[Anime] Sola

After watching as much as I have of this show, I'd have to say that the character designs are decent if you can ignore their chin. Animation is pretty good though and the characters are likable enough. Unfortunately, that's about all the good things I can say about it at this point.

The series just feels like it's dragging right now. The main problem was after watching the first episode, I was thinking that it would become something close to Tsukihime where the show's atmosphere is pretty dark and ominous. Sola doesn't really offer you that at all, opting for more of a slice-of-life romantic comedy mixed in with the darker storyline. Almost like Rozen Maiden, except its execution isn't anywhere as good because of all the extraneous scenes throughout Sola.

Then again, I hated the first 4 episodes of Kanon (2006) too and it rose to become one of my most favorite shows ever. While I'm not willing to say that Sola is a keeper, I'll still go on with it because 6 episodes is still far too early to come to a conclusion about it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

10 episodes in for me and the series manages to turn it around by episode 7 with that well-executed scene where

Spoiler:

Aono controls Yoribito and gets him to stab Matsuri

The story is moving along at a good clip now that most of the background for all the characters have been revealed. I thought that the pacing early on was a little slow as the series descended too much into the slice-of-life genre without adding too much background information to the characters or allow us to explore their personalities. For example, they could have gone through Takeshi's backstory instead of pushing it all in one episode. It would have felt more natural (at least to me) to do that.

Still, the story isn't disappointing to say the least. Looking forwards to see how it resolves. Hopefully, things will end nicely and will not feel rushed as 13 -episode series have a tendency to be.

There's nowhere I can't reach.