From Utter Tripe to Barely Palatable (part 1/2 of a sola review)
Posted by: Owen S in Anime, Review, tags: Bishoujo, Fantasy, solaThe trainwreck that I thought was sola apparently isn’t. If it manages to keep up its pace there’s even the chance it might escape with a few medium-to-deep cuts and severe bruising, but it made me wait for nine episodes. Made me wait for 9 episodes. That’s as long as 216 minutes. And that’s terrible.
My worst fears about it were confirmed, though — this isn’t a rehash of Kanon alone. It’s like the writer decided to steal elements from both Air and Kanon in order to make what he thought was the grandest mashup ever, only it took the worst possible parts from both, which resulted in something shitty beyond belief. Until recently, that is.
Let’s take a look at episode 09, for starters.
if this was supposed to be a touching moment they totally ruined it, because Takeshi and Mayuko went from little kids with umbrellas to unshaven hunter and gothic lolita in the next, and I was laughing at the abruptness and absurdity of it
This should have been right at the start, or at least spread out a tad more from episodes 02-08 instead of being tacked on at the end in what seemed like an afterthought. I don’t know about you, but if we’re going to talk about vengeful hunters with a chip on their back Takeshi isn’t a first. He bored me. There was hardly any indication as to his pursuing of Matsuri aside from a moronic flashback that had his younger self gaping at a side shot of a body in a pool of blood, and his existence right up till now was an annoyance.
There was no hint of his motivations, no backstory, nothing whatsoever. At this point the herd (because people have been lauding sola as the best thing since… Kanon? Air?) is going to bray loudly in protest and say things along the lines of “his history was part of the secret twist!!!”, but I’m writing it off as shoddy writing without much planning. Period. Think about this: as long as there’s a lack of a connection between the viewer and a character on-screen, the character immediately becomes two-dimensional, or flat, as it’s put in literature.
Takeshi was merely filling in the role of “antagonist”; there was nothing that separated him from the other stock bad guy templates out there. While in most anime we’ve got at least a vague idea of what the antagonist wants to do — Shakugan no Shana, as an example, had them going after the Reiji Maigo — but what is it that drives Takeshi to hunt down and do battle with Matsuri? Does he want to rape her corpse? Cut off her head and display it above his fireplace? Use her blood to live forever? Is he a bounty hunter who so happens to have a strange little girl in gothloli garb tagging along with him? What? Why are we only learning about it nine episodes later?
The problem as I see it with Naoki Hisaya’s writing is that he’s evidently been trying hard, and failing, at leaving Kanon’s ghost behind. Assuming Wikipedia’s accurate, then sola would be Hisaya’s first major work after Kanon, and it shows. sola’s structure is markedly like Kanon’s, yet with a major difference — sola has a clear-cut antagonist in the form of Takeshi right up till episode 10, and here lies the dilemma: should the relationship aspect be emphasized more, or the conflict?
Taking gender as a metaphor, sola’s like a guy who decides he wants to be a girl, yet at the same time wants to be a guy too just to be safe. Which is absurd, but true; I find sola lacking and mediocre because it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Even crossdressers and transsexuals know what gender they want to be or resemble, Hisaya, on the other hand, seems to me like he didn’t know what he wanted to make of this story of his into.
That being said and done, I think what Hisaya’s trying to do is to inject conventional shounen elements into a Kanon-like structure in order to give it an uplift, much like how an old hag would have her face injected with Botox — but does that really work in reality? I don’t think so. Much like how you can always tell how old a woman is despite her face being wrinkle-free by looking at her other body parts, the parts of sola that seem to be lifted directly from Kanon show quite badly.
I’m fully aware that part of my loathing of sola comes from how it seems to promise action in the first episode itself yet fails to deliver. That wouldn’t have been bad at all had it then fulfilled the relationships aspect — however, the characters turned my stomach. Every single stereotype was repeated here wholesale, from the childhood friend (good Nayuki you look kinda cool) to disappearing, mysterious girl whom protagonist has a secret past with (like Ayu, she also has a favourite food, but she kicks machines instead of running off) to silent type older sister (not a Mai rip-off).
