Sora no Woto

What? A new post? And so shortly after my last? And a series from the season that just started as well? The end must be near.

Well, to be honest. I figured I might try and at least post about a series that's currently running instead of trying to clear away my backlog ... which probably is a futile effort, but I'm going to try anyway. This season however might 'help' me get at least some of my backlog out of the way .... if my rl work at least stops overloading me .... as the number of anime that I plan to watch (or at least check out) this season is less then half from the previous and as a matter of fact it's very likely that 2 of the new series of this season will almost surely be headed for the trashcan on my PC. Not this one however.

Before however I go about the story / setup of this series I'll mention that I've seen Sora no Woto been dubbed as militairy K-on! Now I haven't watched K-on! .... it's on my backlist, what else? From a quick peek however I understand somewhat why. Not only is it an all female cast and has it do about music, but the character design for at least 3 charaters from Sora no Woto are lifted straight from that series, but there any comparison ends.

We start off with having our main female lead, Sorami Kanata, an aspiring bugle player, on board of a militairy freight train heading off to her assigned station: The Time Telling Fortress in Trois, Seize.



Okaaaaayyy ..... what's wrong with this picture above is that Kanata looks like a kid. The fact that her hair isn't exactly militairy style, her sloppy uniform (notice the belt) and her duffelbag (not shown here) is almost as big as herself even enhance this feeling. According to the story there was a war which has ended with a truce just 6 months ago so seeing a kid, a female at that (male chauvinism +1) leaves some odd impression on me.

Seeing she has to report at 15 oh hours and since she is early she decides to take a walk in the village as there happens to be a festival. During the festival she becomes caught up in a water-mixed-with-dye throwing 'fight' and becomes soaked (it actually reminded me somewhat at La Tomatina in Bunyol). She is 'rescued' by Kazuymiya Rio, a member of Kanata's platoon who takes her to her house to get herself cleaned up.



After a bath Rio and Kanata stand on the balcony and Kanata lets an owl steal a small bell that belonged to Rio's father. While Rio has business to attend to, Kanata is about to head off to the Time Telling Fortress as she hears the bell again (she IS a Klutz, but has very good tone hearing) and decides to go after the sound hoping to retrieve the bell.

I'd rather prefer you go watch the episode yourself and only read on if you don't mind spoiler or have watched the episode already.

Spoilers ahead (click here) It turns out that Rio is lead actor in the re-enactment of the story that is the ground for the festival. In fact, she got somewhat suckered into it as the captain of the platoon (Felecia) had everyone draw straws to determine who was to be leading actor, but orchastrated it so that Rio would be chosen (the drawing of the straws you saw during the opening).

While Rio is busy with her acting work, Kanata gets into all kinds of trouble scaling of a cliff in order to get the bell back in which she proves again not be soldier material as she is past the time she should have reported for duty. Also she lackes a serious dose of common sense scaling a cliff with her oversized duffelbag on her back. Unlucky also as jumping a gap between, what looks to be an ancient stone stair, the part she lands on gives way and she plummets into the water.

Lucky for her whatever in the duffelbag isn't heavy as she manages to reach dry land. Not however before seeing the bones of the headless winged dragon that she is told about and that was part of the story from the festival. Alone, cold and lost she uses her bugle to signal for help which also nicely fits into the story from the festival. From what I gather Kanata is also an orphan ... I assume that this is the reason for her being in the militairy.

The episode ends when later .... much later, Kanata awakes in the Time Telling Fortress and she finds out it's called that as, by the looks of it, the day begins with a serenade from her just before sunrise to signal the new day.

I wonder if they didn't spoil to much during this first episode and especially with what they showed during Rio's monologue about the ancient story of the fire maidens. One of the things was that you see a picture of what I suppose are the (5) girls from the ancient story and except for the hair they're the spitting image of the 5, now Kanata has arrived, girls of platoon 1211.

Also looking at the world you get a feeling of early 20 century europe .... except for the couple of glimpses you get from one of the platoon members busy with maintainance on a mecha which looks seriously out of it's own time. From another short glimpse during Rio's monologue we have to conclude that a major catastrophe happened a long time ago as there is evidence of a more highly advanced civilisation shown .... of which the mecha must be a remnant.



I do wonder if this tank couldn't have been used in the war that just finished? I'm sure that the side that had this at it's disposal would have had no trouble defeating everybody else. I also find the Mecha a little out of place grapics wise as it looks more crisp then especially the beautiful backgrounds ... but this could be intentional.

It stands to reason, at the moment at least, that the spider from the story is the mecha we got to see a little off. What I found odd though is that the dragon from the story seems to be a real dragon. A bit of a mismatch.

Let me first say that, sofar at least, I rather liked this even if it isn't all making sense to me as what looked to be initially a story about learning to play music, got darker undertones with the story about the fire maidens and the dragon that once caused much destruction.

We only really have met 2 of the 5 girls that make up platoon 1211, but I think this is shaping up to be a rerun, or better a rematch, of the original battle with the dragon (whatever it may turn out to be in the end). Wether or not Kanata playing music has much to do with this remains to be seen. Who knows, we might get not any mecha action at all (not a terrible loss imho).

Leaving character design for what it is I like both Rio and Kanata even though the latter is a real klutz. What really shines though are the background and details that went into it. It's been a while that I watched an episode twice ... first time for the characters and dialogue, a 2nd time for the background. It's not the only the outdoors scenes that are wonderfull, also inside houses there is a lot of eyecandy to be had.

The OP and ED as usual don't do much for me, but the music during the episode is quite good and I like the french song (starts at time-index 13:20 Nekomimi version) which sadly isn't translated.

All in all. Likeable characters, good music, GREAT backgrounds. Only the story can still go either way, but for the moment there is nothing wrong with that.

Temporarily verdict: 8 out of 10.