Forum - View topicShelf Life - Sound and the Fury
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AnimeMaine
Posts: 123 |
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I would put both Allision & Lillia and Sound of the Sky as Rental Shelf. I define "Shelf Worthy" as a series that I would want to watch my wife to watch, such as Durarara. "Perishable" is a title that is so bad, I'd give it away if I could, such as Grrl Power. Those consist of about 20% of all released anime. The rest are "Rental Shelf". Did I enjoy the series enough that, at the end of each episode, I wanted to see the next one? Both these anime fell into that category.
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Moonsaber
 Posts: 343 Location: USA |
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I haven't seen any but Sound of the Sky, but I pretty much agree with Erin's assessment of it. Meaning I own it, and consider it shelf worthy. Anything I will watch again, or would like to load out to others, meets that criteria for me. Seeing as I immediately watched So Ra No Wo To immediately again, for in some episodes cases, a 3rd or 4th time.. it fits for me. I have to agree that it is definately a better show from beginning to episode 9 or 10, with the last episodes harder to watch.
It was the first time I had seen the finale OAV, and I am not really sure what I think of it. There was an odd sort of poetry to go back to 'daily life' after that big finale for me. Oh and animemaine: If I used your criteria for anime, I would only shelf worthy Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, and Miyazaki films, and then only barely. |
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Veers
 Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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Sora no Woto has a lot of little unrealistic eyeroller things that kind of irked me (hello, laundry/pee episode...), but for every one of those, there was something the series did right (especially dat episode seven!) that made me forgive it. I loved the atmosphere, setting, background art, etc. that really brought the story to life, and I really thought they nailed the balance of details vs mystery in the backstory and legend stuff--really got my speculation engine running, which is something I really appreciate, doubly so from a show that just looked like moe in fatigues that I avoided until someone compared it favorably to Haibane Renmei (at which point curiosity won me over).
Frankly, it's a crime that it didn't get a BD release, because the background art and several other scenes really deserve HD, but I picked the show up during a TRSI sale anyway to support the show, even if I won't actually watch the DVDs... |
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belvadeer
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Dessert? Did you mean desert island? Or was that intentional to make it seem more childish considering the characters?
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2655 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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That's too bad about Allison and Lillia. I was in total agreement with you about part one, so I suspect I'd share your opinion here too. That ending of part one SO irritated me...
 Anyone want to spoiler tag enlighten me about how the ending of part one is invalidated by part two, though?
I'd be curious to know what you think of Uta no Princesama, Erin. Much to my chagrin, after watching two episodes for the preview, I've gone back every Saturday for more...although possibly for the joint purposes of reading the comments during the ending theme and waiting for lasers to shoot out of the heroine's soulless yellow and green eyes. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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That DBZ link you included was outstanding, Erin, especially after Vegeta showed up and schooled Yamcha. Too funny.
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zensunni
 Posts: 1294 |
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I am also in the "Only one of these that I have seen is So Ra No Wo To, or Sound of the Sky" camp. I have read a lot of bad reviews of this show, but most of them seem to really not get it. Erin does. So many people watched this and couldn't get past the cute girls doing cute things aspect of it or worse, couldn't get their mind wrapped around the post-apocalypse world concept. I don't know how many times I have seen comments about this show saying things like "If they have spider tanks, why do they use bugles?" The concept of a civilization in collapse, where little of the advanced technology that they once possessed is still available, but some of it is still there and some extrordinarily brilliant individuals are able to still make sense of it and use it seems beyond some people. Either that or they couldn't get over the superficial similarity of the girls to the girls in K-On! What really impressed me the most about the show was that, even in the silliest, slice-of-life, cute-girls-doing-cute-things episodes, there was always plot advancement. In every episode there was something to move the overall plot forward, working toward that shimmering moment spoiler[when Kanata plays "Amazing Grace" and brings both sides of the battle to a halt long enough for Rio to arrive and end the fighting.] I get teary eyed just thinking about it...
