Yosuga no Sora Anime Review

Yosuga no Sora follows the story of orphaned twins, Haru and Sora. After the tragic loss of their parents, the twins move back to their hometown and live together in their grandfather’s old house. Throughout the series, Haru discovers love in various places in the village and even within his own home.

Initially, we became interested in this show after reading a heated review on THEM where the show was given one star and criticized for being poorly written and disjointed. After watching the first episode, we agreed with the review, but after a few more episodes, we found ourselves confused.

The show is based on a visual novel, and each arc is meant to be a contained story, with different routes explored. However, this structure is not immediately clear, and without a guide, it can be challenging to understand when a new foundation or arc starts.

The show’s pacing is fast, and character development can feel rushed, with relationships developing quickly. Additionally, the odd structure is disappointing because it means that in canon, none of the development that happened in the other arcs actually happened.

Despite its flaws, we think that the characters have enough depth to make the show worth watching. Each girl can be categorized into a typical harem cliché type, but they have enough character to make them unique and interesting.

Evaluating the Story Arcs

Kazuha – It’s sort of dull now that I look back on it, but that’s really the worst of it. Kazuha and Akira have an unusual but ultimately endearing connection. In this arc, I believe Haru is at his best in terms of a boyfriend.

Akira – Her background narrative was more intriguing than the story of her connection with Haru, and it genuinely made me care about her parentage. I really liked this one because Akira was my favorite character and she is the funniest character in the anime. While being less effectively done, the connection was more compelling than Kazuha’s storyline.

Nao – Because the genesis of this arc involves Nao raping Haru when they were both twelve, I find it very difficult to support or like it. Then they basically treat it as a rape wasn’t committed. They start dating after a pitiful “apology” for the rape, and the remainder of the arc is spent licking Sora’s annoyingly bratty ass in an effort to get her to allow Nao into their lives, which she refuses to do because she’s a bitch.

I did like Nao because she genuinely tries to respect Haru’s relationship with his sister and legitimately forge her own with Sora, even getting a little bit of a badass moment for her struggles in the end. However, the rape that’s been gnawing at the back of my mind won’t go away. 

Sora – Sora, unfortunately, falls short in many ways and comes across as a poorly developed character. We’ve seen similar traits in characters from other shows, such as Iku from BwInKwS and Heroine from Amnesia. Sora seems to be a character who doesn’t serve much purpose, and to make matters worse, she’s part of the canon arc.

We find Sora to be quite ineffective, showing little motivation or drive. She’s also quite petty, lazy, and disrespectful, especially when it comes to her brother. Her attitude towards him is quite negative, and she throws temper tantrums over even the smallest of things. Additionally, she complains a lot about being alone at school but doesn’t make any effort to befriend their classmates or show any interest in them.

Sora’s feelings towards Haru also seem problematic. It appears that she’s dependent on him and feels lust towards him, while he’s mainly interested in her because of her dependency on him. This type of relationship reminds us of Seh-Wah and Seh-Joon from Flowers of Evil, but without the intrigue. It’s interesting to note that Sora and Haru also share a similar backstory where the brother became overprotective when the sister became ill as a child. There is no real emotion, it’s sex and lust only.

I’ll grant that part of the drama surrounding Haru in this arc is handled quite well because he truly recognizes and feels the weight of such a taboo on his shoulders, in contrast to Sora, who doesn’t give a crap if it bothers Haru or not. However, this positive development is extremely fleeting.

Motoka (Omake) – Motoka, the family’s maid and a college student in her 20s, has a small, non-canon arc in the omakes that are shown after each episode. She and Haru start dating, and things rapidly get sexual. Eventually, they are married. I won’t lie; I like these animes quite a bit, especially when Akira was around. They’re cute and humorous, and they’re animated in a cute way. The sex scenes, however, seem out of place to me. Every time a sex scene appears, they naturally move to the usual art and animation style, and it kind of just takes me out of the whole thing.

Breaking Down the Technical Aspects of the Anime

Animation

When it comes to art and animation, we believe that this show has done a pretty good job. The character designs are memorable, and the backgrounds are well made. Although this isn’t the most animation-heavy show, it’s animated perfectly fine.

Music

The music is actually quite good, but it can get repetitive at times. The song that plays at nearly every slightly emotional moment got stuck in my head multiple times while I was watching the series.

Voice Acting

In terms of voice acting, the Japanese voice actors did a decent job. No one stood out as exceptional, but no one annoyed me either. However, Akira’s voice actor could be grating at times, especially when she was overly excitable. Sora’s voice actor was fittingly annoying and captured her character’s whiny and obnoxious personality perfectly.

Sentiment and Reception

Overall, I was surprised to see that Yosuga no Sora didn’t receive universally negative reviews. However, it was difficult to find level-headed reviews from people who had actually watched the anime. It was interesting to see that some of the most well-written analyses of the show came from the comments section on the website I watched it on, although most of those comments were still not great.

Many of the people who gave glowing reviews for the show seemed to be focused on defending it against those who didn’t like it because of the incest aspect. It was frustrating to see them bragging about looking beyond the incest and trying to appear more mature and refined.

Additionally, some reviews gave way too much credit to Sora and Haru’s story, with several people stating that it was their favorite. However, as I mentioned in my full review of Sora’s arc, their relationship is unhealthy and built on lust and codependency. Even if they weren’t related, I would not support their relationship.

The Bottom Line

I promise to be really serious with you right now about this issue. Even though Haru rarely takes his clothes off, which bothers me more than it should (I just don’t get it), the sex scenes are generally quite tasteful and well-animated. Because of the censorship, it feels as though Haru and Nao aren’t even in the same room during the second (or first non-rape) sex scene with Nao. I don’t understand how he got where he is and she got where she got without ever seeing them together in the same scene. No leg or arm shots, not even the tiniest. Nothing.

Yet that isn’t exactly a compelling argument for tuning in. The existence of well-written, attractively animated hentai is not in question. Get off at the next stop.