is a Japanese anime television series, created and produced by Sunrise. Based on the original concept by the Sunrise animation staff, the series is directed by Masakazu Obara and written by Jukki Hanada, overseeing a team of animators noted for their previous work on My-HiME and My-Otome.
The anime began airing in Japan on the TV Tokyo television network on January 5, 2009. The series is set in the far future where humans now live in space colonies orbiting far from Earth. A manga adaptation, Sora Kake Girl R, began serialization in the March 2009 issue of Ichijinsha's Comic Rex, and another manga, Sora Kake Girl D, began serialization in the April 2009 issue of ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Daioh. A light novel adaptation began serialization in Ichijinsha's Chara Mel in December 2008, and an Internet radio show has also been created.
Plot In the year 311 of the orbital calendar, humanity has migrated to countless colony clusters in space. Akiha Shishido encounters a malevolent artificial intelligence, Leopard, who has been installed on a colony. She is joined by Inter-Colony-Police officer Itsuki Kannagi, taciturn young girl Honoka Kawai, and a robot-potato, Imoko "Imo-chan" Shishido.
Characters
Main characters
Akiha is typically a careless and dense girl who has no special talent outside of piloting QT-ARMS in combat, but she is kind, easygoing and courageous. Akiha's role as the protagonist begins in earnest when she and Imoko are swept into the gravity quake of Leopard breaching out of hyperspace while in flight from her eldest sister Kazane's marriage arrangement. Considering that she is the third of five siblings, Akiha's lack of ambition throughout much of the series is not an unreasonable outcome. In addition to piloting the war-era Starsylph QT-ARMS in combat, Akiha uses a golden gun, the Arma Ignis Aureus to assist Leopard in discharging the "Soul Shout" energy attack from the Leopard Cannon. It is shortly after Leopard's battle with Benkei that it becomes apparent that Akiha is vulnerable to Nervalist mental manipulation. While encased in a Full Cowl box aboard Xanthippe, Akiha comes to understand the attraction of Nerval's subjugation without being caught up in it thanks to Imoko's encouragement. Akiha inherited the "will" from Kagura. In Nami's attempt to kill Akiha, the EXISTENCE protected her. She was asked to destroy Leopard by Kazane.
Driven by her parents being conscripted into the Terra Abduction at the hands of a mysterious colony, Itsuki joined the Inter-Colony Police in lieu of the secondary education most teenagers are made to undergo. Itsuki dislikes making mistakes and places a heavy emphasis on her work as an ICP officer which forces her into things such as fighting Bougainvillea and Mintao as per the orders of the ICP administration from within the experimental Arc-II-Jl QT-ARMS along with initially being Akiha and Honoka's adversary as the two are collecting components for Leopard. During her time in Surre Academy as the student Mutsumi Shimoyama, Itsuki demonstrates a lack of proper social skills that causes a few awkward misunderstandings—one of which is a very destructive duel with Honoka that suggests that she may also be an Ex-QT. As she spends time around Akiha over the course of the series, Itsuki experiences an extensive anthology of events such as having the Terra Abduction incident demonstrated for her (the EXISTENCEs hypnotizing people into the Pied Piper orbital elevator for use as Nervalist vassals) along with the aftermath of Nerval's exploitation.
Awakening shortly after she boards Leopard for the first time, Honoka enrolls in the Surre Academy to stay close to Akiha who she declares as "The Girl Who Leapt Through Space". As demonstrated during her duel with Itsuki and during the early component retrieval missions, Honoka has the quantum energy manipulation capabilities endemic to Ex-QTs whose utilization for combat makes her eyes glow red and pilots the war-era Wygar QT-ARMS. In spite of being quiet most of the time and focused on Leopard's well-being, Honoka has quite an anguishing prologue that evokes some strong emotions. Once wielded as an EXISTENCE, Honoka broke away from Nerval 50 years ago with what are now the Shishido elders and fought alongside Kagura who matched her hatred for Nerval. Honoka is on borrowed time as she struggles to reconcile how things have changed over the past half-century with Kagura and Friedrich along with all the crucial actors in Nerval's recent advent. She also revealed that her life is coming to an end. After Honoka's Wygar QT-ARMS was destroyed in battle with Takane, she used her new QT-ARMS, which resembles the EXISTENCE units that Nami controls.
