*Dramatic ending to an overall ecchi humour series* “The following story depicts the downfall of my quiet and peaceful life.” – Tomoki Sakurai If someone is telling you this anime has flying pantsu (underwear), what will come to mind? People throwing pantsu at each other? Or if you are a bit more creative, perhaps you may be imagining them using the pantsu to wrap around a volleyball for practice? (I really got that as a response before). But will you believe me if I say the underwear in this show can really fly like a bird (heck, they even fly in a wonderful formation in the sky).Furthermore, what if those pantsu can explode? Yes, they can go KABOOM! How’s that for a change? Assuming you are still hanging around, let me give this one final piece of advice. Stop reading right here if flying and exploding pantsu is not what you want to see because it only gets much more exciting and chances are you won’t like it (ie. you can drop this show from you list).
Now for the rest of us, where should we begin? How about the ordinary lifestyle of the young man, our protagonist of the story, Tomoki Sakurai? All he ever wished from his small town was to live a peaceful and quiet life where he can eat, sleep, and play. He even made a motto for himself, “peace and quiet is the best”. One night under a cherry tree, a pretty angel came falling down toward our hero and that is how his quiet and peaceful life comes to an end. Who might this girl be? Where did she come from? What kind of past did she have? All these questions will propel the story forward and eventually develop into something much more than what anyone would have initially thought possible from this type of show.
Unsurprisingly a great deal of character developments, in terms of personal growth, lies with the fallen angel. As the series progresses, she not only begin to show depth as a character, but at the same time get involved in a funny four-way romance. Various characters’ past have also been revealed which explains a lot about their current self, particularly their behavior. This also made them more real and believable as a whole.
The sound department really deserves special recognition for this show. Not nothing does it have a special, one of a kind, ending per episode, but each ending also features the aftermath of what happened at the end of the episode (think of it as some form of epilogue). As an example, I strongly urge you to look up the second ending (flying pantsu ending). In addition to the various endings, the unique background music (BGM), that does not often repeat itself, also deserves honourable mention. Often times I feel that I was nearly going in tears thanks to these BGM. They make a strong compliment to the already excellent series.
Sounds come in many different forms. Music obviously counts as one, but voicing is another, especially in the anime industry. Some voices can make a character seem like a lifeless zombie or can totally repel viewers from watching further. Others can bring life to a character, making them more lively and believable. Fortunately, Sora no Otoshimono has a large group of talented casts that helped make the characters come to life and also aided the comedy aspect of the show. If I were to select one seiyu from the group whom I believe have performed the best, it will have to be Souichirou Hoshi (Kira from Gundam SEED, Keiichi from Nigurashi no Naku Koro ni). His ultra hilarious performance as Tomoki, the protagonist, played a key role in the overall success of the series in my opinion. Though his voice may be hard to get used to at times, his role as Tomoki is certainly refreshing, highly different from most of his previous character voices.
You may think that there is probably nothing else that is good about this series. You are dead wrong. The ultimate selling point of Sora no Otoshimono lies in the animation. While it does not have the unique animation techniques like those we often seen by SHAFT, this series cannot be taken lightly either. Production quality is top notch. With smooth fluid-like animation, great scene transitions, and consistently level of high quality production by the studio, all made this show an eye candy to watch. Of course this is especially true if you are into ecchi-fan service. But even if you are an action fan, you will not be disappointed as the series totally shines with its animation. You have to see it to believe it. Certainly one of the best quality anime (animation-wise) of the Fall 2009 season.
To be honest, I am not an extremely big fan of ecchi comedy. But Sora no Otoshimono completely changed my view on this genre. I was really drawn in by the emotional scenes multiple times throughout the series. Similarly, I was also captivated by the very sad, yet powerful, scenes toward the end of the show. It certainly showed us that Sora no Otoshimono is not just about pure ecchi humour, but actually have a strong background story to back it up! I would also like to applaud the production studio, AIC A.S.T.A. for a job well done in adapting the original material from the manga. Lastly if you have read the entire review, do yourself a favour and watch the series now. It is only 13 episodes long, so why not give it a shot?
