It may be just me but the episodes seem to have a slightly progressive increase in tone and subject weight. I guess this is really the first episode where we get a real heavy dose of the idea of being a "soldier". The previous episodes of course suggested that the series isn't making light of the fact that a soldier is just that: a soldier, and it is a soldier's duty to fight and kill should the need arise. From the way Kanata speaks it really sets the main cast apart from other teenager war shows where teenagers are plopped into the middle of a war zone completely clueless and aghast; in contrast we can believe that they do understand to some degree just how big a burden they must carry should the time call for it. Of course they aren't grizzly, battle-hardened veterans but they aren't exactly a bunch of schoolchildren with guns either. They've gone through the paces of training and do know exactly how real the need to fight is can be, or perhaps "will be?"
I like calm and passive retrospection. I would actually prefer a story that hints and drops suggestions of days gone by rather than giving us an outright scene of some old fart discussing the "ye days of old" likeit was yesterday. We get ideas in this episode about the apparent status of the ocean and their technology levels given the way people talk about it, and again I happen to agree with Carl's saying that we can reproduce anything that humans hands have made. This semi-post-apocalyptic future isn't as screwed up as initial impressions would have suggested, but even then we know things aren't as peachy as it looks. This ability to reconcile an altered and slightly bleak future with people simply living out their lives as best they can is something few storytellers are able to achieve, and so far it seems SoraNoWoto is capable of that.
Like I mentioned in about the previous episode, this episode packs more character development than the typical moe-moe show I'm usually accustomed to, which again is a step in a different direction for this show. I mean sure yes Kanata's sudden ability to play a near-perfect tune felt a bit forced, but she learned exactly why she wasn't able to play it properly in the first place. She thought and realized it and put it to practice. I liked the bonding session between Kanata and Noel, who is clearly stepping out of the quiet girl stereotype as in this episode alone she speaks more words than Yuki Nagato does in two. At this pace once we get halfway I'll practically be unable to comprehend how people can still label this a moe-moe show. Honestly.
And yes, I can forgive most of anything with fantastic scenery porn.