Episode 10 was hit and miss.
you know what would’ve made a good ending?
if they’d killed themselves, like I expected them to. right about now
Matsuri burns to ashes, and Yorito, being made of paper… burns in Matsuri’s embrace ala Romeo and Juliet. star-crossed lovers never had it better. GOOD END.
The pictures say it all. I’ll save it for the second part of the review since there’s like, three more episodes to go? I still want to dig out Sae’s voice actress’ vocal cords with a rusty, blunt spoon. That has to be the worst and most annoying voice I’ve ever heard in my life, and I swear they made her speak like that so you’d think she’s high on drugs the whole time or something.
A final note about why I’m still watching this: sola is like the type of girl who preys on guys, who uses all of them and leads them on, making them think that they’re someone special to her, when she only thinks of those guys as “just friends”. The type of beautiful girl that seems almost perfect, but is shallow and shitty in reality, and sends a lot of mixed signals. Reason being? I adore sola’s music, for one. Very fitting, well composed. Ditto for the animation, presentation, and OP/ED songs (two of my personal favourites).
sola has very strong production values, and that only serves to increase my annoyance even further, since it’s a crying shame how for something so prettily wrapped there’s a dearth of actual content present; what little there is being phased out in favour of a story so farcical and vacuous I can’t think of a word for it. Let’s hope the ending doesn’t turn out to be something like “a miracle”, or “the next reincarnation”, because the trainwreck potential is still strong in this one.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Rather cruel review there of sola, but I won’t deny it has some logic in it.
I agree that Mayuko and Takeshi’s character has been pretty much wasted and they should have used it more on Matsuri and Aono. Well, it does make me feel that if sola had been a h-game, Takeshi and Mayuko would probably be another “ending”, maybe a rather secret one even. They should have been either given more time or less time to make them actually be useful.
Still, sola has some hope and Aono vs Matsuri is interesting to watch. Episode 10 reveals some rather shocking revelations and I’d have to say the pacing is pretty good enough.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Maybe your persistence is slightly paying off, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Anyways, GL HF!
GO DIAF TOO BTW.
June 13th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Kurogane: Matsuri and Aono bore me too, but I’ll elaborate on that in part 2. Takeshi and Mayuko are the lesser of two evils, but it’s like the devil and the deep blue sea no matter how I look at it.
Got to agree that it’s getting better though, which is good, because I thought it wouldn’t at all. I think the fights helped, at least they bothered to choreograph them properly, although Matsuri’s lack of direct powers doesn’t really make for exciting battles.
Alk: NO U. GG NO RE. YHBT.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:46 am
I have to agree that Takeshi/Mayuko’s arc wasn’t well executed. Myself, I lamented the bulk revelations that came too much and too late in ep 9. You hit the nail on the head about the physics of the yakka universe being poorly explained (for now at least) thus undermining Takeshi’s motivation for wanting to take Matsuri down.
But I agree with Kurogane what you wrote was a tad cruel to the cast of Sola. The inability to identify with the characters may not lie with the scriptwright/animators’ but with the viewers who adhere to different values and standards of characterisation/storytelling. We can either focus on Takeshi’s poor reasons for pursuing Matsuri or enjoy a coming of age story of Mayuko/Takeshi as they discovery their true yearnings. The emotional intricacies that some believe Sola characters to be devoid of exist. One just need to have the sensitivity and heart to experience them.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:18 am
You’re absolutely right that sunrise, right on the heels of Matsuri saying, “Let’s disappear together”, would have been a wonderful, bittersweet ending.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Couldn’t agree more - I kept giving this series the benefit of the doubt myself - but was bitterly dissapointed.
