HomeAnime & MangaAnime NewsHeaven's Lost Property: Forte Review

Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte Review


Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte
Studio: AIC
Publisher: FUNimation
Format: DVD
Release Date: April 17, 2012
Price: $64.98 – Available Here

Overview:
While many people would wish to have a beautiful girl fall out of the sky onto their laps, it is a bit different when said girl literally falls from the sky and creates a crater in the ground. FUNimation previously released Heaven’s Lost Property late last year, the review of which can be found here, and now they have brought us the second season, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte. While the first season contained plenty of off the wall and hilarious comedy alongside plenty of fan service, does the second season deliver the same enthralling experience?

Story:
Tomoki Sakurai may have wanted to live a peaceful life, spending his days thinking of perverted things, harassing all of the girls in his school and getting karate chopped to death by his childhood friend Sohara Mitsuki, but that all changed in the first season of Heaven’s Lost Property. A mysterious winged girl named Ikaros crashed down to Earth and began calling Tomoki her master.

Ikaros revealed herself to be a “pet-class” Angeloid and could grant any wish her master wanted. With Tomoki’s perverted mind this led to many instances him of spying on girls, stealing their panties and even becoming a girl himself to peep without restraint.

When we last saw Tomoki and his friends at the New World Discovery Club had just saved Nymph’s life from the evil and mysterious man of the Synapse. With this threat gone and Nymph free to live her life as she please, it seemed like Tomoki’s days may just become peaceful once again… that is until the blonde bombshell Angeloid type Delta, also known as Astraea, is sent to kill Tomoki and prevent the humans from learning more about the Synapse through his dreams.

However there is one small problem with Astraea… unlike the emotionless but well-meaning Ikaros and intelligent Nymph, Astraea is a complete idiot that is incapable of even finding food, let alone killing Tomoki. While the main story for Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte follows the storyline of the first season very closely, one of the main highlights of the series is Astraea’s stupidity and inability to take care of herself makes her the butt of most of the jokes this season.

Besides that we see plenty of perverted humor and plenty of strange moments as entire episodes are devoted to off-the-wall events that the whole cast takes part in no matter how nonsensical it is. A fishing contest where you must catch girls with the biggest breasts? A snow war referencing Sengoku period warfare? How about a wrestling match with a grope-happy masked wrestler?

All of these things may seem strange and out of place, but with Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte each occurrence flows fluidly alongside serious plot development and drama. For with Astraea’s failure to slay Tomoki… the man of the Synpase has unleashed a new, slightly insane, Angeloid that dwarfs past Angeloids in power and she has set her sights on killing Tomoki and defeating Ikaros.

As mentioned before, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte follows the story of the first season very closely. More mysteries of the Synapse are revealed and the mysterious man of the Synapse’s intentions are revealed and even the creator of the Angeloids are revealed. Of course the series doesn’t answer every question and leaves plenty of questions unanswered for a potential third season.

Now while Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte may be a comedic powerhouse, there are still elements of romance as this is indeed a harem comedy. In the previous season the aspect of Tomoki’s feelings for Ikaros and Nymph was barely explored, though it was hinted at. In this Forte however this is expanded upon slightly, though nothing actually comes to fruition as far as the relationships go which is disappointing to say the least.

Visuals:
Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte is a feast for the eyes in more ways than one. Sure there is plenty of fan-service that litters the show as most of the female cast possesses breasts that range from large to unbelievably large, but that service never actually reaches the point of nudity.  As far as the character designs themselves are concerned, all of the characters are well detailed and feature a wide arrange of costumes that are changed regularly.

The anime does take pride in its chibi format however, as the characters will quickly shift to chibi form when something comedic happens on screen. In fact, Tomoki often remains in chibi-style throughout most episodes which is a bit of a detriment as it begins to wear thing towards the end of the series. Thankfully it seems that all of the extra effort that was saved by the chibi artwork has been transitioned to the fight scenes as Forte features fluid and fast paced combat featuring plenty of explosions and intense action as the Angeloids battle with one another.

Audio:
As per usual with a FUNimation anime release, Forte possesses both the original Japanese dub as well as an English dub for those who don’t want to read subtitles. As one may expect, the Japanese voice work is superb. On the other hand, so is the English dub. In my previous review for the first season of Heaven’s Lost Property I took issue with Greg Ayres portrayal of Tomoki.

In Forte Greg offers a much better performance as Tomoki and it feels like he has truly captured the character properly this time, making him sound less whiny than in the first season. Another performance worth mentioning is Carli Mosier’s portrayal of Astraea. As mentioned before, one of the highlights of Forte is Astraea’s idiocy and Carli provides an excellent voice for her as a character.

Those who appreciate Japanese music will be pleased to know that rather than take the standard route of having only one opening and one ending song, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte actually features a different ending song for every episode. These songs usually are related to whatever the plot was for that episode and range in quality from being excellent to bad. There are also two opening songs, with one comedic opening and a main opening song “Haato no Kakuritsu” which is performed by Blue Drops.

Extras:
As mentioned before, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte features a different ending song for eleven of the twelve episodes that make up the series. To top it off, it also has two opening songs, though the one is only used once throughout the series. The best part of all of these different openings and endings is that FUNimation has included a clean version of all of them for the viewer’s pleasure.

Alongside the multitude of clean songs there are trailers for past and upcoming FUNimation releases as well as the trailer for, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte and the first season. Closing out the extras we have two commentary tracks, one for episode 04 and one for episode 09.

The audio commentary for Episode 04 features Christopher Bevins, voice director, Greg Ayers, voice of Tomoki, Trina Nishimura who handles the voice for Sohara and Jamie Marchi, the voice of Mikako sitting in. This audio commentary is very funny and will provide plenty of laughs as the crew spends most of the commentary commenting on the episode and their roles.

Episode 09’s commentary also features Christopher Bevins, voice director, as well as Jamie Marchi, the voice of Mikako, and Carli Mosier the voice of Astraea. This commentary will provide a few laughs, though it is worth noting that as mentioned in the commentary it is the first time Carli Mosier takes part in a commentary and they spend most of said commentary discussing Astraea and the episode itself.

Overall:
Now obviously some people may disregard Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte as being just another harem comedy, this time with wings, but they would be mistaken. Of course there is plenty of fan-service in Forte, but nothing that would ruin the experience for a prudish viewer. Below the breasts lies a hilarious comedy that can’t help but put a smile on your face with its random events as well as a storyline worth following that any anime viewer would be irresponsible to pass up.

9-5-capsules-out-of-10

Travis Bruno
Travis Bruno
After playing games since a young age and getting into anime a bit later on its been time to write about a little bit of everything.