Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora

Information of Anime

Kuu Shiratori is your average high school girl.  However, she fantasizes about her ideal prince & wishes to meet him in real life.  Kyoshiro Ayanokoji transfers into her school & resembles very closely to Kuu's prince.  However, he has a girl named Setsuna following him.  To Kuu's surprise, she see Kyoshiro in battles where he uses Setsuna as she summons mecha creatures & create mecha limbs on her body.  Caught in the battle & saved by Kyoshiro, Kuu takes his offer in joining him.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Ever since her incident where she was saved by Kyoshiro, Kuu takes to make herself useful to him by serving him on the battlefield or off.  Discovering the Setsuna is an Absolute Angel, a human being with magical powers, Kuu is relieved that Setsuna isn't Kyoshiro's lover.  As we go deeper into the show, we learn about the Absolute Angels & their powers.  We also learn about them being created by the Ayanokoji family & how Kyoshiro's hate for them to death occurs from his decreased older brother.  At the halfway point, we learn there are three sides that have an Absolute Angel.  At the same time, Kuu's does some narration in her mind by writing diary entries to her ideal prince.

As the show progresses, we learn that the people controlling & finding the Absolute Angels are from the same family; the Ayanokoji family.  Also, we learn that Kuu is an Absolute Angel as well.  Because of this, she feels that she can't be loved by Kyoshiro.  However, his feelings to her come out when he learns what they are.  At that time, Kuu's ideal prince comes before her & he turns out to be Kyoshiro's elder brother, Kazuya, who was suppose to be dead.  However, he pushes Kyoshiro aside & take Kuu away.  As Kyoshiro sorrows in grief for losing Kuu who lost her memory of him & Kazuya being driven to the Absolute Angels, Kazuya goes around collecting all the Absolute Angels to reunite them back as one that he calls Cielo.

Kyoshiro gets help after he decides what to do as he stops grieve about his loss of losing Kazuya's kindness & his feelings for Kuu.  However, he's too late as Kuu & the other Absolute Angels united together to form Bastille, the angel's prison that can bring chaos to the world.  Bastille was form from the hate of the Absolute Angels' for wishing to destroy the world.  However, Kuu's wish to see Kyoshiro again & her memories of him returning manages to free herself from Bastille.

Free from Bastille, Kuu destroys it even though she knew it would destroy her.  Kyoshiro & Kuu makes a promise to meet again after making a lot of promises together. The show ends with Setsuna now writing diary entries to Kuu.  After the credit roll, Kyoshiro & Setsuna finds Kuu in a field as Kuu repeats her story about a girl who met a prince that would go together.

My Personal Review

Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora isn't something for everyone.  From the looks of it, it's geared to a young female audience that like bishi-type or prince charming guys.  The guys will probably like it for the action.  But I don't know what to describe the girls as.  It's very weird when they fight.

Animation

The character designs aren't too bad.  But most of the characters are too similar to each other; mainly the girls.  They are ok looking, but not beautiful.  The guys are a bit different.  They are drawn pretty good.  So good, that female viewers would probably want to drool over them.  Also, they are not very much alike.  The Ayanokoji brothers aren't alike & it can be hard to tell that they are actually brothers without knowing.

The mechas are a mixture of 2D & 3D CGs.  They aren't too bad looking for some of them.  Almost something like RahXephon with the faces.  However, it looked pretty weird when you see the limbs coming out from the girls.  Got me confused on what the girls are when you see the body parts fly from the girls body & the whole mecha appearing behind them.

The colours are bright here.  Dull bright that is.  It's pretty much the same as how other 2006/2007 anime shows are.  Not much detail put into them as they seem rough.  However, there are times where it goes light with whitewashed backgrounds with dreamy sceneries where female viewers can feel the loving atmosphere between Kuu & Kyoshiro.

In terms of the animation movement, the flow was quite nice & natural.  It's got some silly motions as well for those comedy moments.  There are some funny animation frame sequences occurring at times with the strutting of Kyoshiro's horse.  But it's not a really major thing.

Sound       

The sound effects aren't too bad.  They are some realistic & silly sounds.  Pretty clear & on cue.

The seiyuus here aren't bad.  They fit their characters well.  However, I was getting tried of hearing Kuu's voice after she makes so many diary entries to her prince.  It was getting very annoying & it was near the end of the first episode that really got to me.

The music is on the orchestral side.  Lots of strings.  Although they sent a lovely mood, it's not memorable.  The opening & ending themes are a bit too joyful for the show, but it works somehow.

Story

At the start, it's Kuu wanting to help Kyoshiro by being useful to him in the battlefield since she's attracted to him as he's her close ideal prince.  However, the reason why he chose her so easily when they first met is revealled later as part of Kyoshiro's hate for Absolute Angels after his brother's death.  Although it has some spark to it, this type of storyline is too common.  Even with the love element in it to attract girls, it doesn't offer much.  Also, the pace is a bit slow with 12 episodes in it.  Plus, the number of diary entries that Kuu makes to her prince is overboard.  I got sick of it very fast as they seem to appear around ten times in one episode.  To me, it really wrecks the show.  It may be a female thing where girls would enjoy it as Kuu records her exciting moments for her prince.  However, it gets less & less a bit when the show reaches the final arc.

As for the main plot, I saw it as one big family feud between brothers & sisters.  Although you don't see a lot of anime shows like this, but I felt this isn't interesting.  In the end, we get that "who's suppose to be dead" Kazuya going around getting the angels for his obsession.  The end result is really to build the bonding relationship between Kuu & Kyoshiro.  The last episode shows this with a lot of talking between the two as they make promises.  Because of the way it's set, it felt more like a romantic tragic play for a schoolgirl as we see the two lovers making a lot of promise before separation.  Although the last episode ties things nicely at a slow pace for a happy ending, it can be very dry as most of the show is all dialogue almost.

Overall Conclusion

Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora is not recommended by me for others to watch.  The male audience won't like it for the love theme.  Even with the mecha fights, it doesn't save the show.  It's short & sometimes boring.  The female audience may like this for the heavy amount of love in it.  If you like love stories about princes with very little mechas on the side, this may interest you a bit.

Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora grades a 6/10 in my books.  The story is dry & mainly filled with Kuu's diary entries.  You can pretty much say that the whole show should be focused on Kuu's diary instead.  Because of this, the pace is slow & the show doesn't seem to be going anywhere as it goes off track a lot by not focusing on the main storyline until Kazuya appears.  Although the show wraps up nicely, expect more lines until the end.