Yosuga no Sora (Japanese: ヨスガノソラ; lit. "Sky of Connection") is a Japanese romance drama eroge visual novel developed by CUFFS ("Sphere"). The game was originally released for Windows on December 5, 2008. It was adapted into a serialized manga and an anime television series. A sequel/fan disk titled Haruka na Sora was released on October 24, 2009, containing new and expanded scenarios for several characters from the original game.
Contents
Plot
Tragically orphaned by a car accident, the Kasugano twins travel to their grandparents' countryside residence in Okukozome via railcar, hoping to reconstruct the shards of a shattered life. These two lonely souls, physically alike yet spiritually divergent, are unaware of the challenges these conflicting expectations will unveil in the coming days. Uncertain of the future, Haruka Kasugano clings to memories, hoping to find the strength he needs to protect his ailing sister. As the tale develops, it tells four stories, each with one girl: Kazuha Migiwa, rich but kind; Akira Amatsume, polite but sad; Nao Yorihime, depressed but hopeful; Sora Kasugano, petite but fierce.
Characters
Main
Haruka Kasugano (春日野 悠, Kasugano Haruka)
Voiced by: Hiro Shimono (anime, teenager), Megumi Matsumoto (anime, child)
The protagonist of the series, with a gentle appearance and slim profile, Haruka, in many ways, is the spitting image of his fraternal twin sister, Sora. Personable and honest, he forges lasting friendships with remarkable ease. Haruka copes with the loss of his parents with a stout heart, burdened with the knowledge that the future of his delicate sister depends on him. He cannot swim. Haruka is well regarded around the village, as their grandmother was once a doctor. The game depicts routes in which Haruka engages in romantic and sexual relationships with the story's heroines, including his sister.
Sora Kasugano (春日野 穹, Kasugano Sora)
Voiced by: Hiroko Taguchi (game [credited as "Shiranami"], anime)
She is a quiet, fragile and reclusive girl, fraternal twin sister to the protagonist. Frail since birth, Sora was denied the sort of independent life that many take for granted. Yet beneath Sora's angelic doll-like appearance lies a troublesome personality prone to emotional withdrawal, intellectual and physical laziness, and a severe lack of social graces. She spends most of her time surfing the Internet and eating crisps and instant food, so long as Haruka is by her side. Her strong bond with her brother strengthened as a result of the tragic loss of their parents and a kiss they shared as children, leads her to fantasize about incest, and she goes to great lengths to seduce him or at least to get him to spend more time with her. She hates Nao due to Nao raping Haruka, although it is implied that they were all once good friends. She is often seen clinging to a stuffed rabbit toy, which she received as a present from her mother before she died, which lends her a deceptively childlike character.
Nao Yorihime (依媛 奈緒, Yorihime Nao)
Voiced by: Yuka Inokuchi (game [credited as "Ayaka Kimura"], anime)
Beautiful, intelligent and an excellent swimmer, Nao is Haruka's next-door neighbor and childhood friend, one year older than Haruka. When the Kasugano twins last visited the area, their departure was particularly painful for Nao, who, for some reason, had grown quite close to Haruka after having raped him on one occasion, about which she expresses guilt. Upon their return, she rekindles their former close relationship. Nao's compassion and maturity project a sense of sisterly love towards others, though for Haruka, there is a deeper and more intimate feeling. In her route and in the anime, she has a relationship with Haruka where at first Sora disagrees and even hates her, but after Nao saves her stuffed rabbit from a fire she seems to accept their relationship. In the end, Haruka and Nao make love while everyone else watches the fireworks.
Supporting
Kozue Kuranaga (倉永 梢, Kuranaga Kozue)
Voiced by: Yukari Minegishi (game [credited as "Airi Himekawa"], anime)
Representative of Haruka, Ryouhei, Kazuha and Akira's class, often nicknamed "class rep". She fell in love at first sight with Haruka due to his gentle profile and appearance. Kozue is seen by others as a shy but serious person who is also very polite, but through her shy and responsible appearance, she has a "delusion mode" in which she imagines being in a romantic relationship with Haruka due to her crush on him. In Sora's storyline, she and Nao are the ones who later catch the twins having sex, and she can't accept their relationship the most due to her feelings towards Haruka. At the end of the final episode, she questions Nao if she is in love; all that matters is her feelings. In Haruka na Sora she is the protagonist of her own route.
