We have four girls. We'll call them A-chan, B-chan, C-chan, and Bear Grylls. All four are stranded on an island.
1) A, B, or C wants something that isn't on the island.
2) BG claims that it can be obtained.
3) A/B/C rejoice
4) BG points out a caveat - something that makes the task off-putting
5) A/B/C make >.< faces
6) They do it anyway.
7) More >.< faces
8) They either decide that it wasn't that bad, or swear that they will never do that thing again.
And that's pretty much Sounan desu Ka. The manga is generally episodic and uses each chapter to explore some kind of survival technique. The focus here is on the tricks, not the characters, and the girls rarely rise beyond simple archetypes and the random ecchi shots meant to distract from the fact that you are reading a survival guide.
Does it have redeeming factors? Certainly. Buried beneath all the other stuff is the slow humanization of the story's survivalist, Homare, as the other girls improve her ability to socialize with others. The comedy was occasionally enough to draw a chuckle out of me. Periodically, the story will acknowledge how dire their situation is for some good drama (though these momenta are rare) which got a grin or a tear out of me.
Ultimately, Sounan desu ka is not high literature, but it's just amusing and interesting enough to keep up with.
