Sora no Otoshimono

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Sora no Otoshimono is a very special series it tackles very much and does it all for the most part very well. It is a ecchi series which has some great character development over the course of the story you are able to see impactful change happen, and it makes it a very enjoyable experience. The story unfolds in quite a fun way too it takes twists and turns you may not expect and takes them all seriously which adds to its charm although it has serious moments it still does have some great comedy it hits the emotional spectrum just right serious moments ... are given the seriousness they deseve and the comedy is funny.

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 it ... never 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.

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 premise ... and 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.