From here on, I'm not paying attention to how much I could spoil, but I may spoil some things on the way; you have been warned. (Now that I've read it though, it looks like I've only spoiled minor things...)
Alright, first off, let me say that this will be my first review and I do not mean to offend anyone with my comments. I am expressing my opinion and I hope you will respect my opinion as I promise to respect yours, as well.
This anime was one of the first ones I heard of through the internet, back when I first started to watch anime, and when I watched it, I had high expectations for it because everyone else seemed to really love it and give it good reviews! I really, really, want to say that I like it but I just can't... It wasn't something that was torture to watch, but I didn't enjoy it too much, either.
I gave the story a 5/10 here. Man, what can I say? The first episode, as usual, started off with a decent enough story, in which the female lead, Icarus, makes a "sudden" and "surprising" entrance and meets the stunned male lead, Tomoki; veeery original. But any hint of a story is always swallowed up by the filler-esque humor. For every three episodes, one might progress the story. But unfortunately, everything turns out to be bland and predictable, right down to the characters' actions, but I'll get to that later. The only time story can be squeezed in is when Tomoki shuts his big damn mouth, which hardly ever happens...>_> An attempt was made, no doubt, for there to be a nice story, but story-wise, this anime just falls flat...I can't say I enjoyed the story until the latter half of the anime, in which a bit more happened. But the plot is nothing new, special, or surprising, and the story that the humor is based around all feels forced; trapped on an island, the beach episode, new girls go to the school, the festival, and the last episode, in which the male lead gets mini speeches from his friends, and gives the mini-speech about friendship to the heroine and the power of love wins against the baddies!
The art gets an 8/10 here. Its not ground-breaking, but its pretty enough, the animation is fluid, and there are no awkward animation moments to note. Not much to say here except that I despise the way that the characters, ESPECIALLY Tomoki, are chibi-fied at the drop of a hat. The animation is the part I enjoyed the most, but it wasn't a great reason to watch the anime.
The sound gets a 6/10, because although I liked the OP, the OST's weren't anything special. How should I put it.....I don't think the sound was bad. It's just something that enhanced the experience and there were no problems; pretty average. I don't like how in the last few episodes, they shoved sound effects into the OP, as if they wanted something different and were too lazy to make a parodied OP or something along the lines of that...As they say, "Do not fix what is not broken". For the ED, I can't really say if I liked the fact that each episode had a different ending song... Some might like it, but I prefer one OP and one ED. But hey, that's just me.
Character...Oh boy, where to start?...OK, lets start with Tomoki.
For the "strange dreams" he had with the angel introduced in the first episode, I was hoping to see more, because that could have really helped the plot, but it was only referred to about once or twice more, and ended up as something to put in his character description to make him "special"...Well, let me say, if MAL had a least favorite character list, he would definitely be in it! All he does is scream out obvious things, make disturbing noises, act frustrated, and talk about being human once in a while. After 13 episodes of his ANNOYING voice (all I hear is the sound of a boy with voice changes going "Huhuhuhuhuhuhu-uuuu-uuu...") that makes me want to stab soft furry things, his not-cute chibi that substitutes for him 70% of the time, and the little wing covering up his private parts, I want to push him into a volcano and watch him burn slowly. >:D The worst part is, the girls in his harem love him for the 5% of the time when he makes a serious face and talks about human feelings...the rest of the time, he's being a purposely perverted pubescent pervert. (Sorry, I couldn't resist XD) I can't think of any worse shounen leads... my favorite part is when he becomes a girl and has a different damn VOICE. I find ecchi situations more funny when they're by accident, and the lead isn't agressively trying to peep, but there's no such thing here; no sir! Tomoki is just a vicious pervert and I don't see what everyone sees in him...He's just a peeping Tomoki. *snicker* Seriously, this series is just overusing that joke, and now it's a dead horse.
While I'm on the subject of overused, let me start on the other characters, which are all recycled. First, Sohara, the clingy, jealous, childhood friend, a harem favorite. Another harem favorite, the abused and tsundere-ish loli, Nymph. She wasn't that bad, in fact, she was one of my main reasons for watching Sora no Otoshimono because she's so cute. Yeah, she wasn't horrible; she and Icarus were the only ones with character development in the anime. Icarus was fairly decent and I liked the watermelon theme for her for some reason. It was a nice touch, but still not enough to save the show from Tomoki...>:I In the end, she is one of the better ones, but she is still the "emotionless girl" with limited addition to the character's background. She was predictable all the time; for example, with the episode in which she's in the band, I knew right away that she would sing, if only for the sake of the fans. Speaking of background, we have Sugata and Mikako, the slapped-on characters used to "round off" the cast. It's like, they're just there...to be there. Yes, each episode starts off with a history lecture from Sugata; some were funny but most were annoying or boring. He's just that "epic smart guy with glasses that he pushes up his nose who points out conspiracies". I have no problem with that, it's just that his character feels out of place in the genre, and would fit in better in Sci-Fi or something that has conspiracies to reveal. Mikako is just another sadistic "kind" girl, but I only laughed at the character a few times, as she also felt out-of-place. But what made them feel most tacked-on is the fact that they both start out knowing everyone, but it is never explained how any of them met each other. At least in Sohara's case, there was a brief and decent explanation as to how she met Tomoki.
The characters get a 4/10 and I hope you understand why I selected this score. ^~^
Last but not least, the comedy. This anime is 90% slapstick humor and virtually all of the humor involves Tomoki being perverted. "Tomoki runs around naked after seeing naked girls because he is about to get hurt" pretty much sums it up. I was never a fan of slapstick humor, and it's not that funny when it's the same situation over and over again. Slapstick humor is best sprinkled on like a seasoning for the events that lead to it; events that are different! Take the anime "Nichijou" for example- it is hilarious to watch the characters be wacked by things because it's a result of a funny situation- no one is screaming and they sit with straight faces as they are hurt. But the execution was not something repeated over and over and OVER. Each situation was different. They don't scream around naked making wierd noises and yelling about getting hurt; the people who made that know that that would be boring and what you would expect. Yes-- Sora no Otoshimono wants you to laugh at how it looks instead of the story... There was hardly any creativity involved, and a *perverted* 9-year-old could have made the "funny" parts in this anime. When I don't find myself laughing for an entire episode of SNO, I can't argue with my instincts; it's just not that funny...I laugh pretty easily, so don't be pointing fingers. The comedy gets 4/10 because, basically, it's not very original.
As much as I would like to like this anime and give it an 8, 9, or 10 like other people have, I'm gonna have to say that it fell short on both comedy and plot. The art and sound were the most enjoyable parts, but not as important, and the biggest disappointment were the characters. Therefore, I will have to give this anime a 5/10. But I'm still open-minded enough to watch Season 2 (and 3?) because it would not be difficult to improve upon this anime. Also, because I never drop and never plan to drop an anime. I want to like it, but its potential was wasted. Please respect my opinion, and I apologize if I have offended you. Thank you for taking your time to read this, and I hope my review of the anime "Sora no Otoshimono" helped you! :)
