Anime: Yosuga no Sora 2y4472

I find it extremely hard to establish in what genre Yosuga no Sora fits best.
The multiple complains about it being too close to Hentai are exaggerated, but given the explicit – and often “daring” – sex scenes, its understandable why so many view it that way.

The drama has its moments, and the artwork and sound provide the right atmosphere however, the moment you establish an emotional connection to what’s happening, queues a sex scene that ruins the mood.

This is neither drama or hentai. It’s a mash up of both, and seeing that the proportions are pretty messed up, the end result is too awkward for my taste.

THE STAFF
- Animated by Feel, a minor studio which does only softporns.
- Directed by Takahashi Takeo, who made many famous incestus ecchi and hentai shows, although his best work is by far the much more mature but still fan-servishy Spice and Wolf.
- Based on a porn game, which for once it is not a harem (and thus better) but a slice of life romance with sex and time resets (which makes it worse).

The main hook of the show is of course the incestuous twins. There are more girls in it but who cares about them; twincest is wincest. You know they like each other and unlike other shows with innuendos around the same trope, they actually “go for it”. Oh, and for a change of pace they really are blood related siblings and NOT that stupid excuse of having different parents. There you go; just from this you got yourself something that sures most of everything else out there.

But wait, don’t assume I approve of incest, I just liked how it finally showed it openly in a non-hentai anime. And yes, I know, Aki Sora is older and also has that, but that one was pure hentai and had only its first chapters adapted without showing much drama and characterization that came later. So Yosuga no Sora is kinda the first to show it fully with some drama and romance in anime form.

That aside, the actual story of the show is piss poor. It is very stereotypical and plays out ideally and conveniently. Plus it resets every time the lead boy scores with a girl. And of course, parents, teachers and police officers are non-existent. So no matter how much you like the premise or the drama, the story is plain stupid and barely there.

Meh, forget the story and focus on the characters. They are the backbone of the show by being given emersion. Each girl begins as an eroge stereotype and along the way is fleshed out by interacting with the lead boy. You get to see how she thinks and what she wants and opens up a lot to you… And I mean a lot. Legs included, lol. Well yes, to put it bluntly each girl is so content with the lead boy that gladly accepts to have sex with him. We get these softporn scenes of them together and then… hocus pocus, we are back on square one and now a different girl hits on the boy.

GAH, I HATE THAT! Effectively all development is negated with this stupid reset button trope. Some prefer to see it as an alternative reality but I say that it’s there just so we can see all the girls having sex and the boy not having to pick one amongst them. Oh such joy for us male viewers who get to have all of them without anyone complaining! But being less of a phallocratic prick, I say I hate this; I would prefer to see him picking one and making all the rest go heart broken and torn apart. Maybe we can get some cat fights this way too. None of that happen of course and the last girl he goes for is his twin sister, which is also the one the show ends with, as if she was his real choice or something. But beyond that stupidity there is a lot of emersion offered to the girls, despite rendering pointless their progress.

The production values are very good, with wonderful sceneries and nice drawn characters. But then again they do look generic as far as context goes, so you will probably forget them fast. The OST is full of elegiac tunes that put you in the proper mood of the show. But then again they are not really memorable so you will forget them too as well.

As for the actual hot topic of the show, well ok, it’s not like they really offered this amazing take on loving your own sibling in an understood and accepted way. Most of the show is after all normal romance and the incest is there just because of lust. What you are practically told is that if you love someone, why not spread your legs for him? Even if it’s your own sibling. I mean, why not? Well… Why yes? Where is the reason for that? What is so wrong with everybody else? Never really elaborated, besides being called lust. Thus the hook of the show is just a lousy bait that doesn’t really offer the viewer any food for thought. It really is smut material to the most part, just for baiting all the perverts and the curious ones. It has some nice touches of romance and character emersion but they are not really that important in the longrun because of the reset.

