Spoilers of Yosuga no Sora: In Solitude, Where We Are Least Alone

Ignatius Bagussuputra

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⭐ 6.5

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As you’ve already decided to open this section, I’m sure you know what’s coming. We’ll be discussing more on Sora’s arc as it felt like the true ending to the show. But, before that…

Hateful comments

Most bad reviews are just hating incest in this without actually writing about the show itself, it’s total nonsense. I don’t really make sense to just drop a show just because a kiss between siblings (or twins) is it, it’s not really justifiable by itself. I see a supportive relationship between orphaned siblings who just lost their parents with no one else to go, trying to support each other, but I guess that’s not what most people saw, unfortunately. Well, it’s not really my job either to make you love or hate this show. I’m just here to give my perspective, critique, and reviews objectively.

If you’re still complaining only about the incest here, then you should’ve stop watching it after the first episode. I’ve given my verdict and provided a couple of options for you to choose before you approach this too. You’re not really criticizing the show either, just hating it because it has incest in it. You won’t really get anywhere by being a close-minded person who hates things just because, and you won’t grow as a person either.

Breakdown

We got to see what happens to each girls on 4 different stories. We also learned that just because someone’s not saying anything doesn’t mean it’s going well on their side. We saw Haruka resolves Kazuha’s problems on the first arc, but then we learned that Akira is having her own problems on the second arc. It’s just like in real life, just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

How they end up loving each other romantically

I think the first step of romantically loving someone else is to know your relationship with them. We knew our relationship with our siblings as early as when we were born. We also know our boundaries with them by living closely together everyday. All the things missing from the Kasugano twins.

As we knew from Haru, Sora is a sickly girl that spent most of her life in the hospital, away from society and outside Haru’s range. She didn’t spent much time with her brother and doesn’t really care about the society’s opinion since she mostly lives on her own world.

Ever since childhood, they didn’t get to see each other and their relation grew farther as a sibling. Coming back from the hospital, Haru started seeing Sora more as a girl and not his sister, it must’ve applied to Sora the same way it did to Haru, she especially felt her love for Haru grew when they first kissed as a child.

Sora, as a consequence of not having a lot of interactions with her surroundings, doesn’t really care about the society and didn’t really understand why incestuous relationship is considered taboo. Hence, she loves Haru from the deepest part of her heart without caring what the others think about her.

Haru, on the other hand, still maintains a healthy relationship with his surroundings, especially his friends. But, his conflicted feelings about having intimate relationship with his own twin sister results in his uncertainty about living his life, what’s considered normal and how society will perceives them.

Haru clearly shows some distressed face after getting caught by their friends, but Sora didn’t have and didn’t care about any of that.

Sora’s ending explanation

• Haruka gets a message from her, indicating she’s either running away or committing suicide. He rushes out but doesn’t seem to take his phone with him as we found out that he and Nao needed to meet rather than phone each other.
• Haruka then remembers Akira’s words about the lake near Sayori-hime’s shrine, believed to be the birthplace of humanity where one could get a chance to be reborn and redo your life. He immediately rushes there.
• After arriving at the shrine and before going to the lake, he stops by the gate in front of Akira’s house. But, he doubted himself before having flashbacks where he was confronted by his friends.
• He also remembers when Akira was sad because she lost her mother’s pendant (they manage to retrieve the pendant only on Akira’s arc, so they’re still distant here). He decided to settle this by himself and went for Sora alone.
• Akira felt something and went outside, but confused to find her gate open with no one in sight.
• Haruka runs towards Sora in the lake, just as he reaches out, Sora steps into deep water. Haruka rushes to save her, with neither of them being able to swim, they end up sinking each other in their struggles.
• As they sink deeper, Haruka thought to himself, thinking if they can go to a world far away, alone.
• Seconds later, we see Haruka wakes up as Sora cries. With the seemingly inverted landscape behind with dead trees sticking out of the lake behind them. There were no dead trees on the surface previously and it only appears halfway after they were sinking. They talked and tears were shed, it’s strongly implied they remained there until dawn.
• Haruka asks if they were alive, and there were no response from Sora.
• Later on, Ryouhei, Akira, Kazuha, Kozue, and Nao met each other at the usual intersection on the way to school. Kazuha looks displeased to meet the others, it’s soon evident that it is the first time all five of them got together since Haruka and Sora “went away”.
• Akira asks if Kazuha has got any text from them since “that one”. We’re treated to a flashback of her reading a message from Haruka in class with the others. It’s remarkably vague with the words “local buses”, “local lines”, “few times”, and “reached our destination”.
• All of them decided to stop by the Kasugano’s house for some reason.
• As Kazuha passes by the patio doors alone, she gives a very understated bow, one that’s similarly given towards a shrine, or a grave.
• As Akira passes by Sora’s room, she looked through the broken window and saw Sora’s rabbit lying on the bed, shredded.
• It then switches to the final scenes of Haruka and Sora almost exactly like the first time we saw them. Dressed in white on a train with Haruka’s suitcase and Sora’s rabbit in tact, passing through the darkness (a tunnel perhaps) and not at their destination yet.
• The train suddenly emerges into the light with nothing but sky and clouds through the windows, and with no one else visible on the train.

Conclusion

Haruka and Sora are dead, their bodies will never be recovered as they drowned in the lake and no one knows they’re there. Sora is a physically weak girl and she can’t swim as we saw her use an inflatable swim ring a couple of times.

Kazuha broke into their house and found Haruka’s phone with the final message from Sora, deducing they died in a lover’s pact after missing for several days. So, to give everyone else a closure, she used Haruka’s phone to send herself a fake message we saw her read previously.

The fact that the message didn’t say anything about their uncle or aunt that has went back to Japan proved that it wasn’t Haruka who wrote it since he only told Sora and no one else knew about it. We also saw that Kazuha is the only one that bowed towards the house because she knows they’re dead.

The bunny at the final scene is just evidence for slow ones like myself to notice. That bunny is an irreplaceable final gift from their mother to Sora, so there’s no way she more than one of it. The empty train emerging from the darkness points to both of them being “reborn” into an afterlife together.

In solitude, where we are least alone

This is the show’s tagline. Haruka and Sora did in fact went somewhere else, they died in that lake and were reborn to their own place in the magical afterlife, in solitude, where they’re least alone and able to share their love without shame or disapproval from others.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find something less depressing to think about…

Thankfully, I was watching Eromanga-sensei at the same time. Perhaps it could lighten up your mood just like it did for me.