Talk:Sound of the Sky

Romanization

I don't suppose there are any official romanizations for the characters. Where did Noeru→Noelle come from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.253.180.92 (talk) 09:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it should be Noeru for now, since the name is written in kanji.--十八 11:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I changed that one, because "Noeru" almost always is turned into Noel/le no matter how it is written. I chose Noelle, because Noel is actually a male-only name ^^; But Crunchyroll has decided to go with "Noel". Minikui (talk) 03:59, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It was later shown that she uses Noël, but she also has a stamp with her name "乃絵留" in kanji posted in the official blog (not used in the series itself): [1] --84.134.38.1 (talk) 08:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Reviews & others

Mania Ep2 Mania Ep1 Mania Special 1--KrebMarkt 09:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

more on video game --KrebMarkt 16:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

ANN box set review

Very long review: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/sound-of-the-sky/dvd-complete-set-limited-edition

...this collection includes the original twelve episodes, an alternate version of episode 1 (which only differs by actually using the series opener and showing the credits during it rather than the opening scenes), and two full bonus episodes: “The Sound of the Sky – Dream's Horizon,” an episode listed on Crunchyroll as a special and here as episode 13, and “Drinking Party – Fortress Battle,” which is listed here as episode 7.5 and is appearing with formal English translation for the first time. Even though the latter episode is a bit edgy due to its inclusion of underage drinking (which may have kept it from being aired on TV), the series is still much better for having both episodes, as the latter amusingly fills in a key gap in the storytelling and the former provides a much more rounded and satisfying conclusion to a series which felt like it wrapped up rather abruptly with its twelfth episode.
...A vague underlying plot which only occasionally even hints at its existence finally starts to gel in episode 10, while episodes 11 and 12 step up the tension dramatically as the discovery of a wounded Roman soldier sets up the series' only major present-time conflict, one which ends in disappointingly predictable fashion. The reflective but also forward-looking episode 13 finishes the series out on a stronger note with a slew of major revelations and a less gimmicky mindset; it is, arguably, the series' best episode.
...All five platoon members and the nun they regularly associate with are either exact versions of, or slight variations on, standard moe archetypes and do common moe things, although here we do also get to see what moe characters act like when drunk. (Think of a ridiculously melodramatic war scenario involving squirt guns.) Even the character designs show a clear influence from moeblob series like K-ON!. Those who are not normally fans of moe may struggle to cope with the big chunks of inanity present here.
The series does have at least some other merits, however. For all the cheery spunk that Kanata infuses in, and for all of the light-hearted antics that go on, a certain underlying melancholy permeates the series, a lingering sadness over the technology, knowledge, people, and even land that the world has lost. It is rarely mentioned directly but still present in almost every aspect of the series, such as how the legged tanks seen in a mid-series flashback and at the end are just pale imitations of the “old tech” Takemikazuchi that Noël is rebuilding, the casual mention about how Kanata has never even heard of dolphins, the ruined classroom wing that is part of Clocktower Fortress, or even the tired smile of the blond trumpeter in the opening scenes, and it is more effectively used here than in most post-apocalyptic stories. Nowhere is this more evident than in Filicia's flashback to a disastrous tank mission early in her career and an ensuing “conversation” she has with a long-dead soldier, and nowhere else in heavily moe tiles will you see something like that.
...The series' strongest merit, though, is the meticulous creation and depiction of its setting and the odd way it blends disparate cultural elements. Helvetia is a reference to Switzerland, its region and town names are all French numbers, the language shown on any printed Helvetian document is French, the architecture is generally consistent with older European styles (Seize is supposedly modeled on an historic Spanish city), and vehicles, weapons, and military uniforms are all modeled off of World War II-era German equipment (except for one Roman tank, which is modeled on a U.S. design), but the school wing in Clocktower Fortress is distinctly Japanese, “ideograms” pop up in many places, customs are more in line with Japanese traditions, and the church in Seize is a mishmash of Christian and Shinto beliefs. (A world map shown in one episode suggests that Helvetia is actually part of what used to be Japan, but if so then it is a Japan almost completely subsumed by Western culture.) Romans, contrarily, speak German but have more of an ethnic central Asian look. Binding it all together is an exceptional background effort by Studio Easter, which has done quality backgrounds for a vast array of titles over the years, ranging from City Hunter to Ai Yori Aoshi to the current Hana-Saku Iroha. The sense of age, ruin, and decay is beautifully portrayed down to even the smallest and most innocuous details, such as how a stone bridge has been repaired at some point with steel girders, the rubble strewn across a long-ruined classroom, or the consistent background use of blue-on-white image plaques as wall decorations. This is as believable a setting as could be imagined.
...The regular doses of bugle and trumpet music – including the recurring use of trumpet renditions of “Amazing Grace” – punctuate a fully-orchestrated soundtrack which also features a couple of gentle insert songs. It works well in dramatic, light-hearted, and moody moments but, beyond the trumpet routines, is unlikely to draw much attention

