Sora no Otoshimono

Sora no Otoshimono is a perversion comedy series that provides more for the reader than just tactless fanservice. The series unfolds as a series of comedic episodes interspersed with large chunks of dramatic plot movement at a moderate frequency. These comedic episodes derive their humor from Tomoki inspiring man to reach out towards ever greater heights of perversion. The dramatic arcs experience a full 180 degree shift in tone, becoming heartwarming, heartbreaking, or heartrending stories that move even the most stoic of readers.

The storyline of Sora no Otoshimono starts off fairly generic: Sakurai Tomoki is an ordinary over-enthusiastic pervert with recurring dreams living an ordinary, perverted life in the town of Sorami. Suddenly an angel falls from the skies into his lap; she claims to be Ikaros, an "entertainment purpose" angeloid and declares Tomoki to be her master. Hilarity ensues. The story is developed fairly slowly, with most chapters, save dramatic ones, pushing the plot a little at a time. Most of the plot is focused on the budding relationships between characters, so savor the action and conspiracy theory you get while you can.

The artwork in Sora no Otoshimono is easily the strongest point of this manga. Minazuki Suu has a unique style that makes her pictures look soft and ephemeral like mist under the morning sun. The curves on her female characters are luscious and the scenery in the backgrounds are gorgeous. Most of the humor in the manga comes from the art and not the dialogue; the facial expressions during key punch line moments have been the most unique and creative that I have seen. Rather than a single 'wtf' face as I will call it during gag moments, she manages to draw a variety of emotions on her characters during punchlines which increases the repertoire of gags she can use. There's Tomoki's 'wtf is he/she/that doing here, oh god I'm screwed' sweaty face, there's Tomoki's 'wtf, the answer is so simple, it's like I've reached enlightenment, but I'm still screwed' sort of serious face, and then there is Ikaros' 'smile'. The characters are drawn with two different styles, normal vs. chibi, in order to help further define the tone of the story at that moment. You know that sh*t is about to hit the fan whenever Tomoki is drawn in his normal form.

The characters are the driving force behind this manga; it is their interactions that make this manga so funny, and it is their ordeals and pain that make this manga so moving. Admittedly there are weaker characters; I personally don't like Sohara because she doesn't do much besides be the "childhood friend." However as a whole the characters are quite solid. One of the strongest characters in the series is Tomoki himself; despite being the male lead of a harem he is quite the loveable guy. He is the most bodacious, daring, persistent, shameless, creative, talented, and brilliant pervert I have ever had the honor of given my full respect to. Just bow down and worship him when you learn of the "Tomoki Peeping System." True he is only a juvenile pervert, meaning he can't handle the "real thing," but he is still manly enough to garner a higher popularity than some of the female leads in his harem.

I look forward to Sora no Otoshimono every month for the plot, even though it is primarily an ecchi manga. I know it is weird to call this manga "tender-hearted," but that's how many of the (non-ecchi) parts feel to me. The only time I had ever cried while reading manga was at the end of Elfen Lied when the main protagonist finally learns the real name of "that" girl. That was before my eyes watered on three separate occasions while reading the first 50 chapters of Sora no Otoshimono. Minazuki Suu has had experience writing powerful drama before, and this experience shows in her ability to move the reader without needing pages of non-comedic content as setup. But having that frightening ability does not mean she paid with her ability to write comedy. The comedy is supposed to be the strong part of this series. I have been praising the small bits of drama over and over again in this review, but that doesn't change the fact that this manga started out as, survived as, and gained popularity as a ecchi comedy manga. So this means that this entire time, I have been underrating the comedy aspect of this manga. If I can enjoy the secondary drama in this manga to this degree, imagine how enjoyable this manga would be for someone who appreciates the comedy aspect.

*EDIT*
Although I have been referring to Minazuki Suu as 'her,' it turns out she is actually a guy. Go figure. His drawings are so feminine that if I was friends with him personally, I would make fun of his masculinity on the basis of his artwork. But with all due respect; great mangaka.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Angeloid - my favourite ecchi manga of all time.

