Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
jonsmiths0877
A poor man's 86 and girl's last tour. Great designs as expected from A1 but bog standard tropes and mishmash of ideas. There's only so many times hearing amazing grace can save a show. The show can't decide whether it wants to be slice of life or drama and ends up being nothing in particular. While some people might be able to give this anime a pass simply for cute girls doing cute things, your time will likely be better spent on any other anime. Where 86 had intense action and shock value and girl's last tour had emotional and poignant moments, So Ra No Wo To will just end up leaving you with a jumbled mess of ideas wondering why you bothered watching it and should make everyone more weary of "original" anime series.
Read at the sourceAgent_Redacted
How to write a masterpiece - Sound of the Sky.
So Ra No Wo To ( Sound of the Sky ) had so much potential. It was unarguably one of the most impactful anime I have ever watched. Set in an era where mankind is about to cease to exist, this anime is a story all about war and how sound can resonate with others.
For the majority of the story, So Ra No Wo To goes through all the main characters and flaunt a gist of their backstories. With a little of post-society slice of life in action to give about pretty much what you get from every slice of life. The tranquil, restfulness of everyday life. The story gets more captivating as it progresses from a mediocre slice of life into an entity of sadness. You could say that this anime is probably one of the best build-up types of anime where if you…
Read at the sourcecaptjoe213
Welcome to another installment of Robert's Too Late Reviews! I'm throwing down with the sub version today. I just adore music, I learned to play simple instruments as a young child, and moved on to full brass in my high school years. As a player and a listener I adore the tuba and the trumpet, and so when I saw an anime about a bugler (which is a primitive trumpet) I *knew* I had to see it, and boy am I glad I did! Let's check out what song the sky is singing!
Story: 9
In the vein of further disclosure, I love nearly all kinds of music, and find great enjoyment in it. I was the tuba player in high school that equally dropped the bass line for Salt and Peppa's "Push It" just as often as I played Beethoven in my free time. I mention in my profile that I have several anime figures, the bulk…
Read at the sourcektulu007
So Ra No Wo To is an original anime brought to us by A-1 Pictures. Yes, the studio behind Kuroshitsuji, Uchuu Kyoudai, Sword Art Online & Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is back. Or, more accurately, I'm looking at one of their works again. Thus far, my experience with them as a studio has varied a lot. With Uchuu Kyoudai being at the high end and Sword Art Online on the low, because it's shit. This particular series is from 2010 and was relatively early in terms of their productions. It was written by Yoshino Hiroyuki, speaking of people I have mixed experiences with. Yeah, this bloke also wrote Shuumatsu no Izetta, which was a great series and Dance in the Vampire Bund, which will always be remembered as utter rubbish. So, this one is a gamble. I'd give it about 50-50 odds.
Story:
In the…
Read at the sourceSpikeykoaLa
It isn't often that I watch an anime with mixed or average reception as I don't want to gamble wasting time on a dull series. However, it is only then that I find shows as woefully underrated as So Ra No Wo To. As others have pointed out, I think perception of this show has suffered due to unfair associations with K-ON!, as if K-ON! single-handedly invented both the moe art-style and the slice of life genre. But, I digress.
Story: 7
So Ra No Wo To plays out in pretty typical episodic fashion until the final few episodes. Those looking for an epic military drama should look elsewhere as this show is more akin to a light deconstruction of the "cute girls do cute things" genre that has become prevalent in the past decade.
The greatness of the story comes from the incredibly interesting setti…
Read at the sourcecuteisanarchy
I was recommended this show by a friend who has traveled much further down the moe rabbit hole than I have, so I went in with two basic assumptions: this isn't a show about war, and it's not about life in a post-apocalyptic world. While I think these were safe assumptions, I ended up being very wrong.
This is a show about cute girls doing cute things. It's also a show about those same girls reliving war trauma and debating whether they should torture war captives in the remains of a world still being destroyed by humanity. That uneasy coexistence is part of the beauty of So Ra No Wo To, allowing it to go beyond being just another genre show.
Some of the initial appeal of this show came from the idea of 'playing' with war, sort of the same way Ro-Kyu-Bu! 'plays' with basketball - taking…
Read at the sourceGonzyChan
The inclusion of natural elements to an otherwise stale gimmick of “cute girls in serious circumstances” in an anime met with a mixed reception among casual and hardcore anime fans. These are circumstances that involve a setting, or lore to be specific, that would not have needed to have any “moe” components to make it even more or less meaningful. But we all know why: they want to appeal to what is popular and cash in on it. Unfortunately, that cash grab is more diminutive than fruitful from how seemingly transparent these elements give off in these shows and nowhere near is this evident than in Sora No Woto.