Yahiro Ifukube (伊福部 やひろ, Ifukube Yahiro)
Voiced by: Ryōko Tanaka (game [credited as "Hikaru Isshiki"], anime)
Best friend to Motoka Nogisaka and proprietor of a family-owned candy store, the rough-looking Yahiro would prefer spending her time sleeping and drinking. In truth, her ill-tempered and sardonic mannerisms hide Yahiro's true personality: a woman whose past is littered with lost dreams, forgotten promises, and broken romances. She has been Akira's unofficial guardian since her foster grandfather died and none of his relatives were willing to look after her. In an attempt to understand the undercurrents that he perceives surrounding Akira and Kazuha, Haruka persuades Yahiro to explain that, unbeknownst to the other characters, Akira's father has been aiding her financially since she had spent her savings from when she worked in the city as well as the scant earnings from the candy store to pay for Akira's education and other needs. In Haruka na Sora, she shows a cuter side of her as a tsundere in her route.
Motoka Nogisaka (乃木坂 初佳, Nogisaka Motoka)
Voiced by: Tae Okajima (game [credited as "Soyogi Tono"], anime)
Development
Staff
Illustrations by: Takashi Hashimoto, Hiro Suzuhira
Script by: Yukiji Tachikaze, Seiri Asakura
Music by: Manack
Release history
The game was originally released for Windows PC on December 5, 2008. A sequel/fan disk titled Haruka na Sora was released on October 24, 2009. It contains full scenarios for Kozue and Yahiro, an expansion to Sora's story from the original game, and additional bonus material.
Adaptations
Anime
Yosuga no Sora was adapted into a 12-episode anime series that aired on October 4, 2010. Each episode consists of a 22-minute feature segment and a 3-minute omake segment. The anime's main plot is presented in a multi-arc branching format that independently tells the stories of Kazuha, Akira, Nao, and Sora while sharing certain common episodes. The title of each episode incorporates the names of the characters it concerns. The bonus segment focuses on Motoka's story, relying more extensively on humor and super deformed character designs. Each segment has its own ending credit sequence in each episode. The anime's opening theme is "Hiyoku no Hane"-(比翼の羽根) by eufonius, and the ending themes are "Tsunagukizuna"-(ツナグキズナ) by Nekocan feat. Junca Amaoto, and "Pinky Jones"-(ピンキー・ジョーンズ) by Momoiro Clover.
The first volume of the series was released by King Records for DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats on December 22, 2010, and the final fourth volume was released on March 26, 2011, with a limited edition Blu-ray Disc, including the stuffed toy strap of Sora Kasugano.
The series premiered on Toku in the United States on December 31, 2015.
(In parentheses are the episode numbers for each arc, e.g. (A3) is the third episode in Akira's arc. Legend: A-Akira, K-Kazuha, N-Nao, S-Sora.)
The arcs' episodes presented in order are: K: 1–4; A:1–2, 5–6; N: 1, 7–9; S: 1, 7, 10–12. Episodes of an extra arc, that of Motoka, occur at the end of each episode.
Drama CD
There are five drama CDs: two released with the purchase of the original visual novel Yosuga no Sora from stores Sofmap and Messe Sanoh, one released with the pre-ordering of its Fan Disc Haruka na Sora, and two released with the purchase of the Blu-ray volumes 2 and 4 of its anime adaptation.
Manga
Yosuga no Sora was adapted into a manga of the same title, illustrated by Takashi Mikaze, and serialized from October 2009 to January 2011 issues of Kadokawa Shoten's Comp Ace magazine. It was compiled into two volumes.
Music
Sphere released the original game's OST, with music composed by Manack, on February 27, 2009.
The OST for the anime adaptation, with music composed by Manabu Miwa (Manack) and Jun Ichikawa (Bruno Wen-li), consists of both new compositions and newly arranged versions of tracks from the original game. It was released on two CDs, subtitled "Arrange" and "New", accompanying the Japanese Blu-ray disc release of the anime with volumes 1 and 3 respectively.
There are nine music releases: three affiliated with the original visual novel Yosuga no Sora, one affiliated with its fan disc Haruka na Sora, and five affiliated with its anime adaptation. Some titles are not consistent among official, retailers, and databases, thus their normalized titles are given following style guidelines from MusicBrainz.