Here’s the first review of the new Winter anime season, So.Ra.No.Wo.To.

The episode starts off showing a young girl waking up in a train’s carriage from a dream she’s having. Her name is Kanata Sorami and she’s a new recruit in the army, saying she joined so she could learn how to play music. She carries a bugle around with her.

After leaving the train and a bumpy ride with one of her superior officers, she arrives at the town of Seize, where she is assigned to a platoon and given the task of navigating her way through the city to reach the Time-Keeping Fortress. After her accompanying officer leaves her on her own, she heads into town and explores, in the time she has before her report.

At the town, a festival is taking place. Kanata tries to navigate her way through the rustle and bustle of the merry townspeople. She notices a glass fish in a store window and stares at it amazed. In the window, she sees the storekeeper, Rio, whom she thinks is a doll.

After being scared off by the shopkeeper and a little more exploration, Kanata takes a break near a group of gathering people and eventually finds herself in the middle of a water fight and gets soaked.

After the fight, she is approached by Rio from before who has a go at her and takes Kanata back to her place so she can clean herself up.

While Kanata is in the bathroom, Rio talks with the old lady whom she works with at the store and is shown a bell.

Kanata comes out of the bathroom and is able to identify the tone of the bell’s ring. Kanata thanks them for allowing her to clean up and heads out to the balcony. The storekeeper follows after her and asks her if she can identify another bell’s note, but as soon as it’s given to Kanata, it’s swiped from her grasp by a passing-by owl.

Kanata is sent on her way after Rio tells her she has work to take care of. Realising the time, she hurries to get to her report-in, but hears the sounds of the bell she lost. She opts to follow the sound of the ringing bell, leading her to a ravine. As she continues her search, Kanata remembers the conversation she had with the shopkeeper about the history of Seize Town and the water festival that’s taking place to appease the water maidens that saved the town a long time ago.

Kanata finds the bell and attempts to retrieve it but ends up falling into the river below. After she makes her way back to the riverside and safe from drowning, she wallows in sadness momentarily, before remembering a conversation she had with a member of the army who explained to her the importance of believing.

With her new found hope, Kanata takes her bugle in hand and plays it. The nearby townspeople hear the bugle and think it’s the sound of the golden horn, signalling the arrival of the demon. Rio, who’s leading the festival celebration, calls for her own bugle and starts to play it in response to Kanata’s playing.

Kanata hears the sound and passes out, relieved that she was able to reach someone with her playing. She wakes up inside the Time-Keeping Fortress to the sound of the shopkeeper shouting at her. She’s taken to the outside where Kanata apologises to her for earlier on. Rio tells Kanata that she was just being hard on her but warned her not to be so reckless again.

Rio continues to show Kanata the reason why the Time-Keeping Fortress has it’s name and plays a tune on her bugle, which Kanata dubs “The Sound of The Skies”. When she finishes, she formally introduces herself to Kanata as Rio Kazumiya and tells her that she is going to be her music teacher.

She gives Kanata the chance to show her what she can do by letting her play the wake-up call. However, Kanata’s playing is terrible and disappoints Rio as well as the listening crowd.

Well, my first series that I’m watching and it was a little strange. I don’t really know what to say about it. It didn’t really seem like the first episode did much towards setting the stage for the series’ progression, in my eyes. It was more like…a background story of the city. Maybe that’s important for the series, I don’t know. But it didn’t have much substance in my opinion. But I do feel there is potential in the series. That’s for sure.

I’m going to have to give this series a few more episodes before I can give a proper judgement on it.

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