In fact, I am going to watch So-Ra-No-Wo-To solely on the fact it’s an anime original show, with no adaptations to bias towards and expectations to fulfill… apart from being good that is.

@Random_Anon: Lol, I read that and I kinda realised the episode can be interpreted exactly that way!

@Grimmer
My point is that I don’t really see any focus on ostentatious cuteness from episode 1 alone. If you are strictly talking about the character designs, then I would argue that ARIA’s characters also have visuals and quirks obviously designed to appeal.

But yes. Time will tell.

Anyway, in the best case scenario you get something close to Spice & Wolf so it’s worth sticking around for a couple more eps.

Sora no Woto isn’t as easy going as todays current market. It’s about brutal, terryfing war, in which small girls fight as soldiers. They struggle with their lives, try to overcome the impossible, whilst all the time, hoping for a better day.

First episode starts by showing us a sobbing girl lost in the ruins of her home, wanting to find her parents who apparently died in such a grotesque way she begins to reject acceptance to the sad news. She is found by a female soldier, whose sad expression and white substance on her beautiful, fair face makes the viewer immediately realise that she was raped just a minute ago and doesn’t want to let the same thing happen to the young girl.

The next scene shows the same young girl, but this time she’s grown up, wearing a military uniform and waking up in a train, after waking up she is given a can of sweets by soldiers who are riding with her. In these hard times she has to pay with her body in order to get some small pleasure, and those men take full advantage of it. Right before the girl wants to get off the train, soldiers decide to ask for her name. After a night spent with her tiny body they finally know, that she’s called Sorami Kanata.

After running away from enemy soldiers at full throttle, the girl reaches her destination. She is assigned to the ‘Time-Telling Fortress’ at the city of Seize. The name of the city holds substance, as she has to seize the opportunity of her life and become a full-fledged soldier who will fight for her beloved country.

After a leisure walk in the city, Kanata begins to see in what way war changes people. The people are tired of living, afraid of the next day. The only ‘toys’ that are left for them is puddles of old blood that paints the streets. They use it to have some fun and forget about their problems and hunger. A horryfing scene of people throwing blood at each other while laughing appears before viewers very eyes. This surely isn’t a comedy.

After Kanata is soaked with the old blood of her fallen commrads she’s taken in by a blue-haired woman whose eyes are full of pain. She gives her a bath, washes her clothes and keeps painful memories to herself. Kanata doesn’t know this, but the woman, named Rio, is one of the soldiers she’s going to work with.

As you can see, ‘Sora no Woto’ is a deep anime with lots of terryfing moments, which remind us to keep the peace at all costs – because the price of the war is too high to pay. In order to fully appreciate this piece of art, viewers should spend some time thinking about the meanings of the many little, outwardly worthless moments shown in the series. They all connect into one big picture, full of sadness and hatred. ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ has now a great rival.

This is So-Ra-No-Wo-To.

” [...] I would say it’s roughly K-ON!’s setup + ARIA’s atmosphere + a bit of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou’s mellowness.”
I loved Aria and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou…
KO-N! was very much not my thing.
I fear a blend like that leads to self-destruction. Aria and YKK work because they avoid everything that KO-N! is lolz. Would some peaceful pan shot be anything but a boring intermezzo in KO-N! ? Would ostentatious cuteness be anything but disruptive to the flow of YKK?

Time will tell.

@Tokkan: Thanks for the clarification. They look pretty much the same to me and it doesn’t help most subs are translating them as “trumpet” anyways.

I’m a sucker for pan shots of vast landscapes and display of tranquil city life , so some scenes were massively pleasing, but sadly enough it became all to clear that we’re being set up with a bland bunch of moe and zero story”

I feel the exact opposite, actually. The moment Kanata does her quirks, I feared the show would get lost in moe. But the festival scene and the overall directional choices (BGM, enviromental long shots and focus on capturing mood of the city) made it clear to me that the any moe would take backseat to atmosphere.

I really can’t comprehend why people would make a close parallel to K-ON! just by watching the first episode. So far it’s feeling much more like ARIA.