Well, I love every aspect of this anime, but the one thing that lacks of something is the story. Especially with the ending, I think that could've been done a lot better. It's just to open and to random in my opinion.

The artstyle and the characters are lovely.

Tomoki - a perverted teenage boy addicted to porn and panties, but really dramatic in the right moments

Sohara - a cute highschool girl taking care of Tomoki and always acting lady-like. But she's another person if you look at her from the inside

Eishiro - a 'crazy' but also smart student always performing weird experiments

Mikako - the violence loving schools president

And Ikaros, Nymph and Astraea - one really shy, one really sassy and the other one kind of dumb.

With these characters combined, you can just can't not fall in love with this manga and/ or anime adaption.

Rating: 9/10

Sora not otoshimono has finally come to an end. I followed this series for a number of years now and it genuinely saddens me to see it come to an end. But enough with my personal sadness, on with the review!

The story of SNO is simply something you can't predict and that is one its real strong points. You think that your in for a nice funny/ comedic story, which is true but then plot twist after plot twist simply throws this on its head. Its hard to talk about plot progression without spoilers, so i'll refrain from delving too deep. It starts off with the introduction of the characters in a typical school setting and progresses in that tone but the touch of the supernatural makes the story interesting and gives the author a chance to make things difference and wild, and that is exactly what he does. With the inclusion with of the 'other world', the plot unwinds into something more than just a 'typical school anime'. I'll have to stop here when concerning the plot since i'm reviewing the manga and not retelling the story. Apologies.

Sora no otoshimono is for me one of the best examples of combining a load of genres and actually making it work. This is generally classed as an Ecchi manga before anything else, which in all honesty is very much true but don't let that fool you. These days, Ecchi manga/ anime have a stigma, not a bad one but they do have the a certain 'tag' shall we say that may in turn put someone off when they see ' Ecchi 'as an attached genre however, whilst SNO (abbreviated) is certainly an Ecchi manga, it isn't your archetypal Ecchi manga. One simple comment covers this, it isn't thrown at you constantly. That's the beauty of SNO, there is enough Ecchi moments to satisfy your 'desire' but not so much that it would put people off full stop. Very well spaced out.

If there is one thing that SNO does brilliantly though, it is the splicing and intertwining of genres. For instance, in one chapter, you may be laughing at a very comedic moment whilst only a few pages later, your breath may be taken away by a sudden plot twist. This certainly applied for me.

Just a quick mention about the 'tragedy' tag without giving away any spoilers. That genre tag certainly applies to this series. 100%. There are quite a few moments that will leave your mouth hanging. I guarantee it.

Onto the characters! Now for me, this may be only part of SNO that is a bit of a let down. In short, the characters are very 'typical'. Each character from Ikaros to Astraea doesn't seem to have any real stand out traits that make them really unique. But I should mention that this does change, to a degree, since most characters do go through some sort of development. For example, Tomoki is seen as just a simple pervy character at the beginning of the story but later on, he matures and in turn, helps most characters through difficult situations.

So that is that. SNO has finally come to an end I hope you enjoy it as much as I have over the years. Ciao!

I should really get around to reviewing mangas instead of just saying that the manga did it better while reviewing the anime version. Although, if I end up doing one for a series that has yet to see a finish line, then it acts more like a review journal because the review will have to be dated for all its updates for new chapters/volumes if I fall behind. Guess I'll just stick to mangas that are finished for now.

So here is a series that I have read through as many times as I've watched the anime series. Sora no Otoshimono, or Heaven's Lost Property, is a manga series that I read back in the beginning of my anime fascination. It is also the only manga to pull emotion out of me every time I read it. Let's fly through, this one shall we?

Story: 8

We all have desires and dreams. Some may have complex dreams, but others, like our main character Tomoki, simply dreams of living a quiet life in his little mountain town. I wouldn't blame him with a scenery like the one he is in. One day though, a storm hits and an angel crashes down in front of him. He takes her home and as he says along the way, his simple peaceful life is shattering before him. Now he must adjust to this new being living with him and must teach her to be more like a human.

