Preview

Asaba gets into school grounds without permission on the last summer vacation day to use the pool. There, he meets a girl that just had the same idea, except she does not know how to swim. After rescuing her after she accidentally falls into the pool, the police arrive but for his surprise, only take away him. On the next day, Asaba finds out she is Iriya, and that she just entered school at his same class. However, Iriya is full of mysteries, as well the news on TV about weird events around the world.

Pacing

Based on a book, although Iriya no Sora seams like a conventional 'mecha" title with a simple romance, in fact this is a very deep drama focusing the pain and sadness of both Asaba and Iriya as their relation progress and the truth behind Iriya comes to light. The title focuses their relationship and how Asaba eventually find out Iriya's relation to the weird military base nearby that, rumor says it, research alien technology. To make things worse, Iriya's health seams to be deteriorating pretty fast.

Extremely impacting and deep, Iriya no Sora do not measure efforts to show the hard reality and pain of the characters, as well of those around the main characters, all worrying for those they love, and all in certain ways incapable of doing anything to help them.

Conclusion

With several surprisingly beautiful and meaningful sequences, and a strong main character, Iriya no Sora is an above the average title that comes from Toei Animation, known for it's sub-average titles: perhaps they decided it was time to start producing quality over quantity ... and they just managed to do that.

Few titles have such emotional content. I believe that the more you love someone, the more you let yourself be taken by certain emotions, and Iriya can certainly tweak and twist all these emotions with gentleness and care.