Yosuga No Sora
For those who followed Dreams' ani-crap poll, I was tasked with watching and reviewing Rio: Rainbow Gate, the 2nd runner up plus an additional "crap" series. Whereas he was to view Manyuu Hikenchou I was tasked with Yosuga No Sora.
Yosuga No Sora is a visual novel adaptation animated by studio feel last winter about the orphaned Kasgano twins who travel to their grandparents' countryside residence via railcar, hoping to reconstruct the shards of a shattered life. With an uncertain future, Haruka Kasugano clings to memories of the past, hoping to find the strength he needs to protect his ailing sister. With a destiny irrevocably tied to that of another, Sora Kasugano clings to moments of the present, drawing comfort and security from the company of her brother. Two lonely souls so physically alike, yet spiritually divergent, unaware of the challenges these conflicting expectations will unveil in the days to come.
Where to begin with this series... I suppose one of my main criticisms will begin with plot continuity and and the omnibus structure of the series, because it - in my opinion - is what makes most of the series flaws apparent. It's basically a harem built on four distinct parallel-universe plot lines; each in which the male lead develops a relationship with one girl. At the end of every arc, the series resets to a prior point in time to make way for the next one. This structure provides the advantage of placing the spot light on each girl one at a time, allowing for us to see different iterations of the story, yet the limited episode count of the entire series means this structure in practice sacrifices a lot of plot development that needs to take place for the relationships between the lead male and the females to build up properly. Although the cast is consistent each arc is essentially a new story, and the characters each develop differently rather than in continuity, and with the series broken up the way it is with it's limited time frame there's simply no good means for this character development to take place.
But let's put that aside for moment, because in reality, the character build ups that take place in each arc tend to be meaningless in of themselves. The arcs are structured consistently so that the male lead always gets at least two episodes with each girl for the relationship to escalate. The inevitable end of each arc is basically when "Mr Haruka" is "becoming one" with the girl he's fallen in love with no actual resolution to any events that happened prior to or after these moments. To top it off, these gratuitous sex scenes are notably unnecessary to develop the individual relationships; not to mention that this was TOTALLY unnecessary for the Sora arc which was a full-on incest relationship where the complications of the relationship could have been seriously explored.
With this series the gratuitous sex fanservice isn't in itself particularly graphic, or "constantly" being on full display. It's that they're practically the ONLY devices used as a means to conclude every arc. What's more is that, in combination with the omnibus format conflict mentioned before, made it apparent that the studio that animated this series really didn't care much for putting together something coherent for a plot. I feel after watching this thing that it was orchestrated so that that Haruka effectively had a group "session" (O-word) with all the girls for the sake of giving viewers as many methods of intercourse activities as could be aired on TV without being an actual hentai title.
The only highlights worthy of note for the series are it's visuals and music which both complement the whole story pretty well... sporting soft musical notes and bright detail and colorful scenery... In all honesty this series might have worked if it had spent it's 12 episodes focusing the story on one girl rather than trying to show the lead effectively screwing every girl in a smorgasbord of different relationship types and "methods of approach". Frankly if you're for plot... you're gonna be rather cheated by this series. If you're queazy over fanservice, then this series is most certainly one to avoid. It ain't the most graphic "hentai" you'll ever see... it ain't the most unwatchable series of all time... but in my case it certainly lacked any real appeal...
I recommend skipping out on this series, or watch at your own risk.
