Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai (or We Without Wings – Under the Innocent Sky) might fool everyone into thinking that this series is nothing but a generic harem theme show centered around three guys and their swarm of moe girls – true, and there is a lot of panty shots and even borderline hentai scenes and it didn’t help that the first episode is full of confusion with the presentation of all three male characters each has his own story and harem and is seemingly completely unrelated to each other. Viewers with enough patience and tolerance though on the extremely high number of seemingly pointless fanservice shots every 3-5min will find the next couple of episodes still the same thing until around episode 4 when something is hinted at the final moments…all of the sudden the series began to make sense and became so much interesting to watch.
For those viewers who have no idea but is interested in knowing what is happening on the main character Haneda Takashi, he is most likely suffering a psychiatric disorder that is keenly close to what is called “Dissociative Identity Disorder.” A major feature of this disorder is the existence of two or more personalities or identities that take control of the person’s behavior. The person, or “host,” is unaware of the other personalities, but the other personalities may be aware of each other in varying degrees. [1][2][3][4][5][6]
[see below for some notes]
The series attempts with varying success to connect the different stories of the many different personalities inside of Haneda Takashi and made a fairly satisfying conclusion. It is sad that the ending is an open ended meaning the viewers wouldn’t see an official couple at the end, but I think it’s good in the sense that knowing how many girls are involved on the many different personalities, each a very strong candidate as the “worthy girl” it will surely a heartache to see them all cry.
The animation of the series is not very sharp indicating that this series may be a small budgeted one. Motion fluidity isn’t that good either as character movements look very unnatural and somewhat suffering from poor frame rate. In addition, the environment is not detailed and the character designs look generic. The good thing about the animation though is the girls, they are very cute and sexy looking which looks really nice and is probably the main reason why the series has to many fanservice/panty shots, simply put it – the girls have great assets which they aren’t shy exposing to the camera.
The music and the opening and ending are pretty decent to listen but not something that is worth listening too every episode. The series contains forgettable but decent BGMs to supplement the animation scenes. Voice acting is pretty unnatural with most of the girls but somehow it matches their character designs and personalities so kudos to the voice actresses for doing a very good job altering their voices to meet the desired voices of the characters they are portraying.
The series has a fairly huge amount of characters, the viewers can see why: The many personalities of the main character each has his own story and adventure to tell and each of them has fairly unique meetings and interactions with a lot of people (ahem mostly girls!). Viewers looking for character development may be disappointed on this especially if they become attached to a particular character, it is a given, but the series made a very good job in giving this characters their very own brief moments that is worthwhile to watch.
Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai is a fairly unique find. Granted it has everything what a generic harem and fanservice focus anime has, still it did a good job incorporating a story that focuses on a particular psychiatric disorder that is quite believable and made it in such a way that is entertaining and fun to watch in some extent. Highly recommended for viewers who like fanservice/ecchi themed series that has a fair bit of romance, some intrigue, and of course large amount of panty shots.
Additional notes:
[1] The text is taken from the “Psychiatric Nursing, Mosby, Third Edition” by Keltner, Schwecke, and Bostrom
[2] Additional reading can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder
[3] A Hollywood movie with similar theme can be found here: Identity (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309698/
[4] An anime that exhibit an almost similar disorder found in this series is the character “Shiki” from “Kara no Kyoukai”.
[5] Pls. note that I’m not really sure if Haneda is suffering from the said disorder. I’m a registered nurse (not a physician) but I’m not specialized in Pyschiatric Nursing (I’m practicing Medical Intensive Care), so whatever I wrote in this review may not be correct at all. In addition to Haneda, there are also some characters that may be suffering from psychiatric like-disorder: Ootori Kakeru is somewhat suffering the same disorder like Haneda but to a lesser extent;
[6] Asuka Wataranai is hinted that at some point in her childhood she suffered a disorder but most likely just “imaginary friend” which occurs fairly normal to a developing child (but not her age in the scenes where she describes to Haneda about her past). Additional reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_friend