I would say that the story is what really sells it for me, next to the characters themselves. The chapters may feel a little episodic but they also have a certain flow to them. But that's not to say that they really only focus on Rom-Com shenanigans, oh no. In fact, they actually have a lot of genuinely sad moments and happy ones as well. I would actually say that the comedic episodes are really there to simply balance the story out. It's a story about love, not pleasure, and is treated as such. I will admit, as much of a manly man from Manville as I am there are moments that made me feel really depressed and a few rarer occasions where I would shed a few tears. Again, even after already knowing the plot already. That is a really welled structured plot line.

Art: 8

It's great, really great in fact. The level on detail in each character and panel really brings out the emotion that is inside the dialogue. It's one of those scripts that doesn't need a voice actor's help to bring out more emotion in the scene. Although, I will say that the anime did do a good job in that department. What's better is that the chibi sprites they use in comedic scenes have just enough detail to bring the humor home. When it came to action scenes, the line effects looked great and gave the weapon or person an aura of power.

Character: 8

The second reason to my love of this series is, as I stated before, the characters. It's both a mixed bag and a generic one too, but this time not in a bad way. You see, they make a few characters basic archetypes but either add a little bit more, make that character entertaining to watch anyways, or both. Take Tomoki for example. He is just as dense as many Rom-Com male leads tend to be, but he is unique in the fact he is perverted but really kind-hearted to the point where he will get in front of danger for his friends. And even though he acts dense, his reason is actually believable enough that you wouldn't look at it as him being dense. And this is just one of many characters that has this kind of characterization. One of my favorite characters is Chaos. she was designed to be the newest and strongest angeloid in existence and was sent to kill the main crew under the explanation that the two that betrayed them were "Infected by Love". Unfortunately, she was never designed or taught the concept of love and now seeks to find out what love is before carrying out her mission. She soon becomes victim of the miscommunication game a few too many times and is sent down a dark path and you can't help but feel bad for her, even though she was a villain.

There are a few characters that don't get the detailed character treatment, but are entertaining all the same. One character I am not to much of a fan of is Mikako. She is a mob princess and now has a sadistic way of thinking that usually means bad luck for Tomoki. Honestly after about four or five plots to do him harm, it starts to feel old. Other than her, everyone else is cool.

Enjoyment: 10

It pulls on my heart strings and I love/hate it. Love it because it makes me feel for these characters, hate it because it pulls on my heart strings (I like to keep cool, calm, collective so as to always be able t react effectively). It is definitely a joy ride no short on laughs, cries, and drama. A title that will stick with me throughout my life. And to think I picked this up simply because I was curious about the title. I watched the anime version first and it's fair to say that I got hooked there. But you will have to read the review on the anime for my opinion on it.

Overall: 9

This manga's definitely one of the best harem, mecha manga ever.

I hadn't scrolled the screen consecutively, waited, hoped and enjoyed a manga for a long time (maybe since Onepiece and HxH) until I found this gem. I didn't expect to be in a train of joy, happiness, dramatic and peace when I first read this. It's like being in a roller coaster of emotions that is never end. But with the manga, the ending really makes me burn violently. All the emotions were gliding through my heart, making it beat faster and faster, feeling like it could be jump off at any moment. Incredible!! But it's not the first time I went through with that. It happened to me when I read each chapter: There are some chapters made me happy, some felt sad, and the other are peaceful with the excellent slice-of-life scenes. The way the story had been told really enjoyable, memorable and impressive. It reminded me of To Love RU: A harem, slice-of-life manga with a warm story.

Tomoki is definitely a typical protagonist in manga who has a perverted hobby which makes most of the ecchi scenes. It happens consecutively but isn't boring and somehow ends up to be hilarious (even a little bit pain). However, if you ask me about what build the comedy for SnO, the immortalizing and absurdity will be my answer. I had been laughing to death when I watched 'Oggy and cockroaches' or 'Tom and Jerry' which their characters are exploded, cut into pieces,... Exaggeration usually impresses me because of creativity, comedy and SnO successfully uses it without making a bunch of lame jokes. Those funny moments is on a different level which include both seriousness and humor which hard to find often in other manga.