To get the gist of what Sora no Woto wants to show us with its extravagant array of colorful characters and artistic merit is how the setting is put into perspective. When you read…
Read at the sourcejohnvswild
SPOILER-FREE™
There are very few anime with as bad a case of mistaken identity as Sound of the Sky, also known as Sora no Woto or, if you’re kind of a jerk, So Ra No Wo To. Honestly most people will take one look at the art and character designs and think one thing: K-ON
And this is really a shame because other than a couple of similarities in character design, Sound of the Sky shines on its own with no relation under the surface to our favorite (or least favorite) slice of life. This issue has led to Sound of the Sky’s problem, a nice way to phrase it is to say it’s a hidden gem, a less polite term would be “sold like cold cakes.” Some skipped it thinking it would be moe SoL comedy #284, others were disappointed that it wasn’t just that, the bottom line is it was not and still is not es…
Read at the sourceZeroReq011
Cobbled streets, glass-faced shops, wooden chimneys, and wood-aged frames. Coupled with a tower vista and an annual festival, it's the ideal destination for a charming trip down Europe's Old World. Like time froze to pressure this place's quaint character. It's quite the reverse, though. This is as far as the technology has advanced... scratch that, regressed. This land is one of the few places on Earth that is still arable. Still habitable. Nothing but wasteland lays beyond, and it spreads, festers, an eternal reminder of past wars, even in present peace. The weapons nowadays aren't sticks and stones, mind you, but compared to today's standards, it's certainly antiquated and... somewhat anachronistic? Early to mid-19th century arms, spider tanks, walking armor, and trumpets.
Originally f…
Read at the sourceChibiAnime84
Sora no Woto is a beautiful and triumphant tale of humanity, morality, war, and peace. One of the best animes to come out in recent years, and possibly of all time. It’s certainly one of the best I have ever seen.
Sora no Woto, or Sound of the Sky in English, is a 2010 war anime. War is this title’s main theme, but a viewer will find many other genres in this amazing title, including themes of yuri, GAR, moe, humor, psychological drama and horror, mecha, religion, mild fanservice and much more. Sora no Woto brings so much to the table, and what it brings is definitley worth seeing.
Some may compare the art-style and character designs to that of K-ON! Well, I must admit: Kanata Sorami, the main character of Sora no Woto, does look an awful lot like Yui Hirasawa, the main character from…
Read at the sourceSeriousRatings
Style - I didn't like the character design at all. Too much moeblob for me. The animation was pretty good though, so 2 out of 3.
Character - The characters are childish. Kanata is your given naive pacifist moeblob. Actually all of the main characters in the story are pacifists. Why do I hate pacifists again? Oh yeah, appeasement led to Hitler taking over Europe and WW2. Despite all the time they spend together, very little information is revealed about the characters' pasts. We only find out right at the end that Noel was once a killing machine and one of the characters is a princess or something like that. So not a whole lot of character development goes on, in comparison to world building. Also, everyone treats Kanata like a child, and there was sudden angst from the more mature charac…
Read at the sourcemilkman57
Sora no Woto strongly adheres to a personal saying of mine: "You never know what you're going to get with short animes". I've watched some truly brilliant shows that were only 11-12 episodes long...and I've also watched some that weren't so good. Sora no Woto was one of those that I wasn't sure about, partially because it could almost be considered an OVA, a collaborative effort of several different studios that had never before been produced in manga, graphic novel, nor any other medium that I was familiar with. However, I found in the end that this show requires some patience before it's true colors really begin to show. And they were truly some beautiful colors.
Breakdown:
Story (4/10): I should begin by explaining that the story isn't the strong point of this show. The reason for thi…
Read at the sourceIbelucas
When I was young and ignorant, I often cried a lot. Give me this, give me that, I didn't care - I wanted it now. My parent's go-to strategy? Hum......."Amazing grace, how sweet, the sound, that saved, the wretch, like me...." Instantly, I would sleep. There's something magical, or, for a lack of a better word, penetrating about that song. It strikes right through your heart, uplifting your spirit and calming your soul. Sora no Woto evolves and becomes something truly wonderful with a powerful, underlying theme.
The story is wonderful; it starts off slice-of-lifey and really slow and painful, especially for the people who want a grandiose story and perfect mood/tone. However, stick through the first half a dozen episodes, and you slowly fall in love with the characters. Throughout the begi…
Read at the sourceMugen900
After watching this anime, I really can't help as to wonder as to what is the main theme of this thing; is it the female cahracters struggling to find a way to ease their boredom co'z they're assigned in some outpost which is too far away from any action or is it the bugle call "AMAZING GRACE?" So, how do I rate this anime? Here's how:
Story: Fair 6.