There is very little replay value in this anime. I’m pretty sure any romance without reset buttons is more fulfilling, as is any average hentai. As for enjoyment, the atmosphere is good ephemerally but thins out quickly. So no, in overall I don’t really consider this an above average anime or much of a show in general.

SUGGESTION LIST
Amagami SS
Aki Sora
Kiss X Sis

And now for some excused scorings.
[/spoiler]

'Yosuga no Sora' ('Sora the Blood Relative') is an anime adaptation for an eroge. Like any sane person, I don't incest nor particularly have an infatuation with sister characters (although I find it funny when sisters get raped in hentai), but decided to check this out because I have seen an extremely moving and thought-provoking Japanese incest movie before: 'Boku wa Imoto ni Koi wo Suru' (2007)
Unfortunately, this was an extremely shallow series in comparison.

Animation: 8/10
I'm sure we're all wondering what those insect antennas are doing on almost every character's hair in this series. It must have sured 'Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto' as series with dumbest ahoge in history. But other than that, the characters are very visually attractive, and hands and feet are drawn with more detail and better proportion than most anime series around.

I must commend the art in this series, not because of its detail or style, but because of its revolutionary distribution of animation budget. A typical show goes like this: 1:00 flashback, 1:30 OP, 17:30 content, 1:30 ED1, 2:00 side story, 1:30ED2 for 25-minute ad-free air time. The side story has super-simplistic backgrounds with chibi-form characters, which is a lot easier to draw and saves money/time. What this and having two EDs per episode has allowed, is only 17:30 of actual content per show instead of standard 22:00. The shorter actual content in combined with heavy recycling of backgrounds has enabled very beautiful character appearance and animation despite the apparent small budget.

This is damaging to the art consistency and content, but fortunately this series didn't have much material to begin with, and leaves much better impression than average quality overall.

Sound: 7/10
Voice acting was pretty good, everyone sounded like they should.
BGM was also pretty good with nostalgic, gentle pieces that complimented the visuals in creating a peaceful countryside atmosphere.
The theme songs were extremely weak, I would've expected more from Eufonius, but the song sounded tiring as Riya was trying and failing to hit the high keys. Two EDs were very forgettable.

Story/Character: 2.5/10
The opening act was the worst episode 1 I've ever seen. It served as an introduction to the main couple's relationship and other girls he would eventually tap, but it presented itself as a shallow harem right off the bat. All the girls basically fall in love at first sight without apparent reasons. It's also difficult to imagine countryside girls would dig a bishounen type.
Other girls back off after that though, and the main character goes after them one by one. The story in this series has a eroge-like save function where the protagonist chooses different paths and play out what would've happened had he chosen differently. It's kind of interesting, but unfortunately, the whole concept tumbled when heroines acted completely different in each arc. For example,


It was also difficult to see why the protagonist would go after each girl. In 'Amagami SS', they at least attempt to explain this by who the protagonist walks into immediately after a life-altering event. Here, the main character seemed to just go after them because he had to (the scriptwriter forced him to).

The characters are of course the typical harem archetypes, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they never grew out of their cardboard cutout existence. Every girl would suddenly share a devastating past trauma to the main character, and then make out with him after he somehow solve their problems. Character development here just seemed to be manufactured to get us to sympathize with heroines, and feels like we're just supposed to go along with it. This is a blatant sign of poor story writing, because such issues should be uncovered natural enough or the story should be so engaging that we won't even notice such details if done right.

The chemistry between the main couple were seen in other heroine's arcs, and it's somewhat understandable that they would eventually commit incestuous act given their mutual feelings and couple of awkward events between the two. However, issues such as morality and love surrounding incest was never explored in this series, and in the end,


Value/Enjoyment: 2.5/10
'Yosuga no Sora', unlike 'Amagami SS', presented itself as a thought-provoking and controversial incest themed series with foreshadowing of the main couple's relationship with all the "restarts". But in the end, it failed to fulfill its own promise, and turned into yet another shallow romance anime more suited for hentai. If you're looking for a deep incest drama, you won't find it here. Less than average series, less than hentai.