sola Special

Information of Anime

The sola DVD special take place in-between the TV's plot. 

Yorito Morimiya has a passion for the sky.  His hobby is to take pictures of the sky which creates a lot of problems for him.  One morning, he wakes up at 4am to take a picture of the sun rising.  He meets a girl nearby that is beating an old vending machine when it took her money & not giving her a drink she wanted.  When he helps her & gets the drink out, she mysteriously disappears.  The girl, named Matsuri Shihou, would later put Yorito into an interesting situation.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  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.

The first DVD special episode has Yorito Morimiya, Koyori Ishizuki, Mana Ishizuki & her friends going to a newly opened pool centre after Koyori won them from a lottery draw in a shopping district.  Yorito & Koyori meets Mana's friends for the first time.  In turn, Takashi Tsujidou & Mayuko meet them as well as they introduce to each other with some slight misunderstanding of them being father & daughter.  During this time, Yorito & Takashi are enemies & have called a truce since Matsuri Shihou isn't present due to the daylight.  All ends well as Matsuri appears at night after Takashi & Mayuko leave the complex.  In turn, Matsuri introduces herself to Mana's friends in the wrong way that gets Yorito in a hot spot.  It all ends with Yorito in shock finding Aono Morimiya posing in a school swimsuit as she couldn't go as she's staying in the hospital.

The second DVD special is a prequel of the TV show.  It shows how Yorito & Matsuri were before they met.

My Personal Review

The sola DVD specials are mainly for fanservice & gives a different approach of the series in understanding another side of some of the characters in a different approach.  It's best to watch the TV show first before watching these as understanding the backgrounds of the characters is necessary.

Animation

Same as the TV show.  The characters have interesting chins.  They are either very sharp or flat.  Either way, they are very long.  Eyes are very big too, regardless if the character is male or female.  As for the fashion, it's not too bad for the girls.  Pretty creative.

The backgrounds don't have that much detail to them.  The designs of the skies are pretty good though.  Very detail & beautiful.  Truly lives up to the anime's title.  As for the other stuff like the buildings, it's so-so.  The details are simple & a bit blurry at times.

For the colours, it's bright.  They do have its dull side with the sky mostly.  Overall, the colour balance is okay.  Expected some improvements since these are DVD speicals.

In terms of the animation movement, it's quite flowing.  However, there are some silly unreal movements for those comedy moments.  Overall, hardly any choppy frames.

Sound       

The sound effects are on the realistic side.  They are timed on cue & are crisp.

Same as the TV show again.  The seiyuus here are not bad.  Not annoying or off-key.  The seiyuus played their parts well as they gave their characters life & emotions.  Not the best, but they get the job done.

The music is ok & isn't anything exciting.  Mainly string music & soft ballads.

Story

Mainly fanservice.  However, they do provide some insight on some of the characters as we see different sides of them.  Other than that, nothing that improve or add into the original storyline.

Overall Conclusion

sola DVD specials are a mixture of fanservice & understanding the show better.  The first episode isn't necessary to watch them to understand the series more or better.  But the second episode is an interesting one.

The sola DVD specials gets a seven out of ten.  One episode is pure fanservice as DVD extras, while the other gives you an insight of the series; probably better off naming it as episode zero.  But either way, you still need to understand the series to watch these.  However, you would probably have seen the series already since these are from the DVD volumes of the TV show.

Last updated on February 26, 2008