For a harem and ecchi type, Minazuki Suu has done exactly what that type of manga must have: a great artwork with a lot of female characters. But the things impressed me a lot are the chibi, beautiful background and most of all, fighting moments. If you are the fans of mecha's battles which focused on drawings and effects, this is the one you are looking for. All the different types of weapon: swords, laser, shield,... were drawn in detail make the battles fun to watch. Moreover, the background is more and more eye-catching and realistic to become a highlight in SnO's artwork.

For the characters, I have to say it's really varied and depth. Minazuki-sensei focused a lot on their feelings, so that it led to their actions, their fights. When it comes to an end,we will understand them more, therefore, we can claim that even the bad guys have their own viewpoints, good sides to show.
It's interesting to see characters's development throughout the series from a childish Ikaros, loli tsundere Nymph, idiot Astraea... and along with them to find happiness.

Like I said before, this manga is one of the best manga I have ever seen. It can easily satisfy anyone who reads this with epic comedy and drama. Although the ending is a little bit rushed and I always hope for more, but SnO really shows how good it is in controlling our emotions, so that the regret we have maybe the way Minazuki-sensei want to end his masterpiece.

First of all..this is my first time on this site! Anyway, this is a great anyway. I Never finished this anime until recently and i'm glad i did. After the 2 seasons of this anime i went to read the manga to get further into the plot. Hmmmm everyone else probably said everything about this anime already but the music is amazing, so are the character's voices because it matches them, and the characters are cool. Art is great . Well this story has it all, it has a good story which i find is pretty interesting with the synapse, angels, and if we're actually real. It has a deeper plot aside from all the good comedy. The romance is cute also! But that gets better in the manga since the seasons didn't reach that far yet even though it does have some in the anime.

tl;dr: A comedic ecchi manga that has a surprising amount of depth and really good character development.

This manga like a lot of Minazuki Suu's works is misleading at first because it just seems like a simple ecchi gag manga. However, as it goes on it turns out to be quite a bit more. The comedy is very heavily centered around the protagonist being a perv that doesn't change his behavior at all despite his schemes and antics constantly resulting in him getting the living daylight beat out of him. However, within the scope of that, there's a good amount of variety to things wherein it never felt like the comedy started to get repetitive and furthermore felt like it was pretty high quality and hilarious throughout.

Something that helped with that is how things were structured, in that the the non-serious light hearted comedic portions are intermixed and flow incredibly well with the serious portions. Generally, the way things are structured is that things will be very light hearted for a while, and then something major will happen where things will get completely serious. Sometimes it's an abrupt shift and sometimes it'll be eased into, but regardless it's generally handled pretty well and keeps things interesting. After the serious part is over, it'll go back to being light hearted and the cycle repeats. However, there'll always be some sort of change or development from the serious portion that carries forward into the light hearted portion, such as a new character, a new power, or change in relationship. Thus, the plot manages to keep a general sense of the plot progressing and things changing while also always having new things to play with in terms of comedy during the light hearted portions. The plot has a surprising amount of depth. It deals with a lot of pretty deep themes, like the importance of freedom, the value in being able to dream, and whether things need to be 'real' in order to make one happy, and they're all written pretty competently and ultimately lead up to answers that are pretty different from most manga but are justified pretty well.

Just as strong is the cast of characters. The main character is interesting and likable, in that during the light hearted portions he's completely useless and just plays around badly which usually results in him getting beat up, but when things get serious he's really reliable and despite being just a human gets things done. The rest of the human characters are decent as well, but the other characters that are especially likable are the angeloids who while all generally being decent enough characters on their own, are really easy to get invested in due to the strength of their character arcs. The character development, which while essentially nonexistant in the protagonist, is incredibly strong in the various angeloids. That it would be so strong in the angeloids isn't that surprising because they start out as incredibly flat characters with no desires so there's a lot of room for growth, but it's still praiseworthy how well it was handled and it resulted in a lot of impactful moments, especially in the ending.