TiTimofmars
November 9, 2010
Mixed Feelings
This is an ecchi and comedy, two of my favorite genres. However, the humor usually falls flat with me, and the ecchi is rather tame by my standards and doesn't have the situational elements that makes ecchi sexy. And there isn't much else to save the show. The story doesn't really matter much. It serves more as a premise for the 2 "angeloid" girls rather than a key component of most episodes. In other words, it's mostly episodic. Comedy: The comedy is wild and exaggerated, using gags, slapstick, and parodies. And it's corny. It reminds me a bit of a Looney Toons cartoon. The main malecharacter, Tomoki, is uncontrollably perverted, and the comedy mostly consists of him coming up with plots to see women naked or in panties, and getting beat up in the process. He is shown 90% of the time in chibi form (the small child-like form) with a totally different voice, and almost half of that time he is running around naked. In fact, I almost don't recognize him when he switches back. I just don't find this type of dumb comedy appealing.
Ecchi: I'm a fan of ecchi, but I do find mindless ecchi boring. There needs to be some situational element to make the ecchi sexy and appealing, like a romantic build-up, an awkward situation, or some cuteness. Some of the panty shots involving Sohara early on in the series are quite nice as she shakes her butt around cutely while talking. The brief shot of the girls putting on kimonos was nice too. There was some romance there too, where Sohara developed some affection for the hero as he saved her. But then from about the 4th episode on, any of this romantic/cute ecchi ceases to exist. Instead, it's all brute-force mindless, emotionless ecchi as Tomoki barges in on girls to catch a peek. With no situational element, it's about as sexy as looking at a department store swimsuit catalog.
So with the comedy and ecchi elements being lackluster, and the story being more of background element (and this story being a bit shallow and undeveloped) Sora no Otoshimono fails to deliver. It's watchable as mild entertainment, but I wouldn't regret having not seen it.
Recommended
Now let's be serious...the reason you are all probably here is because of the giant rack that you saw on Icarus. But aside from all the semi-nudity and ecchi nature of this anime, it is really quite enjoyable. I started off thinking that this would be like any other rom-com anime and it would be mostly fan service. Im not saying there isn't any because they go to the bathhouse, the beach, the water park, and anywhere that you can see lots of boobies. Story(7/10): The anime doesn't entirely focus on a story driven plot but it doesn't mean it is deprived of a story. Themoments where the anime crosses over to the darker toned scenes are actually pretty entertaining and they really make you change your perception of the angeloids. Apart from the main story, there are many fan service episodes which are also good and always end up making me laugh.
Art(9/10): Art is good for the time it was released so there isn't really much to talk about here, but I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the chibi scenes that happened very often with the main character in his perverted situations.
Sound(10/10): Sound Is good and the soundtrack is also very amusing. Also the background music used during the more intense scenes fit and added to the anime
Character(8/10): The characters are your usual bunch of anime characters. The perverted main character, the neighbor and childhood friend who is in love with the main character, the angeloid that turns the main character's life upside down, the rich and scary upperclassman, the smart and guiding force man person , and the cute angeloid who slowly falls for the main character. A box full of toys that somehow always get into weird situations.
Enjoyment(10/10):I very much so enjoyed the anime. It's pretty good. Give it a chance. NO YOU WILL WATCH IT.
Overall(9/10): Overall, it is a good anime that mixes a dark story with light humor and panty shots. If you watch this, I Believe you will truly enjoy it. So give it a chance. You'll probably like it. I know I did.
LIKE
Not RecommendedFunny
Take note that i've not read the manga or seen the other seasons yet but i'm planning on doing it in the near future and that i'm going all out with my honest opinion here. This is my first review on this site and i really wanted to talk about my disappointment for this anime to someone and what better place than on myanimelist.com Hello everyone! This is your guy, HogisGuy. And i'm here with my first ever written review. I decided to write this review because i've never been this disappointed of an anime ever but boy have i got a lot (And i meanA LOT) of hate for my opinion on this series but i hope that you'll hear me out.
