Sora no Method – 12-13 [END]

SoraMeso11-12-010

The saucerless town’s new evil sunhat overlord…

Welcome to Kirigon Town, home of monster rampages and overly long conclusions. Speaking of which, we get to wrap up the final two episodes, and do a bit of series overview and review.

Saucerless City and the Starting Sky

SoraMeso11-12-001

Oh noes, telescope-kun! What did you do to it Mr. Fox?

I, for one, didn’t seem a time slip coming. If anything, my expectations were for a time jump, with the kids slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things in a Saucerless world, coming to terms with Noels absence and everything she meant to them. In all honesty, I felt these last two somewhat lacking in the punch department. I’m sure they served rather well as coda, but did we need two episodes to cover what could have been said in a nice cold open, and a bit of development?

SoraMeso11-12-003SoraMeso11-12-004

OK, who wished for more sunflowers? These aren’t even blue. Rindou I could understand…

But we get what we get, and I’ll take it for what it is worth. They spent far to much time on these proceedings. We’ve come to know the characters enough over the past few months, so it isn’t a stretch to discover that, despite the time slip and everyone but Nonoka and Shione forgetting Noel, everyone feels that something fishy is going on, and wants to get to the bottom of it. Since Nonoka has been first among the ensemble cast, it wasn’t brain surgery to get her back in the lead. So it really feels like I’m just going over one episodes worth of material.

So, I’ll do that. At it’s heart, I felt that the show was digging deep into some rather good thematic material. Growing up is awkward, after all, and I loved how they took the steps necessary in the writing to make that part of the show. Yuzuki and Shione weren’t nicect of people at the outset, but they had room to grow and develop. Nonoka felt like a doormat at times, and she needed time to grow from there. And then there is Koharu and Souta, both feeling somewhat out of place, yet neither one of them giving into the feeling fully. Everyone had a chance to show off some negative character traits. Then they started to walk from there to a better place.

SoraMeso11-12-005

Kid, beware of blue haired saucer girls and your dad’s cooking…nothing but trouble….

So with that in mind, I actually enjoyed how they took two steps forward, and then a few more steps back. It feels much more like an emerging teen’s progress in life. Yuzuki was so certain that the Saucer was the cause of all troubles, but was made to see that wasn’t true and had to walk that attitude back. All of them had great moments like that. But, for me, the show started to lag right before what I consider the proper finale in episode 11. The narrative techniques they used for good, began to get long in the tooth by the end.

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….well, yes, of course…

But in the end, they couldn’t let go of Noel and had to see her again. I saw this as the flattest part of the story, and felt forced. I didn’t see the need for it. They understood something as friends, that they were, and will always be connected if they make the choice and effort to do that. I would like to feel the end was metaphorical, and with that art shift, it just might be. But of what? If even? If felt like they wanted the proverbial cake, eating and all. Would have felt more satisfing the other way…

SoraMeso 13-end

Dat Art Shift…

A few more things…

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The greatest and most positive note that I can take from the series as a whole is that Studio 3Hz has come out as a great production studio. There were some derps here and there, but nothing that bigger studios haven’t stumbled over before. Despite some of my gripes about the written material, the animation and music, direction and overall values of the show never faltered, and always felt alive and refreshing. I haven’t seen their name attached to anything else, but that can, and hopefully will change in future.

And yes, despite being gripey about the ending, I really did enjoy covering it from week to week, taking a deeper look into the show always felt enlightening, as I think it reinforces that you can have some unlikable characters that can change and grow, and be privileged to be part of witnessing it. To me, that makes you feel closer to the characters, and in drama, that is a key element. So, without further ado, I thank everyone for the support these past few months, and thank you for your comments….keep ’em coming…

Thanks for Watching!

About

All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
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23 Responses to “Sora no Method – 12-13 [END]”

  1. Highway says:

    Studio 3Hz certainly did better than Studio Passione with Rail Wars in their first effort. But I feel like the last four episodes were trying to stretch maybe an episode and a half of content into 4 episodes. On top of that, the whole last episode kinda felt like they thought “Man, I loved the way we got screwed around with for the epilogue to Onegai Teacher, let’s make a whole episode of that.”

    I’m tryin’ to say it was slooooow. And fairly pointless. It rendered the emotional aspects of what they were trying to do as secondary to the annoyance for me.

    • skylion says:

      If Shirobako is any indication whatsoever…..who the hell had the revelation to make it “an episode and a half..into four episodes”? Was it Tarou?

      • JPNIgor says:

        I was just thinking about Shirobako looking at 3Hz. Man, studio 3Hz is like MusAni with Exodus. They did a job so well done, no one saw it coming. I’m really expecting a lot from their next jobs.

        But the art shift at the end… For some reason I half-expected for a jumpscare ‘-‘

        • skylion says:

          Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

          As for the art shift, I wanted to caption it as “Now, I’ve come to eat your souuuuuullllllls”. But didn’t.

