Sora no Otoshimono

Sora no Otoshimono is a typical example of a manga that tries to do numerous different things at the same time. More importantly, it is also a not-so typical example of a manga that actually succeeds with all of those things just splendidly. I’ve always enjoyed romance/ecchi comedies in manga but this one stands out a bit because, *drumroll*, it actually has a story! Yes, you heard me right, and a really solid one at that as well. --Story-- Generally, Sora no Otoshimono has two different sides of it going on side by side progressively. On one hand we have the more serious, over-arching story about the mysteriousAngeloids coming from high up in the sky and how they are connected to the fate of the world and its human denizens. On the other hand we have the story of Sakurai Tomoki, an extremely perverted teenager who never strays from his beliefs, and all the endeavors he comes across along with his harem, partially consisting of supernatural beings. These two sides of the same coin might feel a bit too far from each other at times which can occasionally make it harder to really appreciate what you’re currently reading for what it is quite as much, but at the same time they’re both just done so well that I could mostly let that slide. The grander story is not going to blow your mind away with its plot twists, but it will definitely not disappoint you. The pacing gets interrupted ever so slightly every so often whenever it switches to some non-serious chapters for a while, but it doesn’t really feel like such a bad thing as it provides a lot of character development along the way. It leaves just enough questions for you to ponder on while you take a break with the more light-hearted parts, and then comes right back at you with some really cool twists. Above all, although I naturally won’t mention any details, I have to say that the ending of Sora no Otoshimono was one of the most emotional and satisfactory ones I’ve seen in a long time, and it really felt like something way above what you’d ever expect an ecchi manga to be able to bring out story-wise. The comedy portion of this manga is absolutely hilarious. The ecchi aspect is not much in the way of fanservice, but almost entirely used as a baseline for funny gags. And let me tell you, there is no manga out there that I’ve come across other than B Gata H Kei that pulls off perverted sketches on quite this level. And of course, it pulls off the non-perverted humour just as well. 9/10 --Art-- Something that also massively enhances said jokes is the art style. The artist uses a very characteristic chibi art style for its non-serious moments and it just looks fucking fantastic! Seriously, I kept finding myself stunned at just how much a pair of perfectly square eyes or a V shaped mouth could do in order to enhance the hilarity of each and every situation. It’s overly simplistic but it allows you to instantly understand *exactly* what the characters in the story are thinking with their reactions, and with this level of humour in the first place it just delivers an amazing final result. That’s not the only side of it though, as if we once again head back over to the serious side of Sora no Otoshimono, then we suddenly find ourselves with jaw dropping landscape sceneries, highly detailed facial expressions and spectacular special effects. I can’t say I felt like it was dissatisfactory at any point at all, the art just gave an immensely enjoyable experience for the eyes from start to finish. 10/10 --Characters-- It is an almost universal rule that every harem protagonist ever must be either inhumanly dense or excessively perverted. In the case of Sakurai Tomoki, he falls 100% on the latter side. However unlike the norm, in this case that is actually not a bad thing, because in the case of Sora no Otoshimono it results in one thing and one thing alone: non-stop hilarity. The way his mind works is completely outside the realm of normality and the author really puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to thinking of new absurd ways of getting Tomoki’s perverse nature to yield more and more laughs from the readers. As far as the harem cast goes, they’re not exactly what one would call normal either (and we all know that originality is an instant plus) as it’s made up almost entirely of non-human Angeloids. Because of their complicated backgrounds and circumstances, not to mention their personalities, Sora no Otoshimono manages to smoothly avoid many of the overused clichés that you would normally find in harem series. The character development for the heroines in question is a bit up and down, but over time it really delivers excellently in that regard. Especially the last third or so of the story has considerable depth to it, as every single one of the main characters really grow on you in a way that I suspect will make many readers find it hard to say goodbye to them. The supporting cast consists of all kinds of characters, all with their own very specific personalities, but none of them ever really feel redundant. They just add *more* to the awesomeness and there is no way that could ever be considered a bad thing. 9/10 PS: There was also some childhood friend involved there somewhere but no one cares about her. --Enjoyment-- It will make you laugh non-stop and captivate you for almost every second along the ride. It will also make you care for the characters in it as well as make you think about what is going on. I shouldn’t have to expand upon this topic any further after all that’s already been said, but the bottom line is that you won’t be able to stop reading it. Period. 10/10 --Overall-- Sora no Otoshimono is a very creative supernatural ecchi/comedy that will make you cry with both laughter and from sadness. It showcases why you should not blindly label a series with stamps based on their genres alone, and it succeeds in areas where so many others have failed. Look as hard as you might but there aren’t really a lot of holes to dig into if you’re feeling critical. It’s just one of those series that is extremely hard to dislike. Highly recommended. 9/10

