The 1121st platoon consists of five members. The commanding officer is Second Lieutenant Filicia Heidemann, a tank commander. Rio is a Sergeant and in charge of communications. Corporal Noel Kannagi is the pilot and mechanic, and a truly brilliant mechanic at that. Private Kureha Suminoya is the gunner and Kureha is a bit of a brat. She's even younger than Kanata and isn't happy about a new team member. Kanata is a Private as well and is in communications. Their job is to defend the national border of Seize and they're on the edge of No Man's Land. They have one tank (that is missing parts and doesn't work) and some guns to do this job. Luckily, things have been quiet for a while so at least in the beginning, their life is more about learning to be a team and practicing drills.
To start with, Kanata isn't a very good bugler. Rio has her play with just the mouthpiece for a while. Eventually though, Kanata learns a lot from talking to townspeople and truly listening to what they have to say. Her personality is such that she's always going to try and smile and make people happy. When Noel sees a ghost, Kureha and Kanata are sent to investigate it. Kureha swears there's no such thing as ghosts, while Kanata says that ghosts are real, but that in her home village they had festivals to thank the ghosts for protecting them so they must be good. They have to investigate the old barracks, which looks like it used to be a school before the war. Apparently things are very different now. Before the war, the town and the lives of people seem much more like what we're used to today. Now, there are handfuls of people left and remnants of how things used to be. Now, children join the army to learn to play music. It turns out the ghost is really an owl that they bring back for a new company mascot who they call Shuko. It's quite fitting for them to have an owl since an owl is the symbol of their platoon. Kanata always seems to look on the happy side of everything, managing to make Kureha and even Noel smile sometimes.
When Kanata gets sick with just Rio there, Rio doesn't know what to do. It's the first time that we see her not in control of a situation. Rio has to go get Yumina from the village to help her since the troop is all out of medical supplies even. Yumina works for the church and takes care of the war orphans that the church has taken in. As worried as Rio is though, when Kanata finally comes to, she can't resist teasing her. When Kanata is all better, the group is off on a field trip.
Their "field trip" is highly amusing. The three youngest have to carry packs so heavy they can barely stand and march through the forest to check on some old monitoring devices to see if they still work. They find the first one easily enough and then figure out that the second is on top of a mountain. Things really start to get bad, but they'll eventually get there and we get to find out that everything in No Man's Land and beyond looks like it was devastated by nuclear war. It is a desolate land full of ruins and deserts. This trip really shows the new recruits what they are trying to protect the town from becoming.
The rest of the squad has a secret. They're running a winery out of the basement to keep the cash coming in to try and get things fixed up. When Kanata finally gets curious about what's behind the door and Yumina is there and wants to know as well, Rio and Filicia divide the 6 of them up in a mock battle and tell Kanata that if they win, they'll tell them what is behind the door. It's a highly humorous episode and it makes me wonder what's really going on between Rio and Filicia! After the "battle," they all get totally drunk together and the typical drunken madness ensues. Ok, maybe not totally typical since apparently they all like to take baths together drunk!
Life isn't all fun and games though, especially when the war starts to pick back up and heads towards the town. Filicia apparently was in a squad when the war was still active and has bad memories that come back to haunt her at times. Noel was there as well and is very haunted over it. Life is going to change for sure when the war catches up to them. Let's just hope that these gals can help to bring an end to war!
The DVD set also has several bonuses. There is a beautiful book full of series artwork that I enjoyed. There are also an alternate episode, character bios, and more to entertain. Now I'm not going to lie to you, it took me several episodes to get into Sound of the Sky. Actually, I was just starting to like it when the series ended. I really do wish there was more to it, but at least episode 13 made it feel like you got a complete conclusion to the series. It is an absolutely beautifully drawn anime. The artwork and characters are amazing. It was just lacking in action and spent too much time setting up the characters and world for me to get into it from the very beginning. But if you have the time and patience, it is not a waste of time. In the end, I really wished there had been more of it to come.