The ending in general was decent but with some issues that seem to stem from being rushed. It isn't rushed in that the conclusion feels forced or out of nowhere, in that it feels like all the major twists and such had been foreshadowed pretty well and it fits well into the narrative and explains essentially everything. So, it's not like the ending itself is the problem, but it seems to try to get through all of it way too quickly with a lot of aspects feeling like they didn't get dramatic enough revelations to have as much impact as they should have. Some may also have a problem in that it seems to be an open ending, but I think that fits well in a series like this. The art is also really good with great character designs and a style that works well with both the comedy and action.

Everyone has a perverted side to him or her, whether they want to admit it or not. It’s a very fact of life of which makes us human in every way, to heighten our sexual desires in private or in some cases publicly. For us that are of the latter and are fans of anime, the ecchi genre has fueled that encompassing aura in our psyche that makes us like to see sexy and beautiful girls. Throughout the millions of ecchi manga that are of an overabundance over the past decade or so, there’s always that one remarkable ecchi manga that each of us thinks puts all the rest to shame. For me, Sora no Otoshimono comes to mind the most.

It’s important to realize that, with how typical ecchi is as a genre, it’s not the kind of medium that has had its fair share of brilliant writing or story with most of them being stale or forgettable on almost every level. There are some that do manage to give some original characters in the mix and add some interesting plot devices that eventually don’t help to their credit, especially in the harem sub-genre. With that said, Sora no Otoshimono can be construed as that one shining beacon of light that dissipates the overwhelming shadow of blandness that has plagued the genre in this area.

While the story overall does not shy away from weak writing since there is an uninspired villain whose intentions on being evil are for a boring purpose even with the explanation at the end, that’s not the best way to describe the excellent quality of Otoshimono. What the writing does make it up for is how brilliantly paced the story is from how it slowly builds up the development of the story and how it balances out the comedy and the drama with each chapter. There’s no sudden awkward transition from comedy to drama on one page to another or a couple down the road. Although there are a few instances of this happening in the manga, they don’t feel very contrived of those moments, and they feel fitting based on the context of the situation. It takes it’s time to let us take in the mystery on the potential scenarios that they might hint upon in the next chapter.

The one word to describe the greatness of Otoshimono’s comedy is “magical.” In the sense that, the comedy is absurdly childish and stupid in almost every scenario, with flying pantsu in the sky and a little chibi Tomoki running around naked with his Angeloid partner in crime Ikaros. Despite this, it has a ton of charm to every single joke. It doesn’t feel afraid to push the boundaries of what a perverted protagonist, such as Tomoki, can do in any comedic situation and is self-aware of this fact as the jokes themselves are seen at face-value. Normally with comedy, this inept with crude gags that involve tormenting poor girls in sexual positions would seem childishly mean-spirited, but Otoshimono manages to one-up this humor by giving it more of a slight edge in creativity that makes it fun to read instead of squirm in pure disgust. The creativity involves great comedic writing that feels fresh and bold in every attempt at doing so, from how it draws out “one-page moments” where there’s one substantial comedic moment that genuinely shines throughout the chapter.

When there is a good comedy to be found in any medium, there has to be a colorful cast of characters that manage to pull off their charisma to make the comedy work, right? Well, have no fear because there’s plenty to be found in Otoshimono. I want to begin this by talking about the manga’s primary source of fun and energetic charm, Sakurai Tomoki. To me, this bundle of perverted glamour is this generation’s Kintaro Oe, of Golden Boy fame. His general wicked nature comes into full circle with an extremely captivating presence thanks to the great comedic timing he has in these specific scenes in question. That is not to say that Tomoki is always the perverted nut everyone on the show makes him up to be, like Kintaro, he has a big heart to his actions and is written very well in being a more three-dimensional character in that he cares for beautiful girls despite always being lecherous to their innocent bodies. It’s one of those things where it’s so hard to dislike him in spite of how despicable his actions might be if someone did the same things in real life.