Needless to say, this is one of my favorite shows, not just of the past several years, but of all time. I don't buy many DVDs, especailly ones that I have already watched all of online. If they come out with a BluRay of it, I will fork out the money again! The only issue I have with Erin's review is her comment about episodes 10-12. I love those episodes. I don't think that there is a dropoff in quality at all. The Roman version of the flame maidens legend and the rest of the plot coming together is a wonderful climax to the show. I also love the OVA that takes place 6 months after the show, which leaves plenty of open plot for a sequel! (PLEASE!!!!!) |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Wow, and here I expected Sora no Woto's blurb to be practically all about slamming it for being some lolicon fetishist's wet dream thanks to that one episode where Kanata really needs to pee. Hell, I hated that episode, and when I rewatch it again I will skip it, because it is entirely pointless. What's worse is that it came right after the best episode of the series! I wanted to see more of the blond leader's past. That was a hell of a lot more interesting than seeing Kanata sitting by a phone trying not to urinate
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Otaking09
 Posts: 637 |
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Nice comparison, but the difference is that the outward moe' in Sound of the Sky is used as an automatic hook. Deer Hunter, on the other hand, felt like Cimino was just spelling things out. It's been a while since I've commented here, but I'll admit that you've done a fantastic job of explaining Sound of the Sky's quality. ...even if it's with Deer Hunter. |
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Gewürtztraminer
 Posts: 1028 Location: Texas - Its like whole other country. |
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I was really surprised by Sound of the Sky.
Most Nozomi releases are automatic buys for me. When I started watching I had low expectations based on the character designs. I had a profound sense of melancholy of being shown what civilization was both capable of producing, and then losing. It was all tied together very well. I highly recommend the show to my friends, even the mostly dub crowd. |
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the Rancorous
 Posts: 2248 Location: Hunting the Dragon in Gransys |
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I like that show, but I actually found that particular moment to be one of the most contrived and rather cliche scenes I've seen in a long time. It brought my palm to my forehead quick and lowered my overall opinion of the show. spoiler[Here we have two clashing armies, entrenched, armed with rifles and machine guns, each side has their own artillery, and the genius strategy they come up with is to charge at eachother like a scene out of Braveheart, not a single one of them firing a single shot?] But then it was made clear; spoiler[had the armies used their artillery and guns as they should be used, they would not have been able to hear Kanata's bugle over the racket, nor would they have been able to resolve things without anybody on either side getting killed.]  ^100. I enjoyed that show overall, but that "climatic" moment in the last episode was just completely stupid.
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AnimeMaine
Posts: 123 |
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For Princess Irene: spoiler[In part 2, Allison and Will are such close friends that Lillia hopes they get married. So the "separation" in part 1 doesn't really have much of any effect.]
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Nineofclubs
 Posts: 78 |
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hopefully with this review more people will give Sound of The Sky a chance, its quickly become one of my favorites and i was defiently suprised with what i got. That soundtrack is simply amazing.
The immerse setting was also really cleverly done imo. After seeing the show i checked up on its wiki one day on a whim only to find all these subtle details and background information that really made watching it again even more rewarding. I dunno with this show it just felt like all the little things meshed together into the perfect package for me. |
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neocloud9
 Posts: 1178 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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Welp, guess I need to check out Sora no Woto soon.
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zensunni
Posts: 1294 |
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Thanks for the example of what I was talking about! spoiler[If you look closely at the rifles in that scene you will notice that they are not machine guns. They bear a striking resemblance to either the M1917 Enfield or the M1903 Spingfield, which were both breach loading, bolt action, early 20th Century rifles. The stragegy of having the tanks advance with the infantry is right out of early mechanized war strategy. Harry Turtledove, in his alternate history "Great War" series, which is set in an alternate timeline where the South won the civil war, but otherwise has extremely realistic weapons and tactics (He is a historian as a day job...), the early tank strategy is just like what is shown in So Ra No Wo To. The men are in trenches, the order to charge is given and the tanks move up with groups of infantry marching around and behind them. This is a strategy that failed to achieve break throughs again and again, until someone had the bright idea to advance the tanks massed, ahead of the infantry, breaking through the trench lines of the opposition so the infantry could take advantage of the breach and hold the break through. That is what I thought of when I saw the episode. It didn't look contrived or silly at all to me. Quite to the contrary, it looked like someone had done their homework on poor military strategy used by people that are not fully aware of the advantages of armor. Bad strategy, but a bad strategy that was used by the Brittish over and over in WWI. Their generals were not idiots, just not aware of how they could use their tanks. You will also note that they don't really have artillery and the tanks that the regular units are using are extremely wimpy in comparison to the spider tank that the girls have. They also don't move much faster than an infantryman can walk, much like WWI tanks. As for why they are not firing, my guess is that they weren't in range until after Kanata starts playing Amazing Grace. It is not until she has stopped and the men are all quiet when the command to fire is first given. It would be silly to fire before you are in range, and if you are using your tanks as infantry support, you would hold off on firing them until your men can engage. In WWI, they would have had artillery bombarding before the charge, but these people seem to have lost basic artillery or, being mobile forces meeting in the middle of nowhere, they have none other than their tanks, which they are using as previously stated, not as either artillery or as a leading edge of battle.] |
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