33rd G-View: Sora no Woto

Hello and welcome to G-Views, where SoL reigns supreme, moe is respected and Dokuro-chan sucks poopie. We have here yet another one of the shows that I should have reviewed long ago and one of my personal favorites from 2010. Behold the greatness that is, So-Ra-No-Wo-To.

Alternative title:
So-Ra-No-Wo-To
Sonido del cielo (Spanish)
Sound from the sky
ソ・ラ・ノ・ヲ・ト (Japanese)
Genres: adventure, comedy, slice of life
Themes: military, moe
Number of episodes: 12
G-Rating: 10/10

To make it simpler, it’s slice of life meets the military. That’s what you’ll get when you watch this anime. In order to enjoy this show, you must have the patience of a casual anime fan such as myself, meaning that you must have seen and enjoyed Haibane Renmei. Why? Because this show has a similar pace to HR, it’s slow, but if you’re patient enough and watch this anime all the way through, you’ll be treated to something very special.

This anime has some pretty deep stuff. Nothing tear jerking, but it is definitely powerful stuff related to war. As the anime progresses, you learn more about each of the other girls whom Kanata meets in the “1121st Platoon”, each with their own difficult pasts and challenges that they went through during the war in this story. One thing’s for sure, even though this is a soft anime, it does have some dark stuff in it. not dark as in Elfen Lied or RAINBOW, but dark nevertheless. Oh yeah, some people began calling this a K-ON! parody or ripoff at first. I assure you that that is a complete LIE! There are two reasons for this:
1: This show does NOT rely on moe to attract its fans, instead on story and minor moe goodness. Yes, the moe is there, but isn’t that important.
2: This anime has a story. K-ON! just has a mission objective.
Keep in mind, I love K-ON! as well, I’m just explaining that this show isn’t similar to it. The one things that brought this up are that Filicia and Kanata look similar to Yui and Mugi and the fact that there’s a bugle. Yes, the bugle is an important part of the story here, but it’s only ONE of the key parts in the story. There are actually 3 more.

The music here is superb as this show has one of my favorite anime songs from 2009, sung by the group Kalafina. It’s called Hikari no Senretsu. I would post a music video, but it was removed from youtube, so I can’t…”sobs”.

I still don’t get why people referred to this as a K-ON!! clone at first.

The action, as explained earlier, it’s slow at first, but it gets a lot better as the show continues onward, so please be patient and you’ll be rewarded for it.

The characters are all lovable and cool. My personal favorite being Noel. However, Rei and Filicia are both pretty and awesome at the same time.
The other villagers are also likable. You’ll learn more about them as you continue watching, about what they went through and how they’re all trying to cope with life during this war filled period.

Final verdict: I highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys Slice of Life and are patient. If you’re not, then you know where the exit is.