In the spirit of the upcoming anime adaption of this series, being the movie Sora no Otoshimono Final: Eternal My Master, I decided to give the manga a shot completely reading through it in 2-3 days. Now, when looking at my measly 6 of a score you might be wondering: "The average score for this manga is above an 8.40 and about all the other reviews are giving it 9s and 10s. So, what's the deal with this asshole?" Well, I admit to being a bit of an asshole, but my score isn't without reason. Although Sora no Otoshimono has a pretty interesting story premiseand isn't your average "ecchi"/harem/romance shounen manga, it also has some major flaws. (Note: This review is on the long side and I understand everyone's not into reading what is essentially an analytic paper on some series that they're wondering whether or not to pick up. Skip to the very end if that's the case.) First, I would like to address those genres that this manga has typically been placed in, being: "ecchi", harem, and romance. Depending on how you swing with manga/anime, those three words could be all you need to see before diving in. But I know there's a few of you out there who, like me, don't really care much for "ecchi" or harem manga; and, while we don't mind romance in our stories, we don't want them to be too poignant to the point of slapping us in our faces and reminding us why we all hate Valentine's Day. Well, the good news is that this manga doesn't really fit into any of those categories. In the case of being "ecchi", the manga itself is not perverted. Just the protagonist. What I mean by this is that there are hardly any angles or special shots (i.e. the convenient wind) that are showing us every other page that high school girls do indeed wear panties underneath their skirts (except for that one tomboy that wears the shorts). What we get, instead, is Sakurai Tomoki. Our great and mighty protagonist, Sakurai Tomoki, with the ability to change bits of reality to how he wishes thanks to the god-like power of the strange mechanical cards provided by his angeloid servant, Ikaros, is perhaps the most perverted character I have ever had the pleasure, and sometimes displeasure, of witnessing. Sora no Otoshimono's plotline could essentially be divided into two parts: One that's serious concerning the mysterious angeloids and the purpose of Tomoki's strange reoccurring dream; and one that's mainly Tomoki wanting to do everything perverted. When I say everything perverted I pretty much mean it. From sniffing worn panties to groping breasts to sneaking into the woman's public bath, restroom, and locker-rooms, he doesn't really have any boundaries, and it seems like he's fully naked half the time. But as a result of this, we get a convoluted jumble that is the plotline, and, well, not much romance. To elaborate a bit more on the plot in conjunction with the poorly written synopsis provided by MAL or whomever, 14 year-old Sakurai Tomoki has been having the same basic dream where he finds himself in a grassy meadow upon which a female angel descends to speak to him. This dream has been repeating for the last 10 years, and Tomoki always seems to wake up from it crying. Worrying for him, his classmate and childhood friend, Mitsuki Sohara, takes Tomoki to see upper-classman Sugata Eishirou, an eccentric genius, who tells him that his dream is due to the "new continent." Sugata further tells them both that this "new continent" will be passing over their town and lays out a place and time for the three of them to meet and witness the event; however, due to the other two being preoccupied, the skeptical Tomoki ends up attending alone. As Tomoki is about to head home a beam of light hits the designation with a winged female laying in a crater unconscious. Unintentionally forming a pact together, the winged female reveals to Tomoki that she is the "entertainment-purpose angeloid: Type Alpha, Ikaros." My apologies for the long elaboration that is basically a summary of the first chapter, but this is pretty much the premise of the story. What we get from this premise is three fundamental questions that lay out the rest of the plotline and those are: What is the exact purpose of Tomoki's dream? What is this "new continent"? Who is the mysterious girl, Ikaros, that fell from the sky? Although they provide some good layers of mystery to the story we have to remember that there is another side to this being the great form of perversion that is our protagonist. As far as how the two sides balance out, well . . . they don't. There's about a 2:1 ratio of Tomoki getting his freak on to the actual serious plotline of the manga. In other words, 1/3 of the manga is actually based on the original premise while the other 2/3 is pretty much bullshit. Don't get me wrong I like a little bullshit every once and a while in my anime and manga, especially after some serious arcs. The problem with Sora no Otoshimono, however, is that we may get one chapter of actual plot development while the next three chapters could be a random assortment of things; and, normally, it'd be fine to have a story that's for the most part slice-of-life, but not when there's an already perfectly good premise that needs to be explained, expanded, and expounded. I honestly can't see what the mangaka had in mind when he created this manga nor where he was going. In addition, there's a strange lack of time management. While I'm pretty sure that 2-3 years pass within the manga in order to keep up with the fact