Another main character that needs to be praised is the beautiful Angeloid Ikaros that Tomoki first possesses after she falls from the sky to Tomoki’s peaceful life. Ikaros, unfortunately, has no emotion to speak of to constitute anything to show that she is happy, sad, or anything from facial expressions alone because of how her Angeloid type was built in the first place. In essence, this is a very nice explanation of letting in a typical anime character with an unemotional appearance to make her have a purpose for being this way rather than pander to the dandere crowd. Her lack of emotions serves as a brilliant development to her character as she is Tomoki’s master and he teaches her all of the things that contributes to emotional value. It’s sort of similar to how one would show a little child how to live their lives accordingly in how to function in social interaction and that’s not to say that negatively in Ikaros’s part. You feel an emotional attachment to Ikaros because you want her to realize her true nature because of the upbringing that she was brought up in a dark past in synapse from her previous master, to which the writer built it up extraordinarily well.

Of course, that’s not to say that these two delightful leads are what make the manga’s cast great, oh no. I can say without hyperbole that there’s not a single character in this manga that is unlikable or poorly characterized whatsoever. They all have a unique charm in giving us endless hours of joyous entertainment thanks to their gag that involve a part of their distinct level of humor that feels genuine and original. Many may point out that they are cliched to their very nature with Sohara and Nymph being the tsundere archetypes and Astraea being the stereotypical dumb blonde character. To which I agree that they are but in a good way. They are cliched, but at the same time, they manage to become inherently more than their initial archetypes in particular thanks to how amazing their characterization is. The comedy that involves both of these aspects more than makes up most of that as well. These juxtapositions can be warranted praise enough to look past their cliches by this very element alone. To succeed in wonderful comedic characters, you must give them a lot of things to work on. Otherwise it’ll fall flat very quickly and Otoshimono gets it right from beginning to end.

To preface each character individually to expand this, the cute little Nymph starts as your typical tsundere who calls humans bugs and wishes to squash them. Like I said before about how great the characterization is, Nymph’s growth from disliking Tomoki into falling for him feels more natural thanks to the excellent pacing because of how Tomoki works hard to get her attention in showing her that she’s a special person despite her slave nature to her own master. Her love for Tomoki feels genuine, along with the rest of the girls who do. For instance, Hiyori, who appears later in the story, starts off her character with being in love with Tomoki from love at first sight. This situation could easily be conceived as contrived or lazy from a writing standpoint, but it surprisingly works based on how beautiful the dialogue is that details her deep reasoning for liking him in the first place.

Sohara, Tomoki’s childhood friend, manages to become more than just your quintessential “childhood friend living next-door” character. Her hilarious attempts in literally chomping down Tomoki’s devious antics are always fun to see from how they built it up so dramatically as a horrifying experience to go through. The last girl that Tomoki has for his Angeloid harem is Astraea, the big-breasted blonde girl who loves to eat anything that is in her way. Always calling Tomoki baka even with her ridiculous attempts at trying to be cool, only to be put down by her stupidity. She ultimately proves herself worthy in not only being an entertaining character but being an ultimately important character later on that brings her characterization in full circle.

There are Mikako Satsukitane and Eishirou Sugata which I’m putting them together since they’re very poignant to describe with them together. There’s an essence of sarcastic humor from Mikako because of her funny, sadistic quality to her, while Sugata has more of a serious side to him even though there have been many moments with him that are worthy of gut-busting laughs. Then there’s the tragic character Chaos, whose name is quite fitting compared to how much she has gone through in her lonely existence. I use the word tragic loosely in my opinion, by the fact that although her struggle to understand what love is is endearing for many, I couldn’t help but find it a bit redundant after the fourth mistaken communication that makes her upset. Not to say she doesn’t have her moments but out of all of the girls, she’s the weakest of the bunch.

Going back to the story, I will say that the ending was a bit anti-climatic, to say the least. With the last few chapters before it being the most serious than the rest of the dramatic ones in the past, you’d think that they would have more guts in giving us an ending that makes us question how great an ecchi story such as Otoshimono can be. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and all we got was a rushed ending that is not bad by all means but it could’ve been so much more than what many would’ve hoped for. If they had done one last plot arc that ran for at least three or four more chapters on the final chapter alone, then I would’ve had fewer problems with it.

