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You know, it’s funny. I’ve been watching anime for a few years now, but if anyone ever asked me what my favourite series was, I don’t think I would have been able to give a straight answer. See, there’s plenty of series that I’ve enjoyed. Off the top of my head, a few of the favourites would be shows like Cowboy Bebop, Last Exile, Azumanga Daioh and Chrno Crusade. Unfortunately some of these have been ruined by a bunch of phenominal idiots from Texas, but I thoroughly enjoyed the subbed versions nonetheless.

Spring 2007 was an interesting season for anime. In amongst shows like Lucky Star, Gurren Lagann and Claymore, there’s one I almost missed. That is, of course, sola.

This quite literally started off as one of the slowest shows I’ve ever seen, and wasn’t really that interesting in the first three or four episodes, so I initially didn’t watch much of it. The character designs are a little on the generic side too. Some characters even look like they got their face stuck in a car door and squeezed out while they were babies.

But I stuck with it. Apart from having some very nice opening/ending themes, the art is also nothing short of fantastic. And it was released by some fansub groups in 720p H264 MKV’s to boot. It is quite simply the most beautiful series to look at that I’ve seen. The character designs may be a little lacking, but I’ll be damned if Nomad didn’t make up for it — and then some — with the rest of the animation and art.

So I kept watching. And to my complete surprise, the plot takes some big twists a few episodes in… and this is where it went from being an incredibly slow series to one of the best I’ve ever seen. Just about every episode in the second half of the series gave some sort of surprise that kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next episode to come out. I’ll hold the spoilers here, but this anime turned into something I just haven’t seen before.

And here’s another thing. Drama/romance series always seem to have a habit of getting under my skin for the same reason every time. You’ll get about 5 or 6 episodes in, and then you get hit with the ecchi episodes. You know, they all go to the beach, and then you get subjected to half an hour of fan service and awkward situations for the protagonist. Kono Minikuku no Utsukushii Sekai, Shuffle and Yumeria are a few examples I can think of that abuse this type of “filler” episode pretty badly, just to make up the required 26 episodes. Or in the case of some series, I just described the plot synopsis of every single episode. However, sola did it differently. The TV series didn’t stray from the story, so they could fit the same amount of plot into 14 episodes. It was then left up to the OVAs to fill in the fan service and lulz categories.

Despite the odd character designs and slow start, I can easily say I now have a favourite series. It’s probably the only one that I could honestly give a 10 out of 10 to. And if you haven’t seen sola yet: do yourself a favour. It’s not licenced yet, so go grab the 720p MKVs. It’s worth it.