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Sora no Woto could be described as slice of life meets post-apocalyptic. This sounds like a bit of an unlikely combination, which I suppose it is. How about putting it like this: it's a show about how a bunch of relatively normal people live their everyday lives while having to deal with a world that's been ravaged by war, and how they cope with past losses and manage to find something to smile about in the present.

The first two episodes were a little shaky for me, but once they got the stuff like Kureha's Obligatory Tsundere Moment out of the way, each episode just got ... better than the last. The slice of life tradition of finding something extraordinary in the everyday is made especially poignant by the post-apocalyptic backdrop. You watch all these little revelations and miniature adventures and you laugh and smile and then remember that this is a world where dolphins no longer exist, where nobody knows how to work a radio, where there are not enough children left in town to fill the old school building.

And Sora no Woto does not spare the viewer from the harsh realities of its universe. Yes, most of the episodes are lighthearted, but the show never shies away from mentioning the darker facts, including plenty of dead parents, the completely desolate no-man's land, and some particularly chilling war flashbacks. And again, it's the dark that makes the light glow all the brighter.

One final general thing I think is worth mentioning is that I love the storytelling style. This anime never assumes the viewer is stupid when revealing plot points. It's all a matter of giving just enough hints that it's obvious, but never wasting time by saying, "Yes, here's what actually happened." This applied in particular to episode 10, which has in my opinion been the best episode so far (like I said, they get better, though 7 and 10 are definitely peaks), where the plot reveals were simply a matter of confirming previous hints, and instead the impact of the episode was devoted to character interactions and development.

MAL has given me categories to assign numbers to but I'm not huge on number ratings so I'll just write a quick sentence or two about each:

Story: mostly slice-of-life episodic, but with a gradually building backstory that's currently coming to its climax. The episodic plots are quite enjoyable as well, if you're into the slice-of-life stuff.

Art: people always say the characters look like K-On!. Fair enough. Don't expect the anime to be like K-On! however. Background art is beautiful in that tragic way post-apocalyptic scenery is.

Sound: I'm sure everyone and their mother has said this, but the music is great. The ending theme can cause some major emotional dissonance for the more serious episodes, however.

Character: as much as I've grown to love them I have to admit they're a bit cookie-cutter. There's plenty of development and backstory reveals throughout the series.

Enjoyment: hopefully from the review it was obvious that I'm loving this. Your mileage may vary, but I'm really feeling the emotional connection here.