It’s about time I wrote an episode review, no? And of course, what better series to do it on than Sora no Oto? It just so happens the language here follows up the last post quite nicely.

Okay, that’s KINDA funny.

In a nutshell, this episode blew my mind. To smithereens. That’s right, I’m complimenting this series again – at least, I think I am. Can’t quite tell on Baden Baden Lily.

Like, maybe wear the damn strap?

In its run so far Sora no Oto has been our venue to indulge in cultural tidbits, with its detailed backgrounds and the shocking revelation that the locations are based on real places – more carbon copied, even.

After considering even that, this episode strikes us in the face with sledgehammer force. Allow me to explain. Some of us presume that the ‘Helvetians’, Kanata and co., are actually speaking in French, because of the written French you can find here and there, like on Kanata’s music book.

Holy crap! I think I somehow channeled my thoughts into the monitor! No, I’ve ruined the series! Sora no Oto will never be innocent again!

Now, ‘Helvetian’ would mean an alignment to Helvetia, in fact a female personification of Switzerland (unless our Finest are from the community of Helvetia in Washington County). Helvetia is a female personification, the main cast is female, yeah, clever; but do you know what this would mean in our world’s terms? That the Finest of Platoon 1121 are in fact Swiss, speaking Japanese, supposedly speaking French, at war with the Romans.

Personally, I can’t wrap my head around something half that size.

I’m not sure whether to call that smart, or bludgeoningly unprofessional…

Now, I can understand the Helvetians speaking Japanese; as the main cast, it’d be horribly inconvenient for them not to be speaking Japan’s national language. In a Cantonese soap, even the westerners know how to speak Canto, unless of course they’re trying to make a point of the English. I can accept that.

But the crux of all this is that in this episode Kanata and friends meet their first Roman soldier. When she opens her mouth to vocalize – surprise! She speaks German.

You’re wondering how I figured out it was German, right?

It’s pretty much common knowledge that the Ancient Romans spoke Latin, so these ‘Romans’ can’t possibly be those Romans. In Sora no Oto, this Roman language is called ‘Romago’, which I presume can simply be translated into ‘Roman’, which clearly is not a language.

But no, it doesn’t end there. Direct your attention towards Aisha’s forehead. That may be a conveniently located mole, but coupled with her skin tone in comparison with the other characters I see a bindi. Bindis are worn in Southern Asia – Rome is in Italy, in Europe. For that matter Germany is my guess seven-hundred miles North of Italy, nowhere near India or other Southern-Southeastern Asian countries.

Alright, so it’s not that far with today’s flying machines, but considering how Kanata travelled by train in episode one and has never seen a ‘Roman’ before it’s safe to assume they haven’t such luxuries, even if Noel can single-handedly construct the super battle tank Take-Mikazuchi.

And I’m the queen of Switzerland.

You’d think someone in pwq fansubs would’ve played enough Persona to learn their mythology.

And do you remember the Aisha from Sky Girls? Dark skin, bindi? Does her name have to be Aisha if there’s a mark on her forehead? No, it’s Aisha. No matter what the subs say. You can only pronounce so many words with Katakana.

At first, the tiny mixmashes of culture were pretty cool – but this is arguably ridiculous. The dev. team has debatably passed from being well read and having the charm and humor to interject small cultural references to poor researchers who threw into the mixing pot every cultural detail they could find in hopes of creating a foreign exoticness.

Maybe you mean no man’s land, guys. Maybe.

At this point you probably have one question you want to tie to a brick and throw at me: “But Ningyo, there are people in Italy that speak German! Bolzano-Bozen!”

Yeah, well, those people don’t exactly have dark skin and wear bindis now, do they? But actually, you have me there. It’s here that our favorite word comes into play again; verisimilitude. How far are you willing to suspend your disbelief? Here we have a Southern Asian/someone shipped to be Indian claiming to be a Roman soldier speaking German in war with Helvetians speaking Japanese supposedly speaking French. In Spain. If that to you is not an affront to different ethnicities but another delightful cultural amalgamation, then Sora no Oto has done nothing wrong.

In fact, despite what you may think, it did a lot of things right this episode. Very, very right.

It begins by chugging along with the dramatic action and cumulates in an explosive finale – just like episode 7, this is Sora no Oto at its height. Nay, even better than that. It’s a classic story of two warring sides learning that perhaps their enemies aren’t very different from themselves; a trope already thoroughly done, but Sora no Oto makes no mistakes plot wise. Except maybe

You’d think the armywoman wouldn’t be told this by the villagers…

Otherwise, it’s storytelling gold. I won’t give you the play-by-play, because you should just watch it yourself, but I will highlight these points:

More proof of the sheer power of the Finest; even in her compromised state, Noel easily takes down a door of the same variety as one Helvetian grunts were bashing on futilely with the butt of their guns before.

In the climax of the episode, as Helvetian soldiers storm the fortress, we thrillingly jump from the hiding Aisha and the gone-haywire Noel, to their fortress phone ringing (if you’ve been watching you know what that means). Then we immediately jump back to Aisha desperately hobbling clumsily away from the armed soldiers, and never before has Sora no Oto been so exciting. The interjection of one thrilling event after another; you have to commend the dev. team.

This peaks into a spectacular scene where Aisha looks to both sides, armed Helvetian troops surround her, cut to black, a gunshot rings out. Excellent theatre.

Then the ‘Aijou yuujou’ blaring in your ear kind of negates that, but. See, Sora no Oto has the potential to be amazing – yet they just had to waste so much time with such episodes as the one where Kanata held her pee in for a whole day.

Very plot relevant.

WHY? How does that contribute anything whatsoever to this awesome plot that will now possibly end in mediocrity because it didn’t have enough time to develop? The whole episode was about her waiting for an important phone call; then have her answer the important phone call! It’ll take thirty seconds! Then get on with it! Will I ever understand this series?

Luckily the laws of anime dictate that we can leave with some fanservice, so we don’t part feeling all cold inside.

I can now say that Aisha is my favorite character in this series, despite her short amount of screen time, and all that I complained about earlier. She was a good soldier. Loyal, vigilant, yet compassionate and forgiving. Maybe Noel took the bullet for her – God knows the Finest can catch bullets with chopsticks. I will now father the ‘Aisha did not die’ fan circle, and find some obscurely dressed cart driver in the last episode and say that it has to be her.

But really, the guilty truth is, there’s the part of me that has to forever be a critic, and then there’s that giddy part that looks at a  female dark-skinned German speaking Roman soldier with a bindi and says ‘that’s just awesome’. Someone will have to correct me on the adjective order there.

Ningyo

Well girls and boys, this is it. Sora no Oto fulfills our dreams or crushes them next week.

Related posts:

1. This.Was.An.Okay.Watch
2. Spidertank, Spidertank
3. The Twelve Episode Curse
4. Please Call Me a Bad Dog, Mitsuba-sama