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[The Nihon Review Forum]

 The Nihon Review Forum » The Nihon Review Topic Discussion » Anime
 Sora no Woto

[Akira]

I still think Seize is either in Japan, or in previously Japanese-occupied territory. The existence of shinto shrine poles and textbooks in Japanese attest to this fact.

[TypicalIdiotFan]

I've come to the conclusion, btw, that we wont possibly know what happened to this world, because I don't think the characters know either.  If they've reached the point where their history is so blown apart that cultures are amalgamated into what it is, then it's very likely that nobody has a history book sitting around that would explain what the **** happened.

Even the devices left over from the previous age don't help.  I don't think the tank has any info in it because I would have to believe that would already have been plumbed.  Sure, it has an old song in it (Amazing Grace), but doesn't give it a title.  For all we know, that was programmed into the tank as part of the "communication by trumpet" measure (or the impetus FOR communication by trumpet).

So, yeah, unless some deus ex machina comes around in the form of a library computer or "immortal time observer" or whatever, I don't think we're going to find out.

[Shadowmage]

Episode 6

Best episode so far.  This one actually had some interesting theatrics that kept me interested throughout.  Such a shame that it'll be gone next episode.

[Akira]

6:

That was some SERIOUS Baccano shit they just pulled. Which is good, since I love stuff like that.

Continuing on with our lulzy conjectures: Japanese is now the language of the literati? >_>;;; Also, some CRAZY SHIT happened in the East.

Onto the substance:

I really liked this episode not because of plot, but rather, because of how they told it. I was also rather surprised when Kureha and Noel pulled the big guns out. That was pretty badass.

Also, the way Rio moves during the last scene is incredibly sexy. Oh God. :V

[AC]

6:

Meh, it's a small dose of theatrics but it's hardly Baccano material. The girls in mafia suits sure blindsided me. Plus, it's a nice change from the usual frolicking moe-girls story. You know what? At least, this episode does good enough with the storytelling, that I didn't care about scrunitizing the cultural setting.

What in God's name happened (or is happening) in the east? The Invisible Death? Sounds worse than the Plague...

[TypicalIdiotFan]

7:

That was some powerful stuff.  Some gritty images and some inspired background music to set the mood.

War is hell.

[Elineas]

Nice to see the themes of death and war coming to the forefront. Wasn't very fond of Princess Iria popping up again, but I guess it's something I'll have to accept.

Setting is messing with the mishmash of cultures again. This time, it's the culturally non-western practice of O-bon, which seems to now have a French name. There's also some conflict between the Orthodox Catholic Church and the practice (not that I'm surprised) and if it's such a widespread tradition, it seems there's more than one religion flourishing.

Oh, and is anyone irked by the fact that a series can just draft up a past for someone without any particular clues to indicate they ever had such a background? You'd think Felicia would have fallen into bouts of melancholy before, but this event seems to come as a surprise for Kanata and even Kureha.

[Akira]

Helvetica: The Latin name for Switzerland. Hrm.

I'm not particularly bothered by the past-drafting. Felicia always had a past. She's too good to be true.

I do like this new nihilistic take on the world. I'm starting to think this may be one of the better war-related anime released, but it's still too early to tell.

[AC]

You know what? I don't really care about the cultural mix-up (anymore). Maybe I've stopped caring, because I just want to see what's the deal with the platoon.

Akira's right. Tsumugi Felicia's now more credible as a character. I don't want her to stay simply as a tea-sipping military officer who doesn't scold her subordinates. That's unreal.

The war snippets are gorgeous; In fact, I felt like I was blindsided by them. Teh spider tanks are the shit.

Speaking of which, doesn't anyone think it's weird to signal to someone with a bugle in the middle of a war zone?

[Elineas]

I wasn't arguing that Felicia stick around as a motherly officer, but rather that this episode brought to my attention a problem I've had with flashbacks: that they sometimes hold no precedence. It's the very fact that she's only been a doting, boring superior before that makes this jarring. I like this turn of events to a darker and more complex character, but I would never have guessed her past given the composure she holds in eps. 1-6 that just so happens to conveniently break in ep. 7, which is months(I think?) after Kanata joins. Whatever, didn't stop the series from whetting my appetite for more war scenes, just an idea that finally clicked after seeing it so many times before.

