Monday, August 27, 2012

Review: Sound of the Sky anime series

Review of anime series Sound of the Sky

Directed by Mamoru Kanbe

Original run January 5, 2010 – March 22, 2010
Episodes 12

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world after a great war in the fairly distant future as evidence by the "tank", which is considered a relic from a earlier time but hints at tech far in advance of that available in the present, that the series character and one in particular is working to restore to operational status. The "world war" regressed humanity to early 20th century technology. It also appears that the world is slowly running down. Each year there is more desert and less arable land.

The main character is called Kanata who is motivated to join the Helvetian (seems to be another name for Switzerland) Army after hearing a talented bugler. Joining she is assigned to the 1121st Platoon.

Peace talks with "Rome", but they speak German, have collapsed and their army is on the move towards Helvetia. There are sub-plots and character interactions and one is general, that of the Tower Maidens, which the story seems to slowly revolve around.

There are only 12 episode spread across 4 dvd disks, but that is enough to build characters that are complex and heart-warming. There is also enough time to evolve a strong plot of people and circumstances.

The anime art is pretty standard but overall done well. The characters are easy to identify with and the story is long enough for you to familiarize with them.

There are no extra to account for, but the story is interesting and entertaining enough to make up for. I would be tempted to call it young adult anime but it is adult and complex enough to keep an adults interest.

If you are looking for a weekend rental...this would do the job as long as you can get all four disks. That was my complaint was that on a budget plan it took a while to see all the episodes, so maybe it would be worth a purchase if it could be had at discount.

4 comments:

kallamis said...

Just took a look, and it is 47 bucks new at amazon. Unfortunately, it isn't available for streaming even with the Prime apparently.
Netflix and Vudu don't have it either.
It's too new for them to have yet I think. And considering the episodes, it may be a long time before they do.

Beam Me Up said...

I rented it off Blockbuster...I don't know if they stream it...can't see why not and to be honest there is no reason NOT to stream it. I like to have disk in hand for watching because I can really get the best video playback. But you would be surprised as how many movies I own and virtually no series. I will watch them, but you are right...very expensive.

kallamis said...

I prefer to have the hard copy to streaming myself. There is talk now of making video games that are download only. They are trying to stop the selling of used games.
Wonderful isn't it?

Beam Me Up said...

It is similar to when I worked for Tandy Corp. We were always told to push the service contracts hard. The rational is most never get used and it is a product that does not need stock space and it is virtually a legal way to print money! Now when it is turning out that way for a product....yeah I can see the used game angle, but the real pay day here is they do not have to stock or manufacture a tangible product so it is 100% profit. It is ingenious and also disturbing!