Iriya no Sora UFO no Natsu Discussion Thread ~Spoilers~

[Shuten]

Iriya no Sora UFO no Natsu Info

Tracking Thread

Soulriders Reviews

Discuss the series here.


Sincerely,
Shuten

[Liddo-kun]

The art quality was very high on this project.  Character designs were clean and since it was a short OVA series (6 episodes), you didn't have the drops in art quality as you'd see during the course of a TV series.

The good visuals aside, you get to the story.

The huge problem with this being compacted into 6 episodes is that there's a TON of untapped potential, story points that were weakly dealt with, relationships unexplored, issues that seemed to have been left unresolved....

There's really too much story present to be stuffed into this package.  It's a shame, really, because there's a lot to like about this story.

Iriya the mysterious girl that catches the attention of Naoyuki, the main character.  Who is she?  Then later, WHAT is she?

Just the relationship between Iriya and Naoyuki alone could have used some development time since it all happened very, very quickly in the episodes.  This is also ignoring the presence of Akiho, this series' prototypical friend/romantic pursuer a.k.a. "she who really wants to get some sweet luvin but won't since she's not the title character so better luck next time and in fanfics" character.

I think a big problem I had was that, due to time constraints, they just didn't interact enough.  The setting and characters they introduced begged to have more time in the spotlight, but it just wasn't going to  happen.

Iriya's mysterious background.  Romantic tension between Iriya-Naoyuki-Akiho (though it was lightly touched on and dealt with in the span of the OVA).  The obscure and mercurial Enomoto.  The wacky U.F.O. chasing Kunihiro....

Another issue I had was with how abrupt the change in story intensity went.  It started as happy-happy-giggle-giggle then as sudden as a blindside blitz, the story took a nose dive into angst-land.

You could soothe away that problem in a longer series, but within 6 episodes?  Nuh uh.  It was like a punch in the nose that left you asking, "WTF?"

Which probably explained how stupidly off I found Naoyuki's attitude towards Iriya as they were fleeing from the military-types.  Iriya is almost raped by some vagrant, so let's now act like a jackass towards her!

Smoothe.  Would we like to accuse her of asking for it, while we're at it?

The negatives aside, it was a very pretty anime.  Art and character designs are top notch.  Story was meh, but the ending left on a sad note so it won some points with me there.

Would I recommend others to watch it?  Sure.

[Dracos]

What anime hasn't had steller art of late?

It seems the tools have taken a step forward in the last couple of years really.

Dracos

[Shuten]

What anime hasn't had steller art of late?

You'd be surprised how many don't actually have stellar art. That isn't to say there aren't a lot but it isn't as many as one might think.

It seems the tools have taken a step forward in the last couple of years really.

Well since pretty much all animation is done on computers nowadays things can be done that originally could never be accomplished on a TV series and only rarely on an OVA budget.

You also have to consider that it's much easier to tweak things as well as make major changes sometimes on relatively short notice than ever before. Of course this isn't exactly a good thing since we've seen the rise of shows that are driven more by the audience than anything else.

Now I'm not going to say that giving people what they want is exactly a bad thing. The secret is to not let it completely overwhelm the goal of the story. If a story can still reach it's desired goal while still giving the audience what it wants more power to it.

That unfortunately rarely happens.

Anyways I should note that a lot of shows have good art but you'd be surprised how many do not truly have good animation. It's quite easy to confuse art with animation. It's done more often than people think.

A good example of what I mean. Watch an anime with a scene where a bunch of students are in a hallway between classes or just any scene where a lot of people are around. With the exception of those characters conversing I guarantee you will rarely if ever truly see any characters, beyond the talking ones, move.

Ultimately that's just something to consider.


Sincerely,
Shuten

[thepanda]

And yet, Shinn still lives.

[Shuten]

And yet, Shinn still lives.

Yes and I doubt he'll die in the end either. I'm personally placing my money on him having a complete mental breakdown in the end. Not that I really care anyway. At this point the only one I really give half a damn about is Meyrin. ^^;


Sincerely,
Shuten

[Liddo-kun]

*kicks Shu and the deviant panda into the Gundam Seed Destiny thread instead*

>_>

<_<

[Shuten]

*flings a firebomb at the plushie as he is flung towards the SEED Destiny thread by the plushie's mighty kick! @_@

In all seriousness Liddo is right. Please keep discussions on topic and in their appropriate places from now on everyone. I shall endeavour to better do this myself as well.


Sincerely,
Shuten