Sora no Woto

[Buffalobiian]

Alternative titles: So・Ra・No・Wo・To, Sound of the Sky

Synopsis: The story takes place in an imaginary town Seize (the model cities are Cuenca and Alarcón Fortress in Spain). A long war brings a gradual decline to the world. People disappear from the town and fishes cease to exist in the sea. In this quiet world, five girls guard a fortress and play brass vividly.-MyAnimeList

Links: AnimeNfo, ANN, AniDB, MyAnimeList, Official.

Episode 01 - GoalGG




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I'm impressed.

At first I wasn't sure how well I'd swallow the K-ONified character designs, but they were quite acceptable.

The landscape and music, rather than blew me away, drew me right in. Beautiful would be the word to describe both aspects here.

I'll be expecting Rio to experiences some of the fandom that Mio went through, given the similarity in hairstyle and her "get in line" attitude. She's a lot more hardy than her high-schooler counterpart though, just as Kanata very much resembles Yui, but with some watered-down airheadedness. Felicia's backseat manipulation immediately gave me the impression of Captain Mugi.

The setting's definitely interesting, and I'm eager to see how much of a part their music will contribute to the overall effect of the war. If this episode is any indication though, the final development may be more supernatural in nature. [K-ON spoiler]In contrast to K-ON, I'm glad Kanata starts out with a genuine love for music, but without the genius to go with it (the latter which lead to Yui performing near flawlessly with little onscreen practice). Kanata still has perfect pitch though, which is a talent in it's own right I guess.[/spoiler] Add that to the music, and I think this show shows promise to deliver where K-ON didn't.

Kalafina's "Hikari no Senritsu" (Melody of Light) was a joy to listen to.

Keeping up with my K-ON comparisons, I'm pretty much as impressed as I was when K-ON neared it's peak (ep 2-5?), but for much more solid reasons (art, music, setting vs 100% moe characters/gags)

PS: I decided to go with "Sora no Woto" as the thread title rather than So・Ra・No・Wo・To since it looks less stupid and makes more sense to romanji readers. I realise they were probably going for a "musical notes" effect here, as well as perhaps each "sound" representing a girl or something.