Sola=Fail
June 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Harsh review, but true on MANY accounts. Although, if Matsuri and Dorito-kun become an heroes, like you say, GOOD END. But that being said, chances are slim at best.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:32 am
whether i just happen to be in a good mood when marathoning this show today or not i don’t know - either way, i kept watching, without too much skipping. i’m not fully caught up yet, but i have a good feeling i still won’t quite understand the air/kanon connection. most of the this i’ll attribute to my complete lack of memory of the two shows outside of gao and uguu, and i get the feeling it isn’t as obvious as something like beck/manabi.
regardless, the one show that kept cropping up in my mind while watching sola (at ep 8 now) was good ol’ kimi ga nozomu eien - if anything, for the whole… i dunno… “this show is retarded and i have nfi why im still watching outside of the decently cute girls and some smutty drama” thing. but see, that only happens when you try to rationalize it. in some cases, sola possibly being one, attraction to a show is purely illogical and requires a different lens in which to approach it with. like love.
american idol provides a great example - even though sanjaya was the worst singer out of the top 12 or whatever, he’s far and away the most popular one. wise diana ross put it best: “sanjaya is love.”
of course, this could all just be one elaborate excuse for liking something that has little reason to be liked outside of matsuri (great name, great outfit, great voice) and nee-san’s frilly costume. but whatever, unless there’s some epic ending, sola stays on my long list of watch-and-delete anime.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Stripey: You have a point there. I’ll elaborate on that in the second part.
jaalin: At this point I’ll like to say that I feel special for seeing the connection, only because I was a slowpoke who watched Kanon and Air back to back in March/April, which is rather recent. Everyone else caught it waaay earlier, and probably don’t remember enough, if they didn’t think highly of it, like you presumably did? I don’t know. Just my guess.
I’ll grudgingly admit that half the appeal of this show also comes from the artwork. While Da Capo’s illustrator’s pedigree clearly shows in this case, it simply does nothing for me. Nevermind how it’s so creepy that Matsuri, Yorito, Mana, and Aono look, at times, like they’re made from the same mould, or how his character designs aren’t anything that special. But I digress.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:43 am
I see what you did there. And that’s awesome.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Sadly, production values just don’t make a show. I refer to Beck as a good example of how a low-budget show can deliver where a high-finance show like sola can’t.
Tis sad, but often true.
June 17th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
While it has tons of flaws, I really like Sola for two reasons (other then the art and cute girls). First, the character’s stories interconnect. In contrast, Kanon had five mostly unrelated subplots that never really meshed well. I prefer the Sola approach: pick a main girl and stick with her story. As an added bonus, the extra focus on Matsuri means they take time to flesh her out a little more then the average bishoujo, so eating habits aside, she feels like a much more complex character. I rather like this “take an archetype and flesh it out” approach - I actually write with it sometimes. Admittadely, the side characters are much more stereotypical, but at least we get ONE somewhat complex character, which is more then I could say about most bishoujo shows, including Kanon.
Second, in comparison to Kanon, I also felt that Sola had better pacing… while it failed to deliver on the “bishoujo with action” promise of the first episode (which would have been awesome, in my opinion), every episode from five to ten had something really interesting happen, and while eleven slowed it a little, it was actually a nice break. I will admit the start was a little slow.
I will admit that if this wasn’t a bishoujo show, I would expect more from it plot and character wise. But I could say the same thing about how a lot of the jokes in Lucky Star wouldn’t work well outside of its quirky style. Besides, I like the occassional show of this type, and I happen to think this is one of the best, if not the best, of the type I’ve seen.
(Of course, there’s no reason why one shouldn’t be able to add bishoujo romance anime elements into the framework of another genre… why hasn’t anyone tried that? I really wish I could get a chance to write an anime sometime just so I could play around with ideas like that.)
Also, while I would say that Sola has some pretty hardcore supporters, I’m not really sure there’s a herd for this show… just hasn’t gotten much talk from what I’ve seen. Have I been looking in the wrong places?
(Finally, I dislike accusing someone of bias, but do you ever wonder if the fact you watched Air and Kanon so recently played a role in how annoying the cliches were to you?)
June 18th, 2007 at 4:35 am
0utf0xZer0: Your first point is interesting. I don’t really think that it differs from Kanon all that much — instead of five girls, it’s whittled down to three. Mana has admittedly less development than Nayuki so far, but Aono’s screen time hasn’t been that far off from Matsuri, and she’s been developing alongside her since they’re both related in the past after all. Also, the Takeshi/Mayuko subplot doesn’t really add on to any of the three girls, and I’d say that really does remove the focus from Matsuri — she just happens to seem like the focus, in my opinion.