The first thing i wanna talk about is the story... wait! What story?!! Oh yeah! There was something about an angel from some a*****es in heaven. I totally forgot because i was so busy laughing at Tomoki's crazy and hilarious shenanigans (if you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic). Seriously, sometime i forgot that Ikaros really was an angel and thought she was a casual cosplayer or something. It seems like this anime was more busy showing us boring ecchi scenes and those many non-funny scenes with Tomoki and that it probably thought that we would get bored if they didn't show us more ecchi scenes and keep the actual plot at 45 seconds per episode. And even then the story itself wasn't that great but at least a hundred times more interesting than the other garbage they threw at us in the series. Though i will admit that i did laugh at some jokes there were a lot more jokes that just fell flat on it's own face and just died. It also feels like this anime didn't have any idea what audience it wanted to entertain. The comedy crowd? The drama crowd?! The perv crowd?!! I don't know and i have a feeling they didn't either.
The art and animations was really good and even beautiful at times. The designs on the characters was well done and i enjoyed the art style in every single scene (except for the "HILARIOUS" nipple-song scene).
Characters... OH JOY!! I'll start and finish it all with the poor excuse of a protagonist, Tomoki. Let me quote something from the book "I have no mouth, and i must scream" to describe what i feel for Tomoki... if i was a machine:
“HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.”
I HATE Tomoki! He is not funny! He is not deep! He is not interesting! He is nothing! I would love to know who decided for this thing to be the protagonist of the series so i could slam his/her head into the wall and scream "Why?!!" into his ear over and over again. Tomoki doesn't contribute with anything to the series. I love how the anime is constantly trying to make me believe that he is important in this anime when the most common problems he runs into is following:
1: How can i sneak into the girls locker room?
2: I can't afford this porno magazine? Well in all my years. I guess i have to work for some cash then.
3: How are we ever going to get those panties back on Sohara. What a pickle!
4: What's that Ikaros? You wanna move the plot forward? Hah! That's funny but seriously though, how can i sneak into the girls locker room?!!
5: Are you sure that transforming me into a girl is gonna get me inside the girls locker room?
You got a beautiful angel that will do ANYTHING for you! And if any of you people say he doesn't do anything with her because he's deep and emotional and would never take advantage of a woman like that. Yeah i think it's kinda too late to convince me that when i just saw him grope two women. You know what? Sugata is the better protagonist for the series. Yes i know that he too got some weird fantasies, playing around with dolls but here's the thing! He (unlike our villain "Tomoki") actually gets some s**t done. He researches the angels and seems to be more understanding and interested about them and want's to know more of their world. What does Tomoki do? ... He writes songs about his nipples. CHARMING!
I want to give this anime a lower score because giving it an overall score of four makes me feel dirty but the thing is that this anime isn't poor. Because when you get to the good parts and especially the last few episodes i was really invested and found it even sad for what poor Nymph had to go through to get Ikaros home. I have nothing against Ecchi animes or mangas, hell i even love them but when you focus on it too much to the point where it gets in the way of the story you have to realize that it's going to wear out fast. I actually love Manyuu Hikencho and High School Of The Dead.
- But HogisGuy!! HOTD has breasts and unnecessary panty shots. And Manyuu Hikencho is just naked breasts through the whole series.
Sure. HOTD has a lot of pointless ecchi scenes but they are out of the scenes as fast as they are in and yes, they do get boring at times with those panty shots but it never loses track of it's story and even has time for good character build-ups except for Shizuka who is totally pointless to the show and manga so far. Manyuu Hikencho's story revolves around big breasts. You can find it funny, you can find it hot. I see it as a hilarious and to be honest, a good story for it's ludicrous world and that's something this series gets right unlike Sora No Otoshimono.
Now then, i don't hate Sora No Otoshimono. I just don't think it was as good as some people tried to make it out be. Here's to the second season being better but i have my doubts.
