Sora no Manimani

Title: Sora no Manimani (At The Mercy of The Sky)
Japanese Title: 宙のまにまに
Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy,School-Life, Slice-of-Life and ASTRONOMY!
Premier: 7th July 2009
Animation Studio: Studio Comet
CG Production: SUBARU
Director: Shinji Takamatsu
Original Creator: Mami Kashiwabara
Character Design: Hajime Watanabe
Art Director: Kuniaki Nemoto (Kusanagi)
Chief Animation Director: Hajime Watanabe
Official Website: http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/soramani/

Basic Info:

This anime is set to be 13 episodes.

OP: "Super Noisy Nova" by Sphere
ED: "Hoshikuzu no Surround (星屑のサラウンド)" by CooRie

Cast:

Kanae Itō as Mihoshi Akeno
Tomoaki Maeno as Saku Ooyagi
Ami Koshimizu as Fumie Kotozuka
Haruka Tomatsu as Hime Makita
Junji Majima as Takeyasu Roma
Li Mei Chan as Haruko Hatori
Masaya Matsukaze as Nozomu Soma
Reiko Takagi as Masashi Edogawa
Saori Hayami as Sayo Yarai

Covers:



Plot:

Saku Ooyagi returns to his old town after seven years and becomes reacquainted with a childhood friend, the ever-boisterous Mihoshi Akeno; but the reunion is far from merry since his last piece of memory between them is of her falling off a tree and him diving to save her. Regardless, Mihoshi focuses her all into improving their tattered relationship and forces Saku to join her astronomy club.

(~from AniDB~)

My Thoughts:

As long as it enjoyable....I will watch this. Its all in the hands of the sky for this to be great.

BTW, the new Tenchi OVA series looks good.

I just watched the promo for this, and I have a feeling it might actually be quite good. I'll keep my eye out for this one

a lot of SoL series this summer my list is piling up since i love those types; probably will skip out in the ones with too heavy a romance atmosphere (this one wont have that problem though) at least according to the manga; but anything thats school life/slice of life will probably be on my list; had nothing but action recently except for K-On

Excellent start for the series... the first ep has it all.. some tender moments, funny moments...

Backgrounds, and character design are very good (as expected in a first EP), and musical score made a good job of encompassing the action.

Unfortunately the first sub available has some issues (TKK, left at least 4-5 sentences un-subbed... which is a shame, as it stains what would have been an amazing subbing work otherwise) [looking forward for a V2 sub]

Ah, another anime series about the importance of doing what you love to do. The Japanese are really excellent at this kind of stuff, I have to say. It'll take a lot of effort to surpass Sketchbook in this regard, but this is a fun first episode, albeit a tad standard.

SSSSOOOOOOOooooooooo happy with the start! I know, I just KNOW I am going to love this series. So happy! Great starting episode, main character is amusing but the girl... just amazing!

Liked the first episode. Im gonna see it more as comedy than a romance anime i think. Mii-chan and Saku's mom are awesome. Dont remember the last anime that had a book-worm protagonist, i'd say pretty unique. Cant wait to see how this one plays out

This series wasn't in my watchlist but after this first episode it sure deserves a place. The characters are a bit plain until now but that is expected after just one episode. Mii-chan really is the best character with her craziness . I just hope it doesn't become something like akane iro ni somuru saka..That would really be a shame of this very nice start.

A good first ep, even though the male protagonist is a complete whimp.
But his mother and Roma are funny enough to compensate that and Mihoshi is even more crazy than Haruhi, so I will stick with it.

QUOTE (Killer_Ossi @ Jul 16 2009, 12:29 PM) A good first ep, even though the male protagonist is a complete whimp.

I'll have to completely disagree with you.

In comparison to a lot of other protagonists of similar anime, I'd actually say that he's one of the braver. One fact which attests to his bravery is how he reconciled with Mihoshi within the first half of the first episode. If you don't remember there was the misunderstanding about how he was mad/lonely because Mihoshi never came to visit him in the hospital after he broke his arm trying to catch her when she fell out of that tree while unbeknownst to Saku, Mihoshi had been hospitalized for sustaining greater injuries than his own.

His bravery comes into play when you consider everything in the light that as soon as he realized that he was completely at fault, he made no excuses nor did he not fully admit that he had been wrong. I mean... seriously, how many other anime have you watched where the plot drags on and something stupid never gets resolved, where often a simple apology would set things right yet everyone is too brain-dead to take the initiative.

So yes... If the fact that Saku isn't the most physically inclined or that he doesn't have a bankai is your interpretation of the word "wimp" than I guess you'd be right.

Aside from all that other non-sense I wrote, I'd have to say that I definitely enjoyed the first episode. The plot is very familiar seeming but something about it kept it fresh. I haven't quite put my finger on it yet.

The comedy was definitely decent. The president of the Astronomy Club, Saku's Mom, and the chemistry between Saku and the President of the Student Council have probably been my favorite characters/aspects of the show so far.

