Heaven's Lost Property
Heaven's Lost Property, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Suu Minazuki. The plot revolves around Tomoki Sakurai, a boy who desires to live a peaceful life but encounters a fallen girl with wings, named Ikaros, who becomes his servant.
The manga began monthly serialization in the May 2007 issue of manga magazine Shōnen Ace and concluded with the March 2014 issue. The first tankōbon was released by Kadokawa Shoten on September 26, 2007, with a total of 20 volumes released. An anime adaptation produced by AIC aired in Japan in 2009, followed with a second season, a feature film, and two video games. A second film was released in Japan on April 26, 2014. The anime is licensed in North America by Funimation.
Plot
Tomoki Sakurai is a perverted teenage boy whose motto is "Peace and quiet are the best", and often has dreams of meeting an angel. He finds it difficult to live in comfort when he has to put up with Sohara Mitsuki, his next-door neighbor with a killer karate chop; Eishiro Sugata, an eccentric pseudo-scientist bent on discovering the "New World"; and Mikako Satsukitane, their school's sadistic student council president. One night, while he was witnessing a strange anomaly in the sky, a UMA crash-landed nearby. Tomoki discovers that what fell from the sky is a winged female humanoid named Ikaros from an unknown world of Synapse, who soon declares herself to be Tomoki's servant. From then on, more creatures known as "Angeloids" arrive; with this, he loses his peace and quiet, but at the same time finds pleasant things the Angeloids bring him, and fight the forces that fall upon Earth.Characters
Main
Synapse
Synapse is a land located in the skies that is home to the Angels and the Angeloids. It was first introduced in the series as a black hole above Sorami. Nymph has a device called the Dive Game that creates a portal between Sorami and Synapse via Tomoki's dreams. In the Synapse, there is a large dome that contains numerous Angels in sleeping pods, which connects them to their real-world avatars. If the avatar in the real world is killed, the people associated with them will have their memories erased, such as the case with [|Hiyori]. Also in the Synapse is a large obelisk called the Rule which grants people wishes and creates the cards that the Angeloids use.;Ikaros Melan
Humans
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Production
In 2006, Suu Minazuki's previous manga Judas had ceased publication in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace magazine with a total of five volumes. Minazuki had also wrapped up his fantasy harem comedy series Watashi no Messiah-sama in 2007, for which he started a sequel Watashi no Kyūseishu-sama ~lacrima~ which ran for 35 chapters in Monthly GFantasy in 2007–2008. These works were set in fantasy worlds with some references to Biblical characters and settings; Minazuki briefly alludes to the Tower of Babel in the history of the Angeloids. Minazuki's Angeloid characters and weapons in Sora no Otoshimono are primarily named after characters in Greek mythology, including their classifications sequentially pulled from the Greek alphabet.In 2008, Minazuki started a seinen water adventure series called Seven Ocean, but only six chapters were published. As the publication of Sora no Otoshimono was geared for a wider shōnen audience, Minazuki made some adjustments such as posting warnings to his readers to skip the chapter when it contains obvious nudity themes, and placing censor boxes and ovals over exposed body parts.
Yoshihiro Watanabe, who worked on Brighter than the Dawning Blue and Bamboo Blade handled the Character Design and served as the Chief Animation Director for the first anime series. Hisashi Saito, who also directed Bamboo Blade, handled the Direction for the anime series as well as the OVA and the feature film.
Media
Manga
Sora no Otoshimono began monthly serialization in the May 2007 issue of Shōnen Ace sold on March 26, 2007 and concluded with the March 2014 issue sold on January 26, 2014. The first tankōbon was released by Kadokawa Shoten on September 26, 2007, with a total of 20 tankōbon released in Japan. Chapter titles are often suffixed with two exclamation points.In addition, a four-panel comic, titled Sora no Otoshimono Pico, illustrated by ms, was developed and published in the inaugural issue of Kadokawa Shoten's 4-Koma Nano Ace magazine, and continued in Shōnen Ace until its conclusion on March 26, 2011. It focuses on the lives of Astraea, Nymph, and Ikaros.
Anime
An anime adaptation produced by AIC and directed by Hisashi Saitō aired in Japan between October 4, 2009 and December 27, 2009 on TV Saitama and Chiba TV, with subsequent broadcasts on KBS, tvk, Sun Television, TVQ, Tokyo MX and TV Aichi, with English-subtitled simulcasts provided on the Crunchyroll. Seven DVD compilation volumes were released between December 25, 2009 and June 25, 2010 by Kadokawa Pictures, with limited edition volumes also sold. A Blu-ray box set was released on June 24, 2011. An OVA episode entitled "Project Pink" was bundled with the limited edition release of volume 9 of the manga on DVD on September 9, 2010.A second season, Sora no Otoshimono: Forte, was announced on reprinted copies of the manga, and aired 12 episodes between October 1 to December 17, 2010 with simulcasts provided by Crunchyroll, as with the first season. Six DVD volumes were released by Kadokawa Pictures between December 24, 2010 and May 27, 2011.
