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Heaven’s Lost Property – Review

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Heaven's Lost Property - Review 1Title: Heaven’s Lost Property
Alternate Title: Sora no Otoshimono
Encompasses: Season One
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia/New Zealand), Funimation (North America)
Based on: The Manga Series written and illustrated by Suu Minazuki
Genre: Drama, Fanservice, Fantasy, Harem, Romantic Comedy
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1080p High Definition (16:9) SD Remaster
Runtime: 350 Minutes
Classification: MA15+ for Strong Sexual References
Cost: $59.95 for either DVD or Blu-ray
Special Thanks: Madman Entertainment for kindly providing me with a copy of this title for review

Tomoki’s life was normal until a wish-granting angelic android named Ikaros fell from the sky and started calling him master! Of course, thanks to his raging teenage hormones, most of Tomoki’s wishes have something to do with panties. And that makes things pretty complicated, because one simple wish can lead to a rampaging robot made out of frilly undergarments or turn bloomers into bombs capable of blowing up entire neighborhoods! 

If Tomoki doesn’t learn to control his impulses around Ikaros and be more careful with his wishes, the chaos will only get crazier. Luckily, even with such a dirty mind, Tomoki’s heart is in the right place. His hands, however, are a completely different story.


Heaven's Lost Property - Review 2

Welcome to a fanservice inspired series following your everyday run-of-the-mill pervert who almost always has boobs and panties on his mind or to keep it simple… a shameless pervert who is often on the receiving end of a girls boot or fist. Harem animes have always been a hit or a miss to me, often using a number of “fanservice plot devices” which most of the times end up as cliches and otherwise cramming in twelve or however many episodes worth of fan-service with nothing really to set it apart. A number of these series could be categorized as having some magical element to them – which may or may not result in supernatural stripping, well placed panty shots or else having every female character in the series running after said male protagonist in a magically induced trace. The split between like and dislike for me is relatively balanced, but for the most part none of these are really all that bad (<D) – but few are really good (>B). Last month Madman Entertainment released the English dubbed version of Sora no Otoshimono (Aka. Heaven’s Lost Property) to the Australian / New Zealand market and I got my chance to see how it shaped up in comparison. Surprisingly this could be the few really good solid fan-service animes as it doesn’t beat around the bush but goes in proudly exclaiming “LONG LIVE PANTIES AND BOOBIES!”.

The main storyline follows a young High School student by the name of Tomoki, a pervert who is completely open about this fact however has been getting weird dreams which eventually leads him to find a mysterious Angeloid named Ikaros who has the ability to make his (or at her whim) hers or anyone elses desire come true through the use of magical cards. Suffering from “amnesia”, she has no idea who she is however becomes a “servant” of Tomoki, bringing with it pleasure and pain when it comes to his perverted mind. Other than that, you have the “childhood friend” Sohara Mitsuki who has a crush on Tomoki, Eishiro Sugata, the leader of the New World Discovery Club which becomes the central club for the main characters and Mikako Satsukitane, a long-time friend of Sugata, Student Council president and daughter of the regions Yakuza family. Later on in the storyline we are introduced to Nymph, another Angeloid whose backstory acts as the main overarching plot for the second half of the series.

Heaven's Lost Property - Review 3

Perhaps because they have decided to go all-out on the perverseness of Tomoki, the episodic nature of the series (With main plot occasional intermingled in-between them) is genuinely entertaining and delivers simple ideas with and without the fan-service element included in them. For example, some of the episodes focus on desires granted by Ikaros such as Tomoki accidently setting all of Sohara’s panties to turn into rockets upon wearing them to more simplistic plots with a unique twist on them such as the two Angeloids deciding to go to school – much to the displeasure of Tomoki.  Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the overarching main storyline. While elements of Ikaro’s past are unveiled as the series continues, nothing much about her is explained but instead deviates into a plot surrounding Nymph and her reason for literally randomly appearing one day in Tomoki’s apartment.