So yeah... I'll be watching this show for the time being :3

Edit: I've seen the "whimp" spelling of wimp used before but, I can't help but think of family guy.

Say cool.
- Cool.
Say whip.
- Whip
Say Cool Whip.
- Cool Hwhip.

I think he is a wimp, because he didnt say no to the astronomy club and then going in the literature club, where he wants to be.
And he didnt say how she trampled on his feelings back then and how he hated that all.
First he hates her completely because she always steels his books and drags him around and now everything is ok just because he got to know that she was injured too? Sorry but thats lame. He doesnt have a backbone.

QUOTE (Killer_Ossi @ Jul 16 2009, 05:03 PM) I think he is a wimp, because he didnt say no to the astronomy club and then going in the literature club, where he wants to be.
And he didnt say how she trampled on his feelings back then and how he hated that all.
First he hates her completely because she always steels his books and drags him around and now everything is ok just because he got to know that she was injured too? Sorry but thats lame. He doesnt have a backbone.
Ah... you might have missed it maybe?

"Do you know how much trouble you caused me?
All my classmates called me the guy who only played with girls.
You'd always interrupt me while I was reading!
Every time! Every time! Every time!
All you did was take an indoors guy who loved reading and
dragged him around with you!
And you'd always drag me around like that.
When I was recovering, discharged, from the hospital, and moved away,
you didn't even come see me."

I don't know what that looks like to you, but to me it looks like a fairly long list of grievances he laid against her. How is that not saying how she trampled on his feelings?

He realizes that he felt lonely for her, and that's part of why he got angry anytime anyone mentioned her. It's not that first he hated her and now he's fine with her but rather he realizes that he never hated her to begin with. And it was brave of him to admit that he was the one who was wrong about his feelings concerning her rather than insist that she destroyed his childhood.

Lol that is not even near something like trampeling over feelings.
But seems like you are right with what you said about not really hating her, seems like I didnt get that (getting something like that is kinda hard if you yourself dont have feelings ^^).
But he cant even recognize his own feelings and stand to them so for me he is still a wimp.

Ahaha.. You're incorrigible. How about we compromise on less wimpy than similar protagonists in similar situations?

Yeah, there are defenitly greater wimps out there than him ^^

Well, let's see what i think about episode 2. It was an enjoyable episode with a new factor Hime Makita. The scene with the bus was strange: she gets caught in his button with her hair on a bus. she said the farthest place out of town was the private middle school. Do i understand correctly that she met him on a bus in another town??
Mihoshi was again the best character with her strange behaviour although Saku's mom also is a good contender. And Sayo has a surprising scene when talking to Saku. She seems to know more than she shows. The president also has some good points (riding a bicycle sure ain't one of them ).
In all i still like this series but i do hope that they don't make the mistake of not doing something with the potential relationships. A closed ending with a steady relationship between for example Saku and Mihoshi would be fine with me.

What the heck ???? The vibe of Sumomomo Momomo. Haha, another annoying main heroine on my list.

Oh man. This is nice gag. But again .... why Momoko and Mihoshi very identical. Not to mention the main hero of Sumomomo Momomo and Sora no Manimani look kind of wimp from the look.

Oh well, variety is nice too.

Quite the surprise. I only kinda enjoyed the first episode when i watched it. A bit entertaining, but didn't seem like anything special. But I actually really enjoyed the 2nd episode. I'm gonna go and assume it's because of Hime, cause Hime = win. Saku is fun and all, but can get a bit annoying. I like Hime and Sayo much more.

QUOTE (Barbobot @ Jul 21 2009, 11:23 PM) Quite the surprise. I only kinda enjoyed the first episode when i watched it. A bit entertaining, but didn't seem like anything special. But I actually really enjoyed the 2nd episode. I'm gonna go and assume it's because of Hime, cause Hime = win. Saku is fun and all, but can get a bit annoying. I like Hime and Sayo much more.
Yeah Hime is hilarious

especially when she kicked that girl that recognized her

QUOTE (Cool Nitro @ Jul 21 2009, 08:35 AM) What the heck ???? The vibe of Sumomomo Momomo. Haha, another annoying main heroine on my list.

Oh man. This is nice gag. But again .... why Momoko and Mihoshi very identical. Not to mention the main hero of Sumomomo Momomo and Sora no Manimani look kind of wimp from the look.

Oh well, variety is nice too.
Haha, they're are definitely similarities between the two but I think we can agree that Momoko is a bit more over the edge than Mihoshi. I haven't seen Mihoshi try and serve herself for dinner yet but yeah.. there definitely are a lot of similarities between the two.

I'll agree with Saku being similar to Koshi in the sense that he's a bookworm non-jock type individual but I think Saku is a bit more open-minded than Koshi. Saku pretty much accepted Mihoshi in the first episode while I don't know if halfway through Sumomomo Momomo, Koshi even admitted that Momoko was a human.