The opening theme for the first season is "Ring My Bell", and for the second season, it is "Heart no Kakuritsu"; both are performed by Blue Drops and feature singers Hitomi Yoshida and Ikaros. Both seasons also use different ending themes for each episode.
Both seasons of the anime are licensed in North America by Funimation Entertainment, which released them under the respective titles of Heaven's Lost Property and Heaven's Lost Property: Forte. The first season was released on December 20, 2011 on DVD and Blu-ray. However, due to concerns from the Japanese licensing company regarding Blu-ray sales, the second season was released only as a 2-disc DVD set in North America on March 20, 2012. The second season was released on Blu-ray on June 25, 2013.
Films
A film adaptation called Sora no Otoshimono the Movie: The Angeloid of Clockwork was announced by Kadokawa Shoten in November 2010. The film focuses on the Hiyori arc of the manga. A 30-second teaser trailer was shown in the post-end credits of the final episode of Forte. The film premiered in Japanese theaters on June 25, 2011. Funimation Entertainment licensed the film under the title of Heaven's Lost Property the Movie: The Angeloid of Clockwork, and released it on February 26, 2013. A second film called Sora no Otoshimono Final: Eternal My Master was released on April 26, 2014.Other media
A light novel adaptation of Sora no Otoshimono written by Rin Kazaki and illustrated by Minazuki was released by Kadokawa Shoten on February 1, 2010 under its Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko imprint. A sequel to the light novel called Sora no Otoshimono f, written by Rin Kanzaki and illustrated by Minazuki and Ayun Tachibana, was released on October 1, 2010.A video game developed by Kadokawa Shoten called Sora no Otoshimono: Heart-Throbbing Summer Vacation was released for the PlayStation Portable on March 25, 2010, featuring character interactions and mini-game puzzles. Another game developed by Kadokawa Shoten called was released for the Nintendo DS on January 27, 2011, with gameplay of a visual novel plus some mildly sexually suggestive mini-games.
Several types of merchandise have been produced based primarily on the female characters of Sora no Otoshimono; they include: figurines, T-shirts, keychains, and body pillows. "Oppai" Mouse pads were also produced; the one of Ikaros became the subject of a bonus chapter.
Reception
Tim Jones of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews stated that the anime show "Dangles between the line of guilty pleasure and stupid, but manages to be an entertaining series all the same." and is actually funny in comparison to DearS, with "decent fanservice, amusing characters, and doesn't revolve entirely around subservient alien girls", however, he is critical of the tacked on fanservice, and dislikes Mikako's terrible character, "basically a two-faced bitch" whose smirks imply a "mean-spirited, unfunny joke coming out of her mouth." Chris Beveridge of Mania.com wrote that the second anime series "provides the kind of humor that's good to have once and certainly not what I want out of a lot of series, but the staff here has hit just about everything right." Theron Martin of Anime News Network wrote that the second series was sporadically enjoyable, with much of the attempts at humor and fanservice to be abysmally poor, although he enjoyed the English dub's voice work. Dennis Amith of J!-ENT considered the series "Intriguingly perverse, reminiscent of Urusei Yatsura and Chobits" and appealing to harem and fan service anime fans, but "enjoyed with every episode, the voice talent singing songs via anime theme songs from the ’70s, ’80′s and modern-style themes".Following the anime episode ending that involved flying panties, Rocket Girls creator Hōsuke Nojiri created a rubber band powered ornithopter in the shape of the panties, and posted the video on Nico Nico Douga where it soon became popular. NKH and a local school then hosted a Sora Fes event on March 6, 2010, where participants built and flew model airplanes in the likeness of the flying panties. Nojiri, along with OpenSky's media artist Kazuhiko Hachiya, director Hisashi Saito, and TBS announcer Jun Suzuki also attended the event.
With the broadcast of the Sora No Otoshimono Forte anime season, the January 2011 issue of Newtype featured Ikaros as the most popular female character, with Nymph at #7 and Astraea at #9. Tomoki Sakurai was also listed as #5 for most popular male character in that month. Streaming broadcaster Crunchyroll reported that Sora No Otoshimono Forte ranked #3 in popularity of their top 10 anime broadcasts in the Fall of 2010.
Works cited
;Sora no Otoshimono manga volumes by Suu Minazuki. Original Japanese version published by Kadokawa Shoten.Japanese notes and terminology