Either way, I personally enjoyed much of what this series had to offer. Sure it might not offer much to contribute to the genre and some episodes may still be as generic as the last time you saw them in an anime, but a fair few of the plotlines are unique or entertainingly done, it proved interesting to watch Ikaros grow from a silent and submissive girl to a more vocal, free-speaking member of the group with personality AND perhaps most interesting to me, not the presence of the Angeloids and Tomoki, but the other two members of the New World Discovery Club who provided some witty and enjoyable dialogue.

Heaven's Lost Property - Review 4

For the record, this review has been conducted on the Blu-ray release of this series, therefore there may be slight differences in clarity between this and the DVD versions, however while it was nothing special I felt the design quality was pretty good. The series uses a colour pallete well suited to the moods presented (Leaning more towards the bright and colourful) and is detailed to a suitable extent. Perhaps most interesting about the series is the design of Tomoki, in that while characters do alternate between a chibified persona and to-scale in design, Tomoki spends more of his time as a chibi character (To represent a less serious side of his personality) which was an interesting choice and contributed well to the storyline. Particularily with the Angeloids, the other main characters are rather well detailed with emotions which accurately put across their personalities (or in the case of Ikaros, her changing personality). While this is primarily a fanservice series, which as you would expect contains some degree of nudity but also some action elements in the later half of the series Unfortunately while the animation shines in other areas, the action falls short of what I would have been hoping for and alongside a few other minor issues kept the design from being great instead of just good.

In terms of the music placed throughout the episodes of Heaven’s Lost Property, it was solid however failed to stand out for most of the series. However, I actually consider the music and voice acting elements of the series to be one of my personal highlights. The series comes equipped with a solid opening sequence, “Ring My Bell by Blue Drops” which comes with upbeat animation and musical backing – but even better are the ending sequence…..s. A total of 13 endings are included over the series, more or less one per episode. While I have frequently critiqued ending sequences in numerous series as being dull and bland, most of these 13 actually pass my criteria for what would make a great ending – being fully animated, relative to the series (or individual episodes) and have fun premises from a very moving panties flying around the world scene (Misaki Meguri) to tributes to Tomoki’s burned porn magazines (Senshi no Kyusoku) and even something as simple as animated “bloopers” (Bokura no Daiarii).

Heaven's Lost Property - Review 5

The series also has a strong English dub cast, perhaps one of the better ones I have seen from Funimation Entertainment titles over the last couple of months at least.Brittney Karbowski as Ikaros was the star of the series, matching the melancholic personality of her role, and then extending upon it when the plot required it (Such as in the obligatory Culture Festival episode where she takes to the stage and sings). Greg Ayres who voices Tomoki also brings the same appeal to his role as he did with other characters such as Sunohara in Clannad and Jun Kitagawa in Kanon, a laid back and enjoyable voice that suited the character well. Eric Vale, Jamie Marchi, Kara Edwards and Trina Nishimura who voiced Sugata, Mikako, Nymph and Sohara respectively also provided voice roles appropriate to their characters, none of which I found tiring by the end.

The release is spread over two discs, with the bonus content included only on the second disc. Unfortunately there is nothing such as interviews or commentary which I would have personally enjoyed listening to, but what we are provided with instead are a clean opening sequence and all 13 ending sequences as clean versions. Other than that, we are provided with trailers for Funimation series (Most of which are available from Madman) including Dance in the Vampire Bund, Rosario + Vampire, Ikki Tousen, My Bride is a Mermaid, Fairy Tail, Phantom, Sengoku Basara and the Funimation.com website. For the DVD release, there will most probably be just Madman Entertainment trailers.

Heaven's Lost Property - Review 6

I went into this series not expecting all that much, essentially with the expectation we would be seeing 14 episodes of just fanservice. Sure we had the fanservice and plenty of jokes to go with it, but it was much better than what I was expecting. Filled with comedy, drama and exploding/flying panties, it was a good mix of the different genres that made for interesting watching…. but I thought the only thing that might have made the series better would have been to focus more on Ikaros who seemed to be outshone by Nymph and Tomoki in the later episodes. I assume some of my questions would be answered in the upcoming season two release “Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte”, which is surprisingly a DVD only release.

Final Score
Storyline / Character Development: B
Design: B+
Music/Voice Acting: A-
Personal Preference: B
Extra Content: B-
Overall Score: B

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.
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