Ok, so the genre of this anime are the following: Military, Shonen, Sci-fi, Musical, Action (appred only in the last 2 episodes) and Comedy (just a little bit). However amongst the genre only the musical part is most prevelent pertaining to Kanata's bugel calls, everything else are trivial and a mediocre of "Make love not war" kind of thing.
Art: Poor poor 3.
Question: what the heck was the artist thinking when he or she got inspiration to d…
Read at the sourceArchaeon
"Amazing Grace! (how sweet the sound),
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see..."
John Newton and William Cowper (Olney Hymns - 1779).
The problem with first impressions is that all too often they are wrong, and this is one of the main reasons why a number of great shows don't get the recognition they deserve. Unfortunately, every season more anime are added to that list.
Sora no Woto (Sounds of the Skies), is one example of this mindset at work. The series is the first production of a new initiative known as Anime no Chikara (The Power of Anime), which is essentially a collaboration between TV Tokyo's anime department and Aniplex that was established in 2009 . Part of the mandate for this project is to create and produce original anime…
Read at the sourceAuroraFlame
"Someone was saying the world is ending. But I like this world."
When So Ra No Wo To was first announced on the winter season roster, I wasn't planning on watching it. Despite reading the plot synopsis, I did not think it was a 'moeblob in the army' kind of story. That only came later when many, many people decided to put labels on it. Still, I wasn't inclined to watch the series. That is, until I saw the beautiful concept artwork by Kishida Mel. It was amazing and it made me want to see the series in spite of the much talked about art shift towards moe. (By the way, if anyone knows where I can find more of this art, feel free to tell me as I only have the two widely distributed images.)
I will say it once at the beginning of this review: this is not a moe series. It has moe character de…
Read at the sourceThaiberium
As always, there is a rare gem every season that pops up and surprises me. It has been compared to as a K-On in the military but to me, I feel it would be more to suitable to describe it as Aria in the military though I digress.
Sora no Woto, is a deceptive little thing about what it really wants to be with the plot. Young Sorami Kanata, a bugler and a private of the Helvetian army, arrives as the new meat of the 1121st, an all female tank crew/squadron. Suffice to say, a slice of life romp ensues. Albeit, it is one with slightly dark undertones here and there. You'd almost forget about them until the masterstroke at the end arrives, heralding the end of the almost idyllic life of the Maidens of the Time-Telling Fortress. But the end, comes almost too fast, yet still feeling it could have…
Read at the sourceflipocrisy
It was really hard for me to tell what to expect from this show as I started to watch. It was also hard to come into the show WITHOUT having K-ON in the back of my mind as I looked at the art style of the characters (and I apologize in advance as I’m probably going to be doing comparisons to that show, but mainly to show that this is not K-ON). The synopsis on this site is quite vague, and with this being part of the Anime no Chikara project, there's no knowledge of the full story as there was no prior manga that it was based on (though a simple search can find you the details you need at this point). Yet despite all these, I took the plunge into the series and came out satisfied overall.
Basically we have a moe slice of life show applied on a military skin with a musical influence with…
Read at the sourceringoo4
Five different girls in military and their lives. Interesting? Unfortunately, it doesn’t. This anime is a true example of what happens, if you try to do too much at once on the weak and uninspiring basis.
Sora no woto, aka ‘Sound of the Sky’ is a mixed culture setting war zone folktale involving a young girl who only came to military to play nice trumpet. If you just read the synopsis, it seems like a very unique and refreshing idea for slice of life genre anime. Sadly, it is not, because the major problem that this anime falls down is from the concept from the start. When you think of slice of life genre, the most important thing is always consistency on everything. Theme, settings, plot, relevance, comedy, all these thing has to be in balanced and united by one main flow of atmosphere.…
Read at the sourceckam
Well let's just clear some things up now. THIS IS NOT FREAKIN' K-ON IN THE FREAKIN MILITARY. All right, now that that's over with let's start with the review of The Sound of the Skies, aka So Ra No Wo To. (This will be a quick one since I wrote one before but it got deleted when my computer got the blue screen.)
Okay so the story and the characters, even if they're pretty cliche, are actually quite good in their own right. The pacing is pretty good, characters are well developed and believable enough to not be Mary Sues. The voices also fit each and every character very well.
Art and Sound is amazing in their own right. The artstyle of the characters are very similar to K-ON's, but the backgrounds and backdrops are radically different. It's jaw-dropping. (Okay, not for me, but it's still…
Read at the source