The bugle in the middle of a war thing reminds me of drummers in 1800s warfare. Just blow it off as another use of the cultural/time period blender?

[AC]

You see, I actually like this twist. Maybe it is unprecendented, but deep inside I honestly saw this coming. Or, I actually wanted something like this to happen. It's a little unexpected but it pays off.

[kadian1364]

As I noted on twitter, I think that episode changed everything we knew about the series. There has been speculation as to how these girls would function as an actual combat unit, that they're comprised of incompetents the army shipped away to a remote base so they wouldn't be a bother, but we learned Felicia is only a couple years removed from brutal front-line fighting, and Noel had firsthand experience as well.

We also discover that there were multiple major wars, the more recent ones fought with regressed tech and in the ruins of past disasters, and one in the far past with notably higher tech level, against a black-winged superweapon (I think I saw a bit in a reflection, maybe I was imagining things) that caused the destruction of major cities and the fall of humanity. There are dissenting opinions that what Felicia saw wasn't a flashback but her own hallucination, yet it was too detailed and consistent with what we already knew for me not to believe it actually happened.

Finally, the figure from the past of Felicia, Rio, and Kanata is a highly regarded figure, though whether she is actually royalty or if that's just a popular moniker is yet to be clarified, and Rio's possibly her sister but that's still a bit ambiguous. There's so much to chew on.

I think many of us expected some revelatory event to happen, but that anticipation didn't lessen the impact it at all. This might just be a one-off flashback episode, but more likely it'll serve as the major turning point of the show. Sora no Woto is already much more than we all realistically expected it to be, and now I'm giddy with excitement trying to guess where it will go from here.

[Akira]

Not to bring up my favorite example ever or anything, but I think of Felicia the same way I thought of Yuuko from ef: neither of them are Mary Janes who suddenly sprouted a personality, but rather, that they are incredibly twisted, broken people who hide behind a facade of normalcy. This interpretation has its own problems, and this device is too often abused, especially in anime, but it sits better with me than the "background from nowhere" theory.

I personally didn't really think too much of the warfare scenes, except for the one where Felicia sees the dismembered arm of her comrade. The calm and serenity of Seize creeps me out much more than the war-torn world of yesteryear, precisely because of its pointlessness. Why have an army? Who, or what, is still worth protecting?

[AC]

We also discover that there were multiple major wars, the more recent ones fought with regressed tech and in the ruins of past disasters, and one in the far past with notably higher tech level, against a black-winged superweapon (I think I saw a bit in a reflection, maybe I was imagining things) that caused the destruction of major cities and the fall of humanity. There are dissenting opinions that what Felicia saw wasn't a flashback but her own hallucination, yet it was too detailed and consistent with what we already knew for me not to believe it actually happened.

Actually, you're not seeing things. When I rewatched the episode, I also saw a huge black wing (14:23) reflected on a glass windows of a building. Whoever saw that at first glance must have sharp eyes; it only lasted a second.

Now, this opens up a big can of worms. Are the world actually experiencing apocalypse at the hands of something extraterrestial or supernatural?

[TypicalIdiotFan]

The calm and serenity of Seize creeps me out much more than the war-torn world of yesteryear, precisely because of its pointlessness. Why have an army? Who, or what, is still worth protecting?

This has been bugging me for a while, too.  I realize that the girls are supposedly in the most unlikely place to experience war, but if the whole bit about humanity dying out is true, then these people are the most relaxed doomed people I've ever seen.  Seems like every episode we hear about something that would throw our modern world into a panic and yet they're all taking it in stride as if it can't get any worse.  Or, maybe the problem is that Seize is so far detached from what's going on that the people aren't phased by it.

I've been wondering for a while now how women would even be allowed to go out and die on the field of battle when the world is as ****ed as it is.  Wouldn't the highest priority be to make babies in order to keep the human race as strong as possible?  Sure, the wars aren't helping, but if you're so hard pressed for military conflict that you're slowly eroding your own population by killing off the womenfolk, then this has gone way beyond simple ideological differences and gone straight to insane.