Sola flares up
Dull bishoujo manga adaptations ahoy!
The eighth Rozen dollMayuko, child yaka or young Eri from School Rumble?
EVERY SEASON I try to make sure I have at least one “why the hell am I watching this trash” show; Spring 2007’s effort being the plodding and predictable Sola, although it had a lot of competition early on from Nanoha StrikerS and Romeo x Juliet. This anime is a little different to the others in this category that I usually end up watching, in that I have cultivated a real hatred of the lead male, Yorito.
The last time I felt such bile for a cartoon character was probably either Rin from Shuffle – how could you dump Yuuko GotoKaede over that genki green haired airhead Asa, YOU IDIOT – or Taakaki from ToHeart2 – just GAAH! How bloody wet can one person be without drowning the people around him? Oh yeah, and then there was Shirou from Fate/Stay Night – but best not go there. So, what do they have in common? Yes, they’re all well meaning muppets who need a good kicking.
What keeps me watching? Well aside from the male lead, you have the stereotypical jealous character, Aono, voiced with wild intensity by Mai Nakahara and the the object of her hatred, for several reasons, Matsuri, played by the ubiquitous Mamiko Noto. While we’ve seen similar stories repeated a hundred times before, they both manage to squeeze a little interest out of the dull plot and dialogue, incidentally written by one of the main Kanon writers Naoki Hisaya, which explains a lot.
Matsuri is the cute one, with a taste for tomato juice – yes tomato juice. If that doesn’t set alarm bells ringing as to what fictional non-human character type she is, then you really need to watch more movies. Aono is her nemesis, or at least one of them, sharing the duty with the goateed Takeshi, that gets her martyr complex working nicely overtime. Aono and Mayuko (pictured at the top of the post) share a taste for curiously old fashioned clothing, which again hints at their mystical background, although this could be a red herring.
I won’t go into the story in any detail as its full of spoilers and stuff – the show hanging onto most of its secrets right to the end, but you won’t be surprised to find that Yorito amazingly acquires himself a fully fledged harem by the end of episode three, which includes the usual bishoujo staples of childhood friend (Mana), ’sister’ (Aono), mysterious girl (Matsuri) and pre-teen (Koyori).
Curry parties? Koyori thinks this show sucks.
It may be that I’m just blind to the attractions of this kind of production. After all, I loved Kanon, well most of it. Well okay, some of it, the first five episodes and then something like eps 9-18. And it’s not as if even Yorito is all bad, well he is, but he is a photographer, joining a long line of anime snappers that includes Tamami from Mahoraba, Nami from Someday’s Dreamers: Spellbound, Saeko from Flag and, erm, Fumiya from Hataraki Man, which means he has at least one redeeming feature.
Of course, he tries to take pictures at dusk using a telephoto lens without any form of tripod, so I assume he either likes 1600ASA digital noise or is an idiot, or possibly both.
If you liked Kanon, and by liked I mean if you thought it was faultless to a tee with no imperfections whatsoever, even in the horribly forced happy happy joy joy ending, then you’ll probably really like Sola. If you have even two brain cells that come into semi-regular contact with each other then avoid like you would a minor terminal illness. You have been warned.
I’m sure you know Kanon’s writer did sola, right? Not like that really matters anyway. Nice to see I’m not the only one who can see the connection. Yorito reminds me of Yuuji from Shakugan no Shana actually, another equally spineless annoying wimp masquerading as male protagonist.
Owen
June 11, 2007 at 9:23 am
End of third paragraph, lol. Naoki Hisaya is at least partly responsible for this.
I never watched past the first episode of Shana, so I don’t know how Yuuji turned out. I don’t know why they make these characters like this – I think the writers all just copy each other based on what they see has been successful before.
Thing is, if you look back to something like the original To Heart, Hiroyuki is nothing like the wet wonders that followed him.
lastarial
June 11, 2007 at 9:40 am
Oh, come now, it’s not that bad.
One thing Sola has going for it is that Yorito is absent from the screen a good deal of the time and that the mystery behind it all is still reasonably mysterious by the end of episode nine (not so mysterious by the end of episode ten, though they’ve replaced that mystery with “what happens next?”).
Besides, there’s a reason for Yorito to act like he’s made of tissue paper on a damp day.
But it would be nice if Mai Nakahara were allowed to cut loose in this series.
dm
June 11, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head as to why I’m still watching – as I said in my post, Sola has kept hold of its secrets well (I’ve not watched ep10 yet) and that mystery is a draw.
It’s been nice that Yorito has been unconcious for most of the last episode or so as well. It had been noticed…
lastarial
June 11, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Really, you know, Takeshi is the real male protagonist.
I think you might like the twist in episode ten. And the last few moments do have me wondering what happens next.
dm
June 12, 2007 at 12:54 am
Funny, i absolutely loved Kanon, but I really, really hate this fuckin show. It’s pretty damn bad, even by low standards.
21stcenturydigitalboy
June 13, 2007 at 10:10 am
“It may be that I’m just blind to the attractions of this kind of production.”
If you’re complaining about the fact he has a harem by the end of episode 3, I think it’s safe to say you are.
The ANN preview for this show pegged it as being for Kanon fans only too, and that’s something I disagree with. I will admit to liking Kanon, but I’m well aware of its major flaws. I actually think I like Sola slightly more, in part because it corrects some of those flaws:
1) For once, we get a female character who, while she still has some cookie cutter personality traits, actually gets some depth and development. Considering how difficult it is to combine depth and moe in one character (something I plan to discuss when I finally get my own blog up and running), this is something I consider a major advancement for the bishoujo genre.
2) Not only that, but they use said character as a nexus point for everything that’s happening. In Kanon, the only link between the girls seemed to be Yuicchi, making the whole thing seem like it was force fit together… which it was (five paths from a multipath game). That’s another thing that’s an advancement for Sola.
Of course, if you compare plot and character to entries from other genres, you still come up short, but that’s a matter of what perspective you come at the show from (and probably why I really like the show when you consider it pretty bad).
Coming back to the Kanon comparison, though, the big problem I had with both your use of it and ANN’s is that there’s a range of people who like Kanon to varying amounts for a range of reasons. Splitting them into two camps is a vast oversimplification. Personally, while Kanon fans are obviously the most likely to be interested in the show, I’d say it actually has interest to fans of bishoujo in general, even those with less interest in the genre than Kanon might appeal to (reasoning: the pacing of the plot twists makes it a little more interesting to watch.).
(I was thinking of talking about this when I got my blog, but I’m wondering how much I want to expand on it when I just managed to make such a nice summary of my arguement…)
As for the wimpy protagonist issue… I think the reason for that is that they want a character that the viewer can see themselves as… bishoujo anime, after all, has a heavy fantasy component. Of course, I consider most of them wimpier than that role requires… not sure if you’ve ever seen Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (my gold standard for a show that combines moe with good writing) but I’d say Asaba is a good example of a character who comes across as having a human vulnerability but not being a wimp.
Also, I actually liked Asa better than Kaede. Shuffle suffered from a SEVERE lack of personality in its characters, but Kaede to me was particularly bad outside of her psycho moments… which while awesome, were more creepy than endearing for me.
0utf0xZer0
June 23, 2007 at 1:56 am