“Do you play the flute too?”

Episode rating: 7.5/10

The winter anime season begins! The first, and so far only, new series I’ve picked up is Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora. I’ve been looking forward to this anime ever since its predecessor, Kannaduki no Miko, which was by no means a spectacular anime, but for some reason kept me watching despite the horrible mecha and not nearly enough flute rape yuri.

Kyoshiro mashes together so many genres (romance-drama, mecha, fantasy and yuri) that it bewilders me how they managed to pull it off. The show has some typical and cliche aspects like a hopelessly romantic female lead, student counsel hierarchy and the classic “instantly popular transfer student”. But here’s where the line between normal and abnormal is shattered. The hopelessly romantic female lead throws mental flower petals at EVERYTHING, the bishie transfer student has a thing against shirts, a sexually confused furry runs around making out with people and last but not least, there’s a flying horse!

Despite the potpourri of genres and general weirdness, the show manages to be quite entertaining. However, despite an eventful first episode, I have yet to make out a distinct plot, but I’m sure something will come together sooner or later.

Thus far we have been introduced to the main heroine, Kuu, who comes off as a spaced out hopeless romantic. She has a recurring dream about a prince who delivers a cheesy pick up line, well, guess who shows up as a transfer student soon after? Kuu instantly recognizes him as her prince (though they don’t really look alike) and spends the day thinking about him.

Loli Kuu <3

During lunch, Kuu’s prince (Kyoshiro) starts practicing the violin for no other conceivable reason but to attract a crowd of girls. When he notices Kuu he stops playing, approaches her, and rips off her shirt. While seemingly checking out her bewbs, Kyoshiro notices a glowing mark on her chest. This is probably a throwback to Kannaduki’s sun/moon goddess marks, but whether they bear the same meaning has yet to be revealed. In any case, before Kyoshiro can do anything else, Kuu pushes him away and escapes to the roof…not bothering to fix her shirt along the way. On the roof Kuu is greeted by an angelic bishoujo who quickly disappears and is seen in the wreckage of a nearby explosion.

Flash forward to the afternoon, Kuu notices Kyoshiro in the old school building making out with the bishoujo from the roof and runs off crying. Soon after she’s attacked by the aforementioned sexually confused furry, she tries to drain people’s energy by making out with them…or something like that. But the furry’s attack is stopped by the bishoujo from the roof who crashes through the window and starts up a mecha battle.

Nya~

So a quick mecha battle and flying horse later, Kuu, Kyoshiro and the roof bishoujo (Setsuna) are gathered like one big happy family. Kuu declares that she has been surprised so many times today that she’ll never be able to feel surprised for the rest of her life. Until…

O SHI-

Thoughts:

I have a feeling that, the way things are going so far, it’s going to be hard to keep these entries short. Despite the absence of a distinguishable plot thus far, so much happened in this episode that it’s impossible to do a quick one-liner summary.

The technical aspects of Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora are above average so far. Animation is great, I prefer the style of mecha battles that they’ve used here rather than the type where the person sits/floats in a cockpit. The action scenes are pretty fluid but I find the evening scenes really color saturated, especially when contrasted with Kuu’s random fantasy petalgasms. The character designs are awesome, a bit too much bishie floating around for my likes, but I can live with it as long as I get Chikane/Himeko clones.

The characters themselves have potential so far. I don’t really like Kuu’s internal monologues because they break the continuity of certain scenes, but otherwise she’s seems to be a likable character. Kyoshiro hasn’t said/done enough for me to decide whether I like him or not, though the way he manhandles women is intriguing. Setsuna also hasn’t done enough for me to pass judgment…but I love her hair =D. The furry is annoying nya. And if Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora is anything like Kannaduki, we won’t be seeing much of Kuu’s friend after the first few episodes.

Music is decent, OP comes in at a really weird point, but is surprisingly fitting. The ED is really nice, and the random ecchi flashes only serve to better it. Ambient music neither detracts nor adds to the series, seems to be there just to break silence because it didn’t do much to contribute to the feel of the scenes.

Well, hopefully this series doesn’t take a sudden dive in quality, I need another couple episodes to judge where the plot is going and see how the mecha is pulled off. But under the assumption that there’s the slightest hint of a logical plot and the mecha stays a side attraction and not a main feature, it’s pretty safe to say that I’ll continue watching and blogging Kyoshiro to Towa…etcetc. This needs an abbreviation, STAT!.

Needs four more legs

~ Shirukii ~