character interaction to keep the viewer watching, but Sound of the Sky generally trickle-feeds you the tale of an in-depth story and a lively world through the lives of a group of soldier girls stationed in a quiet town at the edge of the world. The world of Sound of the Sky is incredibly unique and intriguing, offering a great platform for interesting lore and life-like enjoyable characters. "A world on the brink of a mass-extinction apocalypse, engulfed in war" is something I rarely see in media, new or old. People have been fighting a civil war fueled by the petty squabbles of politicians and generals for decades, and everyone has lost friends, family, and their homes. Nobody wants to fight, but they are forced to. The viewer learns how the average peoples of this world view such a war through the lives of the main characters and their interactions with the people they meet. It's really an incredibly intriguing story that portrays war in a very realistic and human manner.

  All that said about the story, it does suffer from a major flaw; it's simply too complex and overflowing with lore that 12 episodes simply don't do it the justice it deserves. The majority of lore, both the world and its characters, is revealed in the last two episodes. The majority of that majority is in the last episode alone. Sound of the Sky would've been an absolute masterpiece if the creators were given the span of two to three seasons, or two seasons and a movie to work with. It's probably an issue more with the funding rather than any creative decisions, though.

  The art is just as unique and memorable as the story. It consistently gave me slavic-Witcher-3 vibes, though the main setting of Sound of the Sky is geographically based off a town called Cuenca in Spain, and it was seems to be as lovingly recreated as some of the scenery in Initial D (if you don't know how much that is, a lot of the scenery appears to be traced from real photography). Any shot of the atmosphere in this show could be framed and make a great piece of art to hang on your walls. It's unique, yet believable to be on Earth and immersive. The world is gorgeous, yet gritty and scarred from decades of meaningless and brutal war. Though it could be said that the scarring can make it even more beautiful in a dark way.

  Music really is only a loose focus of Sound of the Sky. It's just one character's infatuation, and the creators use it as a message for the overall story that I will not spoil. The actual soundtrack of Sound of the Sky is very nice and fits the setting perfectly, though. Catchy OP/ED as well.

  I see some people criticize the characters of Sound of the Sky for being boring or stereotypical, and I feel they completely miss the point of the show. This isn't some epic gundam battle anime where the main characters are all incredible supersoldiers. The characters of Sound of the Sky are just average citizens wrapped up in a civil war they never wanted to fight, and I think that makes them all the more interesting. Sadly, the characters suffer just as much as the story from the lack of time and freedom of pacing the creators were given to work with. I still think everyone involved did a fantastic job doing the best they could with what they had. Sound of the Sky mostly a slice of life show, and it succeeds in being that. You move with the emotions of the characters and you grow to become attached to them.

  Overall, I really enjoyed Sound of the Sky for what it offered. This could've been a perfect 10/10 and become a solid favorite of mine if the pacing wasn't such a hackjob. Military slice of life is my favorite niche genre of anime, and I enjoyed Sound of the Sky as a slice of life, while being pleasantly surprised by its intriguing and unique world lore. I'd give this a very strong 8.5/10 to a weak 9/10.

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• 

  Heinzes

  84/100
  Drifts by in gentle defiance of an apocalypse.

  Heinzes' 2010s Anime Cleanup Series #1

  ---

  __minor spoilers within, consider yourself warned__ >There's no point in the world. But isn't that wonderful? Because if there isn't one, then you can decide what it is for yourself.

  Interestingly, what this show might’ve lacked in tonal consistency is made up for, almost wholly, by the flexibility and depth of its characters. Of course, the show would be a failure if these characters didn’t work well together in both affable slice-of-life and more philosophically-minded, meditative explorations. In its headier moments, Sora no Woto treads ground not dissimilar to other heavy-hitters which have come before, such as Haibane Renmei, or even the stable of early-aughts classics RahXephon and Wolf’s Rain, two shows from Studio BONES that are deeply invested in people, their methods of coping at the end of the world, and whether they can come to accept the outcomes of ruin and unmaking.

  In a subversion of expectations, however, Sora no Woto is decidedly less adherent to Eastern philosophies of transience and surrender to impermanence, such as that of mono no aware, as would mostly be seen in Japanese media and anime, including those aforementioned. This series ultimately decides - in its moving final arc - that defiance in the name of preserving life, both for the self and others, is a braver, more humanistic path. The girls of the 1121st Platoon clearly owe more of their own life philosophies to Dylan Thomas than to Motoori Norinaga.

  As compelling a project as placing this particular series within a generic lineage and categorization might prove to be, it proves ultimately more difficult in considering that virtually no other show has come along since to directly continue the project which Sora no Woto undertook, in that generic sense. However, the series itself is more invested in playing to emotional truths than developing narrative logic through expositing upon the mechanics and infrastructures of its light sci-fi setting. The influence of Sora no Woto ultimately proves to be more loudly and tangibly felt in the way it has contributed to the shaping of storytelling structures adopted by other episodic drama anime in the decade since, rather than any one specific strain of genre show it might have claim to belong to.

  ---

  Final Grade: B+

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