        • Highway says:

          That’s kinda pushing it. There’s a reason we were calling “SoraMess” throughout the season. It certainly wasn’t a slam dunk show, and it’s not particularly popular. As I said, they did better than Passione with Rail Wars, but at best this was adequate without major screwups.

          Now, if they’d made a whole show where everyone walked along as jauntily as they did in the normal ED, THAT would have been special.

          • skylion says:

            I pointedly avoided calling is SoraMess until around the time 12 came out…then I gave in. Adequate for a small studio must feel pretty awesome to them, especially without major screw ups.

            Well, then they should have hired the ED director for the whole of the show!

          • JPNIgor says:

            Yeah, I have to agree that the ending animation was a lot cooler than the actual show. The coloring without lines was pretty cool as well, but let’s leave that for Shaft’s backgrounds. Having the whole show like that would probably push their budget.

            But still, I can’t agree with the “SoraMess”, specially when it had so many special things ([one of the] best loli of the season, c’mon) and no major screw ups. That’s pretty much a miracle by a small studio making their first show, and their first original work at that. You’ve got to be a little forgiving.

            • skylion says:

              Well, Noel was a great LOLi, no doubt. But the best of the season has yet to make her arrival.

            • Highway says:

              Unlike skylion, I give no special credit for putting kids, or characters who look like kids, in shows. Lolis are never anything bonus for me, only possible detraction. In fact, the only one who’s stature had any relevance in contrast to her importance was Taiga Aisaka.

              And the SoraMess appellation is more in reference to the sometimes excruciating “two steps forward, three steps back” nature of the story. I’d agree they didn’t make mistakes with the animation, but the story wasn’t that great, and its flaws were highlighted by the streeeeeetch they put it through.

            • JPNIgor says:

              But it’s a newbie studio TT.TT Forgive studios as you forgive man and God shall bless- wait, wrong place.

          • Di Gi Kazune says:

            Hence why I typically avoid the majority of slice of life shows. Their appeal is the slice of lifefiness (is that even a word?!) and once you screw that up there is usually a lack of fallback.

  2. HannoX says:

    It would have been better if it had ended with Ep. 11. By then this series had done everything it needed to do to show how the characters had grown and changed. Plus, it would have ended on a stronger ending than these last two episodes gave us.

    • Highway says:

      I agree, if they’d shoved off Noel earlier in episode 11, and had her come back, it would have had the same impact, and not made us feel like our time was wasted with two more episodes of pointless teenage angst and a kooky time rewind.

    • skylion says:

      Which is probably why this post was a perfunctory as possible. I said all I could about the series last time.

  3. Foshizzel says:

    I think things would have been better with a real time skip like the main cast of characters being older? I mean appearance wise say high school or even college years? Then have Noel speak to them and each character goes back to the town on their own and find Noel? That would have worked a bit better instead this odd parallel universe alternate reality set up.

    The art shift at the end doesn’t really bother me at all because I took it as huh? At first and then afterwards I started to think maybe they wanted a impact scene? IDK it was a lot like Akame ga Kill using their still frame shot of the first set of successful assassinations? I know a few that HATED those moments and yes thanks to Shirobaku we know things happen that effect artwork and for all we know maybe there was a in house argument like that whole CGI vs hand drawn.

    While this series was decent I would say this is a 7/10 series for me and I agree things would have been better with episode 11 being the true end.

    • skylion says:

      I mean appearance wise say high school or even college years? Then have Noel speak to them and each character goes back to the town on their own and find Noel? That would have worked a bit better instead this odd parallel universe alternate reality set up.

      This is a really good idea…damn good….

  4. Namaewoinai says:

    There goes the…wait…uh…sigh…and so, The girl had come back, but thankfully the saucer is not, but oh well, i guess the kids had imagining too much enough aren’t they?

    Well i guess it’s enough for this show, i tell you these kids are so…so…terrible, i mean man, Why the heck are they summoning the saucer, huh?…But oh well!

    And Noel she is such a…a… Ok I Shut up now! i’am kinda bit in a bad mental mood anyways!

  5. Kiritsugu says:

    Went into this one because i had not seen a drama anime in some time…
    This one was a nice story about friendship that can endure all. The power of friendship ends up reuniting all in the end, and i’m glad with it 🙂 It had nice characters, i really loved Noel (impossible not to love someone so cheerfull and silly has her), and that art shift in the end was beautifull IMO (if there’s someone to be said about this anime is that it was beautifull). It was a sweet ending for a sweet bunch of characters.

    Though this was not the drama that i was hoping for, it was nice 🙂

    • skylion says:

      Noel was intensely awesome, no doubt at all.

      Yes, 3Hz did a tremendous job with all the scenery and the character design.

      It was rather nice, a bit to melodramatic at times, and the ending could have been shorter…But I won’t complain a bit about following it…

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