I’ve gotta disagree with you on the pacing. sola was weak till episode 09. I found that tongue-twister preview at one of the episodes more entertaining than the episode itself, to say nothing of how painfully predictable sola has been so far. But I’ll save that for later, like I said.
>>I will admit that if this wasn’t a bishoujo show, I would expect more from it plot and character wise.
I’ve got issues with what you said about this though. Why must we lower our standards in any way when dealing with a bishoujo series? Pray tell. I’m critical of sola because I loved its premise and production values, and I think it could’ve done better without all the annoying filler and uninspiring “development” that really showed off nothing new.
>>Also, while I would say that Sola has some pretty hardcore supporters, I’m not really sure there’s a herd for this show… just hasn’t gotten much talk from what I’ve seen. Have I been looking in the wrong places?
Everyone’s been busy praising it! No one’s been looking at it critically and examining its weaknesses. Everyone’s drooling over “Aono-oneesama”, or “KAWAII YO MATSURI-CHAN”, and it’s been a sickening sight. Or so I’ve noticed.
>>Finally, I dislike accusing someone of bias
Hey, I welcome comments like these — it shows I’m not preaching to the choir! (: For what it’s worth, the cliches <em>were</em> annoying long before I noticed a vague connection between Kanon and Air. And I’ve got my reasons for comparing it to Kanon specifically, but I’ll go into length on that in the second part of my review, so do watch out for it. Thanks for your long reply.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:07 am
The fact Matsuri and Aono have been developing alongside each other actually supports the point I was trying to make: there’s connections between the secondary characters other then the fact they all know the male lead. Hence, I’d argue that Sola has a central plot thread, whereas Kanon has five mostly unconnected arcs (well, okay, Nayuki and Ayu’s run together chronologically), one of which is climactic.
Takeshi is a tough issue… while developing him naturally detracts from developing Matsuri and Aono, I think that developing him more would have been to the series’ benefit. Let’s face it, right now you could cut his plotline and all you’d lose is a bit of action.
(Yes, I know this would probably create two central threads. Still better then five non-central ones.)
I will admit Aono’s not as well developed as Matsuri given the similar amount of screentime she was given. The number of silent girl types I’ve seen recently is annoying me - yes, I’m a huge Nagato fan, but she’s cool for reasons other then stony silence. What would have made Aono an interesting character would be to have her be emotional but have trouble expressing it, rather then simply having her not express her emotions much.
>>>I’ve gotta disagree with you on the pacing. sola was weak till episode 09. I found that tongue-twister preview at one of the episodes more entertaining than the episode itself, to say nothing of how painfully predictable sola has been so far. But I’ll save that for later, like I said.
I’ll be interested to see what you have to say, because most people I’ve talked to thought the series picked up in episode 5 and has done a really good job of keeping people guessing. The only really predictable thing for me was Matsuri returning after dissappearing, because not only do you not generally kill off a main character less the half way in, but separating and reuniting characters is a classic bishoujo game plot device. I didn’t see most of the other twists coming.
>>>I’ve got issues with what you said about this though. Why must we lower our standards in any way when dealing with a bishoujo series?
I wish I didn’t have to, but I do just because if I didn’t I’d be watching NOTHING from the genre rather then just being selective.
Bishoujo shows are generally pretty style over substance. They can get away with that because they have a style that other genres lack. The fact that there aren’t any bishoujo shows I can name that I think have awesome substance as well is quite annoying to me. My policy at this point is pretty much to argue for bishoujo shows I think are a step in the right direction. I think Sola is one of these shows for the reasons I’ve mentioned earlier.
(I will admit this is exactly why I have a bias towards Sola… it may have less substance then my “perfect bishoujo anime”, but when it’s actually a step up from it’s competition in that regard it’s kind of hard for me to criticize it for that.)
>>>Everyone’s been busy praising it! No one’s been looking at it critically and examining its weaknesses.
I guess my problem with this statement is that while almost everyone who talks about it praises it, I haven’t seen nearly as much talk about it as with the really big shows this season.
June 30th, 2007 at 8:05 am
[...] see Owen’s review for similar opinions on this series. He also does a much better job than me at describing its [...]