Sola

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Sky

Japanese: sola

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 7, 2007 to Jun 30, 2007

Premiered: Spring 2007

Broadcast: Unknown

Producers: Lantis

Licensors: Bandai Entertainment

Studios: Nomad

Source: Manga

Genres: Drama, Romance, Supernatural

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.18¹ (scored by 45,102 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #3165²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1945

Members: 98,856

Favorites: 407

Available At

Official Site

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Synopsis

Yorito Morimiya is obsessed with the sky. He especially loves taking pictures of its array of different faces—sunrises, sunsets, clouds. On one of his early-morning excursions to photograph the sunrise, Yorito meets a strange girl engaged in an argument with a vending machine. By the time that Yorito forces the girl's tomato juice out of the machine, she's vanished without a trace.

Sola follows the story of Yorito, his sister Aono, and their childhood friends Mana and Koyori Ishizuki, as well as that of a mysterious girl who appears and disappears, and who seems to harbor a dark secret. In a world where magic and the supernatural are never far below the surface and no one is who they seem to be, love and loneliness vie for supremacy beneath Yorito's sky.

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Background

Sola was the first anime written by Hisaya Naoki after leaving game publisher Key.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Sola
Side story:	Sola Specials

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Shihou, Matsuri

Main

Noto, Mamiko
Japanese

Morimiya, Aono

Main

Nakahara, Mai
Japanese

Morimiya, Yorito

Main

Okamoto, Nobuhiko
Japanese

Kamikawa, Mayuko

Supporting

Kaneda, Tomoko
Japanese

Ishizuki, Koyori

Supporting

Shimizu, Ai
Japanese

Tsujidou, Takeshi

Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji
Japanese

Ishizuki, Mana

Supporting

Honda, Youko
Japanese

Sakura, Sae

Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami
Japanese

Uehara, Touko

Supporting

Ono, Ryouko
Japanese

Mizuguchi, Chisato

Supporting

Yahagi, Sayuri
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Satomi, Tetsurou

Producer

Kobayashi, Tomoki

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Aketagawa, Jin

Sound Director

Takayanagi, Shigehito

Episode Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

	1: "Binkan na Fuukei (敏感な風景)" by Ceui (eps 1)
	2: "colorless wind" by Aira Yuuki (eps 2-13)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Mellow Melody" by Ceui (eps 1-12)
	2: "Miageru Ano Sora de (見上げるあの空で)" by Aira Yuuki (eps 13)

More reviews

Reviews

Nov 7, 2007

Yandere

Recommended

I just recently finished sola and I wanted to start off by saying that I am very strange in what interests me in an anime and instantly, from the first episode, I knew that I would love sola. The song in the introduction of the first episode caught at my soul and moved my heart and I also have a personal attachment to taking pictures of the sky and my digital camera, which is what the main character in this anime is like, of course he doesn't quite understand why he is obsessed with the sky, but there is a deep and wonderful meaning behind ... it.

The anime, as I said, for me, had an awesome introduction, the music, the setting, the mystery of the night, the going to take pictures of the sunset and all that was beautiful, but I also loved how normal and cute the main girl character came off as when the main character first met her. She was not remarkable or amazing (although beautiful, one of the most beautiful I have seen), but she was very cute and charming and he instantly adored her as so many people would have.

The anime does go a bit slow from there and moves from the main characters a bit, going into parts of their stories, but I really enjoyed the weird flashbacks they threw in there because they were extremely interesting and made you really want to know what had happened in the past, so when the anime did slow down a lot, it could keep you going for a bit.

The anime is very serious at some parts and also very mature and what some people would consider slow in action, was just the blossoming relationship between the main characters, which, to someone watching this kind of romantic and supernatural anime would expect. There are very cute scenes between the main character and the girl, Matsuri and as the title says, it is very focused at the sky and Matsuri's power/ailment/curse is quite awesome in my opinion, I just wished she had used it more.

I really enjoyed the turn it took with the main character's sister, Aono and her history and just her in general. She was insane, but that's what I like in anime girls and she was fiercely loyal and loving, which is awesome.

The art was really wonderful, in my opinion! I adored how they were drawn and Matsuri, especially, is one of the most beautiful anime girls I have ever seen. I enjoyed how Aono and Matsuri were both very unique and splendid looking, but the main character and his normal friends were generally normal looking, since they were somewhat normal people. The main character's best friend, Mana, was also very enjoyable, unlike her part in many other animes when she is just in love with the guy and depressed all the time, but a tomboy, this time she had personality and caring and she was smart and curious! The settings were beautiful and the time that the main character and Matsuri did spend together was basically magical, in my opinion and the way it was animated gave off this unrivaled feeling of wonder and love.

I always enjoy when in anime, people have normal responses to things and can act all sneaky and weird about things - example, the friend, Mana, thinks someone is at the main character's house, so she gets him out of it and then goes snooping! Normalcy!

The turn that the anime takes is very unique and the true story behind who you think is bad and good and everything else is also very interesting. The fights were fun to watch, even though not enough of them, in my opinion and I overall really loved this anime.

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Jan 26, 2008

Beatnik

Mixed Feelings

Let's check off the things that annoy me, shall we?