Even before he breached out of hyperspace before Akiha and Imoko, it quickly becomes apparent that Leopard has an intricate and extensive prologue with the Shishido family. Considering his construction was financed by the Shishido Conglomerate and his fundamental programming seeing its roots in Friedrich Otto Noblemain after Nerval performed as expected, it could be argued that the aristocratic and eccentric Leopard is in a sort of family feud with his siblings who consider him the black sheep of the family. Even though he usually spends time alone in his room exciting himself into laughter and enjoying brewed tea before also taking to playing around on Akiha's laptop, Leopard realizes the high stakes involved as he charges Akiha the retrieval of specific components that were unjustly arrogated. It is for this reason that Leopard repels Benkei's persistent attempts to steal his mirrors so fiercely—even to the point of once conducting a surprise counterstrike on Benkei. Leopard and Akiha's mutual interdependence exponentially develops over the course of the series because it is only by Akiha's assistance that the Leopard Cannon is successfully discharged while at the same time Akiha is guided through truly appreciating life for the gift it is. There is an arc near the end where Leopard annoys Kazane with his insistence on immediately rescuing Akiha heedless of its futility that suggests he has come to care about Akiha very much. Leopard has two creatures he has personally named residing in his colony, one of which is a crocodile-like creature named Crocodilias Leopardus, which is shown to have three younger Crocodilias. The other creature is an octopus-like creature named Leoparda Octopada. There is also a headless ghost which wears a golden armor and stays in the library. Leopard has a dark side, who introduces himself as the "Prince of Darkness". The only difference is the eye colour which is blue. According to his dark side, 50 years ago, Leopard was the one who dominated the world with tremendous power and blanketed it with fear. When Benkei came to challenge him to a duel, Leopard has already switched to the dark side of his and even used his sword to damaged Benkei badly. He did not even allow anyone to enter his room. According to Fon, it is the swords that is cursed and awakened Leopard's dark side. His dark side does not require Akiha to activate his "Soul Shout" energy attack as he defeated Nerval by himself. He also recruited Nami.
Shishido family
Because Akiha is the only one of the Shishido sisters that made time to care for her when she was newly manufactured and brought to the Shishido household as a maid, Imoko is best friends with Akiha and has been adopted as the sixth Shishido sister. As a Naviman nicknamed as a potato because of her appearance, Imoko has the capability to interface and operate almost any electronic device which delights Akiha and has even saved her life on numerous occasions throughout the series. Imoko's willingness to sacrifice herself to rescue Kirkwood from an approaching anti-matter missile inspires Nerval to intercede and have a change of heart with how he recruits people into his Utopian plans. Even with room and board at the Orbital Cafe Enigma endemic with Nerval's intercession, Imoko's inability to return to Akiha with the insight she has gained from watching Nerval as he tries to understand humans proves crucial in Akiha growing into her role as the "Girl Who Leapt Through Space".
As the first of the five Shishido sisters, Kazane administrates the Shishido Foundation estate and provides the strategic leadership necessary for the Enigma Alliance to prosecute its crusade against the Nervalists. Kazane has it demonstrated during the course of the series that it takes a lot more than the second sight inherited from Kagura and an almost congenital business sense to be a good leader as her poor family government of her younger sisters Akiha and Nami attests—both of whom end up in a bad way that ranges from merely freezing their lives in limbo to outright self-destruction. It is also through Kazane that it is demonstrated that no plan survives contact with the enemy or even her own allies, especially Akiha whose headlong rush into danger frightened for Imoko's safety near the end of the series almost jeopardizes the endgame strategy against Nerval who now wishes to co-exist with humans. She and Kagura finish their explanation of the "Girl Who Leapt Through Space" to Akiha with the directive to destroy Leopard when his evil personality Panther makes its advent.
As the second of the five Shishido sisters, the battle strength inherited from Kagura serves Takane well as she prosecutes her role as one of the squad leaders of ninja soldiers the Shishido Foundation wields in its fight against the Nervalists both on foot and from the controls of the Ravana QT-ARMS. Unfortunately, the circumstances turning sour during a recent mission become the preamble for Takane being temporarily wielded as a Nervalist vassal. Takane's emancipation from being Nerval's bodyguard comes about when Nami picks a fight with her after finding Honoka in her Wygar QT-ARMS to be an insufficient challenge for her. Of the other four Shishido sisters, Takane is the closest to understanding the agonizing distress Nami is facing.
As the fourth of the five Shishido sisters, the agoraphobic Nami demonstrates through her downfall from being a former teen model because of a nasty comment on her blog to an evil "Girl Who Leapt Through Space" that simply having common cultural and genetic origins will not lead to a worthwhile cohesive family. The Primavera staff affords Nami the capability to channel her QT powers for such things as discharging energy blasts at her enemies and controlling the EXISTENCE—the latter often being wielded as foot soldiers. As Takane and Akiha have demonstrated for them, Nami's inherited anti-QT powers will discharge as a concentric circular energy wave that cancels any other QT energy fields as a result of a direct hit at just the right time during combat. The defection of the EXISTENCE to Akiha who wanted to protect Itsuki and Honoka along with finding Imoko drives Nami into a genocidal and misanthropic psychosis as she makes a hasty retreat. As Nami bloodthirstily fumes in disgust of the world and reaffirms her volition to exterminate the human race starting with Akiha and her other three siblings, Panther flies over and invites Nami aboard the Leopard colony—which is Akiha's next destination.