The artwork for Otoshimono is no less than stunning from how creative the characters are in their comedic chibi forms to how immensely beautiful they are in the more normal scenes. I would argue, however, that the show did more justice with the artwork because of how lush the colors were that they added to the animation. The manga still manages to be pretty to look at thanks to Suu Minazuki’s brilliant skill with his drawing utensils. There’s never an instance where a drawing felt like it was rushed or done superficially. All of the dark lines on the edges of the character make them very pleasing to see whether to be emotional or delighted about what is on the panel.

To set up my final thoughts on this manga overall, this is one hell of a manga to experience. It’s one of those things where even if you are not a fan of the ecchi genre in general, there’s still plenty of other things to experience that will please fans of any different genres such as action, science fiction, and romance; all packed in, in one glorious set of volumes. It’s hard to pack in melodramatic moments and hilarious comedic scenes together in one story in any medium and prove to be successful, but Sora no Otoshimono manages to be one of the few to succeed in almost every measure. There are a tremendous amount of moments that will make you laugh, cry, or both but most importantly, those moments will be unforgettable, and you’ll have this manga to thank for those great memories.

Grade: A

In the spirit of the upcoming anime adaption of this series, being the movie Sora no Otoshimono Final: Eternal My Master, I decided to give the manga a shot completely reading through it in 2-3 days. Now, when looking at my measly 6 of a score you might be wondering: "The average score for this manga is above an 8.40 and about all the other reviews are giving it 9s and 10s. So, what's the deal with this asshole?" Well, I admit to being a bit of an asshole, but my score isn't without reason. Although Sora no Otoshimono has a pretty interesting story premise and isn't your average "ecchi"/harem/romance shounen manga, it also has some major flaws.

(Note: This review is on the long side and I understand everyone's not into reading what is essentially an analytic paper on some series that they're wondering whether or not to pick up. Skip to the very end if that's the case.)

First, I would like to address those genres that this manga has typically been placed in, being: "ecchi", harem, and romance. Depending on how you swing with manga/anime, those three words could be all you need to see before diving in. But I know there's a few of you out there who, like me, don't really care much for "ecchi" or harem manga; and, while we don't mind romance in our stories, we don't want them to be too poignant to the point of slapping us in our faces and reminding us why we all hate Valentine's Day. Well, the good news is that this manga doesn't really fit into any of those categories. In the case of being "ecchi", the manga itself is not perverted. Just the protagonist. What I mean by this is that there are hardly any angles or special shots (i.e. the convenient wind) that are showing us every other page that high school girls do indeed wear panties underneath their skirts (except for that one tomboy that wears the shorts). What we get, instead, is Sakurai Tomoki.

Our great and mighty protagonist, Sakurai Tomoki, with the ability to change bits of reality to how he wishes thanks to the god-like power of the strange mechanical cards provided by his angeloid servant, Ikaros, is perhaps the most perverted character I have ever had the pleasure, and sometimes displeasure, of witnessing. Sora no Otoshimono's plotline could essentially be divided into two parts: One that's serious concerning the mysterious angeloids and the purpose of Tomoki's strange reoccurring dream; and one that's mainly Tomoki wanting to do everything perverted. When I say everything perverted I pretty much mean it. From sniffing worn panties to groping breasts to sneaking into the woman's public bath, restroom, and locker-rooms, he doesn't really have any boundaries, and it seems like he's fully naked half the time. But as a result of this, we get a convoluted jumble that is the plotline, and, well, not much romance.

To elaborate a bit more on the plot in conjunction with the poorly written synopsis provided by MAL or whomever, 14 year-old Sakurai Tomoki has been having the same basic dream where he finds himself in a grassy meadow upon which a female angel descends to speak to him. This dream has been repeating for the last 10 years, and Tomoki always seems to wake up from it crying. Worrying for him, his classmate and childhood friend, Mitsuki Sohara, takes Tomoki to see upper-classman Sugata Eishirou, an eccentric genius, who tells him that his dream is due to the "new continent." Sugata further tells them both that this "new continent" will be passing over their town and lays out a place and time for the three of them to meet and witness the event; however, due to the other two being preoccupied, the skeptical Tomoki ends up attending alone. As Tomoki is about to head home a beam of light hits the designation with a winged female laying in a crater unconscious. Unintentionally forming a pact together, the winged female reveals to Tomoki that she is the "entertainment-purpose angeloid: Type Alpha, Ikaros."