~ A world where kids conveniently don't have parents. Because that would mean the writers would actually have to be skilful enough to write stories including them. The only featured adult in the whole story is obviously a hindrance to everyone, except midway when he suddenly becomes every male pervert's role model.

~ Girls that fawn over one witless guy who doesn't deserve any of them. They fight to the death over him, but why should we care? Why should we be invested in any of this if we cant understand ... why anyone would want him in the first place? He is completely and utterly undeserving of it all, and it renders everyone's actions perplexing. Well, not so much perplexing as it is tiresome to watch this anime go through every cliché in the book to appease undemanding 'fans' of the genre.

~ Main protagonist boy who is an empty cipher throughout the entire story. A complete plank of wood with no personality and no discerning features other than his hobby of taking photos of clouds. This is not 'characterization', its an excuse to make him look interesting. He is in actual fact no different than a million other one-note protagonists of this genre. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that the main characters of these stories are usually ciphers, rather than fully fleshed out and interesting people. Because it makes it easier for male viewers to project themselves onto the character. How sad.

~ Girl character who is treated like a wayward sexual pet by guy. At least Elfen Lied had the decency to make the female character a bloodthirsty psychopath.

~ Boring characters. Every single one of them. Except for maybe the little girl in the green dress, she had a nice attitude.

This anime panders to all the moe-loving adult perverts and too-young-to-have-developed-decent-taste youth. Sola's great animation and brief flashes of what could have been an interesting tale are let down by all of the above. There was potential here; to explore people that can never live in the sun, the affects of immortality in a child's body, but the producers were more interested in filling a quota than in story and character. Some of these characters are supposed to be more than a hundred years old yet they still act like brats. Thats because logic is thrown out of the window in sola, because the characters are designed for viewers tastes.

Japan's most popular anime of 2007? Depressing.

Don't dismiss this review because it's negative. Dismiss it because you've yet to grow out of this genre and realise that this anime is the equivalent of a McDonalds happy meal: planned by a committee, packaged prettily but ultimately tacky, cynically driven and bad for you.

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Oct 23, 2007

Master10K

Recommended

As the title implies, this Romance, Drama is heavily themed on the sky (sola), which is definitely different than the usual anime but that may not always be a good thing. It’s quite interesting how something we take for granted like the sky can be such a treasure to other’s but it’s irritating that the bulk of the story has something to do about the sky.

The other main focus of the show is on the blossoming romantic relationship between the two main characters; Yorito is an average guy who’s obsessed with taking photos of the sky and Matsuri, she’s the “special girl” usually found in ... these types of anime. This type of set-up has been done many times before and compared to other masterpieces, Sola just seems average. With such a dull premise, a lack of action and unanswered questions it’s easy to lose interest in this show. At least as the story begins to develop all of these issues become a thing of the past and the show ends up being good to watch.

This anime ends up doing a not-so-good job in the character department, with the same 7 characters throughout the series. The characters are really average and have the sort of personalities that have been seen many times by an anime fan. On the other hand the show does manage to surprise us with some interesting developments on Yorito (male protagonist). The only other interesting characters in this anime are Matsuri and Yorito’s so called sister Aono because of the mystery that shrouds them and they’re the only ones that are developed well, throughout the series.

The visual quality of this animation is definitely above average with this anime embracing various new animation techniques and styles. Just like the title implies, a lot of detail was put into the skies, clouds and lighting effects. Even the water looks superb, yet it’s a shame that some of this effort wasn’t put into adding more dynamic characters to the screen.

The music was decent with a unique blend of piano, string and harp melodies as background music. It is certainly suited to the calm and dramatic nature of this anime however it did little to add excitement, on the rare occasions of an action scene.

Overall this anime closely resembles “Lunar Legend Tsukihime”, in the sense that both shows revolve around two mysterious girls romantically involved with the male protagonist, who’s unsure of himself. Both shows have the same sort of pace as they start of slow but then finish quick. As a Romance Drama Sola does a decent job in both departments but it was only halfway into the short series that it really kicks in, with shocking character developments and intense fights. The show ended well with the final dramatic confrontation and happy-sad ending, so I only recommend this anime to fans of romance and drama but not for the action lover.
^_^

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Poll: sola Episode 8 Discussion Faust721 - May 27, 2007	42 replies	by Killerkat198 »» May 15, 2:10 PM
Why is this series so underrated SakurasouBusters - Oct 18, 2013	12 replies	by Quintessence »» Feb 7, 9:22 AM
Poll: sola Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) BlueYoshi - Jul 1, 2007	111 replies	by knktzvra »» Jun 3, 2022 9:19 AM
Poll: sola Episode 2 Discussion Kayrhandros - Apr 15, 2007	45 replies	by Auliaramadhana12 »» Oct 16, 2021 12:33 PM
Poll: sola Episode 10 Discussion Sukotsutsu - Jun 11, 2007	40 replies	by Rob7 »» Jan 12, 2021 9:32 PM

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Characters & Voice Actors

Shihou, Matsuri

Morimiya, Aono

Morimiya, Yorito

Kamikawa, Mayuko

Ishizuki, Koyori

Tsujidou, Takeshi

Ishizuki, Mana

Sakura, Sae

Uehara, Touko

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Staff

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Sola

Alternative Titles

Information

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Available At

Resources

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

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