Check-in Station Ecchi Special pt2: Yosuga no Sora eps 1-7 (Harems can be a painful, time-traveling bitch.)

In part 1 of my Ecchi special, I talked about the very pretty but bland and meandering Samurai Girls.  In this installment, I’m going to briefly cover the much more risque, aggressive and eclectic Yosuga no Sora.  If Samurai Girls plays the ecchi elements safe, then Yosuga no Sora takes those elements with it, gets naked with it, and then they both go bungie jumping off a bridge.  And all the time the show gives you the vibe that it wants to be romantic and taken seriously.  I have to say, if Yosuga no Sora was a woman, she’d be a crazy one.

I, like many shows this season, initially planned on skipping this series, and actually was ignoring it until I got some good word on it from a member of my Tweetfam (a group of people I follow and that follow me back on Twitter).  The first episode was a hint of things to come, but not a strong enough hint.  It just appeared like a possible incest anime, full of slightly ecchi elements and a Clannad atmosphere.  It was already hard to pin down exactly what type of series it was going to be.  But I continued on, a bit confused but intrigued enough to continue.

I ended up falling in love with what turned out to be the first arc that focused on a relationship between our main character and harem lead, Haruka Kasugano and a relationship with one of several girls that wished to pursue a relationship with him.  It turned to be a very romantic and engrossing relationship, topped off with hot sex.  I didn’t know that the show was going to make this a formula and throw me for a loop.

Turns out that the story for Yosuga no Sora resets after each arc, allowing Haruka to pursue a separate love interest in a different, but similar timeline.  This was the kind of thing I was trying to avoid by not watching Amagami SS.  I should’ve known that this would happen when I read that it was based on an eroge dating sim.  It turns out that Haruka has followed the same pattern from one arc to the next; endearing himself to he female and then shagging her ruthlessly, with his twin sister Sora being the possible final pursuit.

I’ve learned to accept this pattern and enjoy this show, but it’s hard to get used to something that asks you to endear yourself to one relationship when you know it’s going to dropped for a new direction in a few episodes.  The relatively graphic sex scenes also can be a bit jarring, if not off-putting.  Besides those scenes the show is very classy and smooth with its story delivery, there are of course exceptions.

Though I am wining a bit about what the show is as opposed to what I would like or expected it to be, I don’t hate the show or find it uninteresting at all.  The show knows how to deal with romance, sexuality and to some extent drama.  It has a lot of promise and some memorable moments already.  It’s just that it tells its story in a very awkward way.  The delivery at times makes you feel like you’re watching a well-crafted hentai, which it comes very close to being.  I’ll be sticking with this anime for the promise it has shown and that I believe it has yet to deliver.   It has to the potential to be one of the better ecchi series I’ve seen, or one of the most effed up anime I’ve watched period.