that it' monthly serialized, Tomoki is still 14 at the end and beginning of it. A little like Ash Ketchum. Along with this lack of time management is the lack of much needed character development, and this is a real shame considering there are two characters that are just ripe for growth -- Ikaros and Tomoki. This is partly due to the inert nature of the story as it does not allow much development in order to continue the same basic gags that persist throughout the entire manga. As stated before, I don't know what the mangaka wanted for this manga, and, quite honestly, what this manga wanted to be. It could have either been an interesting sci-fi mystery or a "ecchi"/harem/romance whatever, but not both. I would have preferred some elements of the latter while keeping true to the former, but as the manga progresses it loses track of what it really stood for and this really impedes any character development. In addition, there are the pseudo-harem and romantic elements that don't really do anything for this manga or its plot. For anyone that likes good plot development and romance, you'll know that harems are your worst enemy as they hardly EVER get resolved. In the case of Sora no Otoshmono, the female characters spend a great deal of time confirming and re-confirming their feelings for the protagonist, but even after they do, none of them really do anything about them whether it be confessing and just simply acting on them. Since Tomoki is ignorant of all the HAWT action that he could be getting, this manga is excluded from any good romantic, or even harem, potential. In regards to the art style, there is very little I have to say. It is a little rough in the beginning chapters, but the author does find his groove and improves it quite exponentially by the last chapter, which naturally makes sense considering this was a monthly serialized manga that ran for about 7 years. The battle scenes are acutely drawn, and he conveys the humor/non-seriousness of some scenes quite nicely by occasionally drawing the characters in a chibi-like form. The problem here is that Tomoki eventually gets drawn in this form almost exclusively which could get annoying at times especially when the reader would like to take him seriously. As a summary of everything and for those who skipped to here, Sora no Otoshimoro encompasses several things. A good plot premise, a decent amount of humor, a "unique" protagonist, and a binary story that has both serious and pointless elements. I do not quite understand my impressions on this manga nor can I reflect it in a numerical digit. The biggest problem for me was trying to take this manga too seriously as I read it. When reading this for the first time, my advice to the reader is to look more for the pointless nature in Sora no Otoshimoro rather than expecting the serious part because there's quite a lot more pointlessness than seriousness.

I should really get around to reviewing mangas instead of just saying that the manga did it better while reviewing the anime version. Although, if I end up doing one for a series that has yet to see a finish line, then it acts more like a review journal because the review will have to be dated for all its updates for new chapters/volumes if I fall behind. Guess I'll just stick to mangas that are finished for now. So here is a series that I have read through as many times as I've watched the anime series. Sora no Otoshimono, or Heaven's Lost Property, isa manga series that I read back in the beginning of my anime fascination. It is also the only manga to pull emotion out of me every time I read it. Let's fly through, this one shall we? Story: 8 We all have desires and dreams. Some may have complex dreams, but others, like our main character Tomoki, simply dreams of living a quiet life in his little mountain town. I wouldn't blame him with a scenery like the one he is in. One day though, a storm hits and an angel crashes down in front of him. He takes her home and as he says along the way, his simple peaceful life is shattering before him. Now he must adjust to this new being living with him and must teach her to be more like a human. I would say that the story is what really sells it for me, next to the characters themselves. The chapters may feel a little episodic but they also have a certain flow to them. But that's not to say that they really only focus on Rom-Com shenanigans, oh no. In fact, they actually have a lot of genuinely sad moments and happy ones as well. I would actually say that the comedic episodes are really there to simply balance the story out. It's a story about love, not pleasure, and is treated as such. I will admit, as much of a manly man from Manville as I am there are moments that made me feel really depressed and a few rarer occasions where I would shed a few tears. Again, even after already knowing the plot already. That is a really welled structured plot line. Art: 8 It's great, really great in fact. The level on detail in each character and panel really brings out the emotion that is inside the dialogue. It's one of those scripts that doesn't need a voice actor's help to bring out more emotion in the scene. Although, I will say that the anime did do a good job in that department. What's better is that the chibi sprites they use in comedic scenes have just enough detail to bring the humor home. When it came to action scenes, the line effects looked great and gave the weapon or person an aura of power. Character: 8 The second reason to my love of this series is, as I stated before, the characters. It's both a mixed bag and a generic one too, but this time not in a bad way. You see, they make a few characters basic archetypes but either add a little bit more, make that character entertaining to watch anyways, or both. Take Tomoki for example. He