Sora no Woto - Episode 5

Episode five of Sora no Woto begins with the girls of the 1121st Platoon in the heat of battle... Or rather, in their tank's battle simulation on a particularly hot day.

Such hardships are interrupted by the visit of Claus, another member of the military who Kureha seems to have a bit of a thing for. That aside, he brings the girls some letters from friends, relatives and the like, but also what appear to be some instructions for a mission to be carried out by the platoon.


Thus, the rest of this episode sees Kureha, Kanata and Noel taking a "field trip" involving carrying heavy rucksacks and checking out three monitoring devices strewn around the hills to see if they're still operational - An operation overseen from a distance by Rio, who seems to rather enjoy making life more difficult for them in the process. This field trip ends by taking them almost literally to the end of the world... at least, the end of the inhabited world before a desolate and wreckage-strewn No Man's Land begins.

While this particular instalment of Sora no Woto arguably doesn't work quite so hard as previous episodes to immerse us in the world in which it is set, it certainly never forgets the roots of its story either, be it the odd yet technologically advanced monitoring outposts (another piece of technology that can't be repaired in the present day were it to fail) or those views of no man's land which add an eerie sense of devastation to proceedings that otherwise seemed largely focused upon having fun.

Indeed, "fun" probably sums up this episode of Sora no Woto better than any other instalment of the series thus far - Now that we're more familiar with its characters it was actually genuinely enjoyable to watch the dynamic of the three younger girls here, whether they were goofing off or sniping at one another out of frustration and hunger. This was all carried off ably by the show's usual decent animation quality, which (coupled with some well-placed lines of dialogue) brought some nice humour to this episode as well. Somehow, even when it leaves some of its deeper mysteries and secrets to one side, Sora no Woto is managing to be engaging, and to be honest at this juncture I think it's actually surpassing my expectations by being such a generally enjoyable viewing experience. Long may it continue too...