Sora no Manimani

Synopsis:

Saku Oyagi finally returns to his hometown after seven years of traveling around Japan because his father was constantly changing jobs. But when the first person he runs into is the very one person he hoped to avoid, the loud and childish acting Mihoshi Akeno. Even though they've known each since they were small and she has always dragged Saku along everywhere she went, often against his will, he finds that he really doesn't seem to mind it at all. But the one thing that Mihoshi enjoyed most was stargazing and generally being fascinated with the universe in general and she has always taken Saku out at night with her just to stare at the stars hanging in the night sky. Even though Saku prefers to read and write, and is constantly annoyed by Mihoshi, when he finds out the school was threatening to close the astronomy club due to lack of interest he didn't want to let the school take away Mihoshi's favorite past time and regrettably joins. After time however, the more time Saku spends with Mihoshi and the club he starts to find himself becoming more captivated with the world above rather than having his face buried in a book.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 12


Review:

When you take a look at the genres that this anime falls under you see two typical tags, romantic comedy and slice of life. But, I think they forgot to add one... educational. While watching Sora no Manimani I couldn't help but shake the feeling that each episode wanted to teach me something rather than present much of a story. Sure, yeah, the plot mainly revolves around different activities that the astronomy club does to try and gain new members and even throw in a little (and I do mean a little) bit of romantic elements but with this the show always veers off and goes into indepth explanations regarding the stars and constellations. Doing things this way doesn't leave much room for any kind of plot to work it's way in but yet I was still being taught things like how to recognize different constellations or flight patterns of comets. I guess that's also the main reason I kept watching was because I was educated instead of being entertained which made for an... odd, viewing experience.

While I was going through this anime I did find myself hoping that there might some sort of romance happening between Saku and Mihoshi or something... anything... to beef up the plot even just a little bit, but... it simply never happens. After about half way into the series I realized that it's not going anywhere but instead wants to pursue this route of being a very light-hearted slice of life series that wanted to teach me something worthwhile in the process. Even though this isn't a bad direction to go it also isn't going to appeal to a whole lot of people and you're either going to like Sora no Manimani or just disregard it after an episode or so. I'll commend Sora no Manimani for it's creativity and relaxed atmosphere but with it's uneventful plot and dry humor, there is nothing here that will make it a memorable viewing experience making it difficult to even recommend this anime to begin with.

Sora no Manimani (opening)

Recommendation: |Average|