My apologies for the long elaboration that is basically a summary of the first chapter, but this is pretty much the premise of the story. What we get from this premise is three fundamental questions that lay out the rest of the plotline and those are: What is the exact purpose of Tomoki's dream? What is this "new continent"? Who is the mysterious girl, Ikaros, that fell from the sky? Although they provide some good layers of mystery to the story we have to remember that there is another side to this being the great form of perversion that is our protagonist. As far as how the two sides balance out, well . . . they don't. There's about a 2:1 ratio of Tomoki getting his freak on to the actual serious plotline of the manga. In other words, 1/3 of the manga is actually based on the original premise while the other 2/3 is pretty much bullshit. Don't get me wrong I like a little bullshit every once and a while in my anime and manga, especially after some serious arcs. The problem with Sora no Otoshimono, however, is that we may get one chapter of actual plot development while the next three chapters could be a random assortment of things; and, normally, it'd be fine to have a story that's for the most part slice-of-life, but not when there's an already perfectly good premise that needs to be explained, expanded, and expounded. I honestly can't see what the mangaka had in mind when he created this manga nor where he was going. In addition, there's a strange lack of time management. While I'm pretty sure that 2-3 years pass within the manga in order to keep up with the fact that it' monthly serialized, Tomoki is still 14 at the end and beginning of it. A little like Ash Ketchum.

Along with this lack of time management is the lack of much needed character development, and this is a real shame considering there are two characters that are just ripe for growth -- Ikaros and Tomoki. This is partly due to the inert nature of the story as it does not allow much development in order to continue the same basic gags that persist throughout the entire manga. As stated before, I don't know what the mangaka wanted for this manga, and, quite honestly, what this manga wanted to be. It could have either been an interesting sci-fi mystery or a "ecchi"/harem/romance whatever, but not both. I would have preferred some elements of the latter while keeping true to the former, but as the manga progresses it loses track of what it really stood for and this really impedes any character development. In addition, there are the pseudo-harem and romantic elements that don't really do anything for this manga or its plot. For anyone that likes good plot development and romance, you'll know that harems are your worst enemy as they hardly EVER get resolved. In the case of Sora no Otoshmono, the female characters spend a great deal of time confirming and re-confirming their feelings for the protagonist, but even after they do, none of them really do anything about them whether it be confessing and just simply acting on them. Since Tomoki is ignorant of all the HAWT action that he could be getting, this manga is excluded from any good romantic, or even harem, potential.

In regards to the art style, there is very little I have to say. It is a little rough in the beginning chapters, but the author does find his groove and improves it quite exponentially by the last chapter, which naturally makes sense considering this was a monthly serialized manga that ran for about 7 years. The battle scenes are acutely drawn, and he conveys the humor/non-seriousness of some scenes quite nicely by occasionally drawing the characters in a chibi-like form. The problem here is that Tomoki eventually gets drawn in this form almost exclusively which could get annoying at times especially when the reader would like to take him seriously.

As a summary of everything and for those who skipped to here, Sora no Otoshimoro encompasses several things. A good plot premise, a decent amount of humor, a "unique" protagonist, and a binary story that has both serious and pointless elements. I do not quite understand my impressions on this manga nor can I reflect it in a numerical digit. The biggest problem for me was trying to take this manga too seriously as I read it. When reading this for the first time, my advice to the reader is to look more for the pointless nature in Sora no Otoshimoro rather than expecting the serious part because there's quite a lot more pointlessness than seriousness.

I've read a considerable amount of ecchi manga with black haired protagonists trying to cope with his uncontrollable harem life. The twist is that this one out of many is seemingly the only black haired protagonist to truly embrace his dark perverted side.

This manga sticks out like Tomoki's wine bottle (reference), and is possibly one of the best ecchi/comedy/harems you will ever find and read in your entire life.

Every chapter brings on a creative new way to make you laugh, this manga does things with panties that you would never imagine in your life time. You won't believe some of the stuff you see, cause I guarantee you would never find it in manga anywhere else.

This is a must read.