Moe Era: Sora no woto, the horizon of dreams

A very nice OAV.

The overal quality is fine, nothing spectacular, but in line with the series. Also the feeling is the same. Sora no woto is a slice of life series with an uncommong setting. It follows the life of five gilrs serving as garrison in a fortress in some post apocalyptic future. The region where they live is a rural area with beautiful nature and the only sign of the slow death engulfing most of the rest of the world is the big desert north of town. Their fortress is far from the frontlines and so the protagonists can live peacefully.

This OAV is set rougly one year after the end of the series. The theme of the episode is "the dreams". Kanata is asked what her dream is and during the episode she gets to know those of the other characters.

Probably the most notable thing is that it expands the background of the series revealing that is indeed set in a future of our world (and not in some imaginary world). When Rio receives a map of the known world from the Roman Emperor the land is shown to be mostly covered in deserts and unaccessible zones. She points to Japan saying that is Helvetia and that most of the big contient "once called Eurasia" is covered in desert. Rio tells Kanata of her visit to Rome where she saw first hand the advancing desert which would soon engulf the city. She also reveals her dream of rebuilding flying machines to find new inhabitable lands.

As for the other girls dreams, the one of Felicia is not openly revealed, but in the end she tells to Mio that she will always be there so that she has a place to return to. At the end of the episode, when Kanata is chosen to be the maiden of fire at the festival, Kureha and Noel write emas and show them to Kanata. Kureha wants to become a good military medic and Kanata is happy to hear that and prases Kureha. Then Noel approaches the two while wearing her ema as a necklace. On it the phrase written is: "Ma si jolie femme", translated to "kawaii oyomesan" that is "a pretty bride"! And wearing that ema with such a serius face! The girls stare at her for some time until her eyes start to be filled with tears. At that point Kanata and Kureha start to support her, it was really increadibly cute!

Kanata revelas she made up her mind and decided her dream is to follow Rio and join in her dream. Rio accepts and later on we get from her thoughts that it was the same for her. When she was younger her dream was her sister, but now that she has grown she can follow her own dream. She will then support Kanata until she has grown enough to follow her own dreams.

The episode is very nice and manages to keep the spirit of tranquility of the series. There are no big action moments, the pace is slow and relaxed, but it is highly enjoyable.

I liked the series and found this OAV a very nice addition. It manages to add some background information on the world (which in the series was very scarce) and shows that the girls are still enjoing their time.