First Look: So Ra No Wo To

Name: So Ra No Wo To Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi

First Look: You can probably tell from the picture, but this anime has a very similar art style as some other famous animes cough K-ON cough. The art is actually what stood out to me first. The characters themselves are very simply drawn, nothing special. However, the backgrounds and lighting effects were done beautifully. I found myself looking at the mountains, buildings, and sky multiple times throughout the anime, and assume that is what the illustrator was going for. Many of the scenes don’t seem to actually focus on the characters but rather their surroundings (but maybe that’s just me). As I mentioned before the art style of the characters is similar to that of K-ON, but that isn’t the only connection it seems to have. Five members of this squad (all girls), five members of After School Tea Time (all girls). Music plays a large part in Sora no Woto (or should I say Sounds of the Sky), music is K-ON. Even the characters have quite a few resemblances to K-ON. After doing some research, however, there seems to be no staff connections between the two animes. This being said I am not saying that Sora no Woto is some K-ON knock-off, far from it in fact. With K-ON I tended to have this feeling of only happy-go-lucky times with such minor drama I would consider the anime to have no conflict; Sora no Woto on the other hand seems to have a bigger picture, and the characters each have their own special past. The plot of this anime is very basic: following around a girl named Kanata Sorami who was left alone at a young age due to the raging war. She was inspired by a trumpeter that she met and decided to join the army to learn to play the  bugle. After enlisting into the army she is assigned to a platoon located in Seize (a very peaceful town with no real threat) consisting of Rio Kazumiya, Kureha Suminoya, Noel Kannagi, and Felicia Heideman. I am hoping that each of the character’s pasts are revealed (i.e. why did they join the army?) and where their future leads. The personalities of the squad members are all different, but they fit very well together.

Final statements: The anime has potential to have a pretty solid storyline mixed with a series of comedy and drama. Relationship development has already started between the platoon members, and it’s looking good. I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds. On watch.