...Ultimately, Sound of the Sky aspires to expand the narrative range of heavily moe titles. While it does succeed at showing that moe can be pulled off in a radically different setting, its success at storytelling is more tenuous. Some of its late plot developments seem hasty and forced, nasty background revelations pop up with only the barest prior hints (if any) that those characters had troubled backgrounds, the warmonger character introduced late is over-the-top to an eye-rolling degree, and the climax is too blunt and oversimplified. The series' premise of staffing a platoon with teen girls is not one of those problems, however, as the idea is not so far-fetched; what would be inconceivable about a country whose population has been depleted by lengthy wars resorting both to female combat soldiers and to soldiers in this age range? ... Despite these flaws, the series hits the right note often enough to warrant an overall recommendation.

--Gwern (contribs) 15:30 15 September 2011 (GMT)

Wo

Is there anyone who can explain the strange spelling? Woto obviously refers to the word oto (音) but... it is spelt oto (not woto) and, more importantly, the syllable Wo is never used in modern Japanese, outside of its use as a particle (and for writing foreign words).--213.113.49.164 (talk) 09:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Trust me, I had extreme difficulty with this when I was creating the article. I initially was going to call it Sora no Oto as this is what the title is implying, but believed that this would probably get changed to the current So Ra No Wo To because of how the title is presented in Japanese (ソ・ラ・ノ・ヲ・ト) with distinct spaces between the kana. Seeing as how ANN more or less follows this separation of the kana, I thought it best, for now, to just do the same. As to why Wo and not O is used, is due to the katakana. ヲ was chosen, not オ, so it made sense to use Wo and not O in the title. I realize を/ヲ aren't used in Japanese words, and when used as a particle it's pronounced 'o' (and romanized as such in revised Hepburn romanization which we use), but like I said, they wrote it as ヲ and not オ, and I didn't want to incite an edit war over the spelling of the title if I could keep it as neutral as I could.--十八 03:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you have completely misunderstood my question. I wasn't talking about the spelling in the wikipedia article. If the Wikipedia article was spelt differently, I would have issue with that (well I wouldn't complain if it was spelt "Sora no Woto", without the spaces, but change it to "Sora no Oto" and I'll complain that it is wrong. The name of the anime is Sora no Woto. Not, as is plainly obvious, Sora no Oto). No, what I am asking about, is the spelling of the name. Not how wikipedia chooses to spell it.--213.113.49.164 (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

...and about the whole を/ヲ (wo) is pronounced, and commonly romanized, 'o'... That is actually not true. を is pronounced, and commonly romanized, as 'o', when it is used as a particle. When not, as in this case, it isn't and shouldn't. To quote from the wikipedia page about Hepburn, which you link to (with emphasis added): "The character を/ヲ wo should be written o phonetically when it is used as a particle in modern Japanese."--213.113.49.164 (talk) 21:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, one must remember that before the kanadukai spelling reforms, you couldn't have internal VV so words like ookami were written OHOKAMI; omou was OMOFU (negative OMOHANAI (this is where the u -> wanai comes from)) 尾張:おわり〔をはり〕 香る:かおる〔かをる〕 折る:おる〔をる〕

The issue is that it's purely stylistic to bring back that "classical" flavour. It's like using "ye/ýe" in English (which was always pronounced 'the', it was a typographical variant of Þe). Historically, oto was always written with an O and never a WO, (old spellings are given in every dictionary because they were in use until the 1946 kana spelling reforms; until 1946 TŌKYŌ was spelt: とうきやう). Just like before the modern reforms, all grammer was written in katakana (because it looks like kanji, and fits in better), and hiragana for emphasis; this has changed 100% in the last 100 years.

As for the pronunciation, it's -always- pronounced /o/, and if you try to get a native speaker to pronounce /wo/ they'll realise /u.o/ because the /w/ sound doesn't exist outside of /wa/ and should always be romanized as "o" when using the modified hepburn, or the official ISO 3602 (kunrei-shiki, not nihon-shiki) used in Japan. "wo" is more of a convention in the English speaking transcribers that mixes systems (if you use SHI use O, if you use SI use WO).

As for the "writing foreign words", also false. The /wo/ sound is borrowed as うぉ (typed in most IMEs as "who") 78.50.83.90 (talk) 21:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)