is just as dense as many Rom-Com male leads tend to be, but he is unique in the fact he is perverted but really kind-hearted to the point where he will get in front of danger for his friends. And even though he acts dense, his reason is actually believable enough that you wouldn't look at it as him being dense. And this is just one of many characters that has this kind of characterization. One of my favorite characters is Chaos. she was designed to be the newest and strongest angeloid in existence and was sent to kill the main crew under the explanation that the two that betrayed them were "Infected by Love". Unfortunately, she was never designed or taught the concept of love and now seeks to find out what love is before carrying out her mission. She soon becomes victim of the miscommunication game a few too many times and is sent down a dark path and you can't help but feel bad for her, even though she was a villain. There are a few characters that don't get the detailed character treatment, but are entertaining all the same. One character I am not to much of a fan of is Mikako. She is a mob princess and now has a sadistic way of thinking that usually means bad luck for Tomoki. Honestly after about four or five plots to do him harm, it starts to feel old. Other than her, everyone else is cool. Enjoyment: 10 It pulls on my heart strings and I love/hate it. Love it because it makes me feel for these characters, hate it because it pulls on my heart strings (I like to keep cool, calm, collective so as to always be able t react effectively). It is definitely a joy ride no short on laughs, cries, and drama. A title that will stick with me throughout my life. And to think I picked this up simply because I was curious about the title. I watched the anime version first and it's fair to say that I got hooked there. But you will have to read the review on the anime for my opinion on it. Overall: 9

tl;dr: A comedic ecchi manga that has a surprising amount of depth and really good character development. This manga like a lot of Minazuki Suu's works is misleading at first because it just seems like a simple ecchi gag manga. However, as it goes on it turns out to be quite a bit more. The comedy is very heavily centered around the protagonist being a perv that doesn't change his behavior at all despite his schemes and antics constantly resulting in him getting the living daylight beat out of him. However, within the scope of that, there's a good amount of variety to things wherein itnever felt like the comedy started to get repetitive and furthermore felt like it was pretty high quality and hilarious throughout. Something that helped with that is how things were structured, in that the the non-serious light hearted comedic portions are intermixed and flow incredibly well with the serious portions. Generally, the way things are structured is that things will be very light hearted for a while, and then something major will happen where things will get completely serious. Sometimes it's an abrupt shift and sometimes it'll be eased into, but regardless it's generally handled pretty well and keeps things interesting. After the serious part is over, it'll go back to being light hearted and the cycle repeats. However, there'll always be some sort of change or development from the serious portion that carries forward into the light hearted portion, such as a new character, a new power, or change in relationship. Thus, the plot manages to keep a general sense of the plot progressing and things changing while also always having new things to play with in terms of comedy during the light hearted portions. The plot has a surprising amount of depth. It deals with a lot of pretty deep themes, like the importance of freedom, the value in being able to dream, and whether things need to be 'real' in order to make one happy, and they're all written pretty competently and ultimately lead up to answers that are pretty different from most manga but are justified pretty well. Just as strong is the cast of characters. The main character is interesting and likable, in that during the light hearted portions he's completely useless and just plays around badly which usually results in him getting beat up, but when things get serious he's really reliable and despite being just a human gets things done. The rest of the human characters are decent as well, but the other characters that are especially likable are the angeloids who while all generally being decent enough characters on their own, are really easy to get invested in due to the strength of their character arcs. The character development, which while essentially nonexistant in the protagonist, is incredibly strong in the various angeloids. That it would be so strong in the angeloids isn't that surprising because they start out as incredibly flat characters with no desires so there's a lot of room for growth, but it's still praiseworthy how well it was handled and it resulted in a lot of impactful moments, especially in the ending. The ending in general was decent but with some issues that seem to stem from being rushed. It isn't rushed in that the conclusion feels forced or out of nowhere, in that it feels like all the major twists and such had been foreshadowed pretty well and it fits well into the narrative and explains essentially everything. So, it's not like the ending itself is the problem, but it seems to try to get through all of it way too quickly with a lot of aspects feeling like they didn't get dramatic enough revelations to have as much impact as they should have. Some may also have a problem in that it seems to be an open ending, but I think that fits well in a series like this. The art is also really good with great character designs and a style that works well with both the comedy and action.