Sora is a fictional character and the
protagonist of Square Enix's Kingdom
Hearts video game series. Introduced in
the first game of the series in 2002,
Sora is portrayed as a cheerful teenager
who lives on Destiny Islands and has
been best friends with Riku and Kairi
since childhood. When they plan to go on
a journey to see other worlds, they are
separated by creatures known as the
Heartless. While fighting against them,
Sora obtains a weapon called the
Keyblade. Donald Duck and Goofy then
recruit him in their journey across
various worlds to aid King Mickey while
Sora searches for his friends. Along the
way, the trio protects the worlds they
visit from various villains. Sora has
also made supporting appearances in
other games from the series, and
reprised his role in manga and light
novel adaptations of the games.
Sora was originally designed by Kingdom
Hearts series director and character
designer Tetsuya Nomura during a
discussion between Disney and Square
about who should be the protagonist of
the series. Wanting an original
character, Nomura made various sketches
of Sora until the design met the
approval of Disney. Nomura came to
regard Sora as his favorite character
that he had designed, and pushed for the
character to have a leading role in the
Kingdom Hearts story in spite of the
characters youth. Throughout the series,
Sora has been voiced by Academy
Award-nominee Haley Joel Osment in the
English version and Miyu Irino in the
Japanese version. As a child, Sora was
voiced by Takuto Yoshinaga and Luke
Manriquez in Japanese and English,
respectively.
Sora's character has received generally
positive critical response due to his
warm personality and adventurous spirit.
His personal and martial growth in the
series also received praise, especially
in his appearance in Kingdom Hearts II.
Additionally, Sora has ranked high on
various video game character popularity
polls.
Characteristics
Sora appears as a spiky brown-haired
child who, when first introduced, wears
a red shirt, red pants, and a white and
blue jacket covered by keychains. Upon
traveling to certain worlds, Sora's
appearance is altered by Donald Duck's
magic to adapt to different
environments; for example, he turns into
a merman in the sea. After undergoing
significant growth in Kingdom Hearts II,
Sora is given a new outfit given by
Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather similar
to the previous one but mostly black.
When battling, Sora's outfit can change
into other designs depending on the
player's choices. Sora's Keyblade's
primary form is the Kingdom Key,
resembling a classic skeleton key
approximately 3.5 feet long, with a
long, silver keychain extending from the
hilt and a Mickey Mouse token on the end
of the keychain. But through using
Keychains, the Kingdom Key can assume a
variety of unique forms. During Kingdom
Hearts II, Sora dual-wields Keyblades,
but their forms depend on the player's
use of Keychains.
Across the series, Sora is depicted as a
cheerful teenager who cherishes his
friendships and relies on them for his
strength. As a result, several of Sora's
enemies use his friends as bait to use
the Keyblade for their purposes.
Although Sora was not chosen by the
Keyblade to be its owner and the
protector of worlds, his actions
throughout the series cause the Keyblade
to choose him over its original choice,
Riku.
Appearances
At the beginning of Kingdom Hearts, Sora
and his two best friends, Riku and
Kairi, plan to leave their hometown, the
Destiny Islands, to explore new worlds.
However, they are separated when their
world is attacked by a group of dark
beings known as the Heartless with Sora
drifting to a town known as Traverse
Town where he learns the Keyblade chose
him to eliminate the Heartless. Soon
after, Sora meets Donald Duck and Goofy,
who join forces in search of his friends
while Sora helps Donald and Goofy look
for King Mickey. They travel across
worlds in their Gummi Ship, sealing the
Keyholes of worlds along the way to
protect them from being consumed by the
darkness of the Heartless. They are
opposed by an alliance of Disney
villains led by Maleficent who seeks out
the seven Princesses of Heart to unlock
the Keyhole that leads to "Kingdom
Hearts", a repository of knowledge and
power and the source of all hearts.
Maleficent sows discord into Riku,
causing him to antagonize Sora on
several occasions. Once arriving to
Maleficent's headquarters, Hollow
Bastion, and defeating her, Sora finds
Riku possessed by Ansem, who reveals
that Kairi's heart has been hiding
within Sora's body. In order to return
Kairi's heart, Sora impales himself with
Ansem's Keyblade, briefly transforming
him into a Heartless until Kairi brings
him back to his human form. After taking
Kairi to safety, Sora and company
confront and defeat Ansem until his
defeat in the door of Kingdom Hearts.
Beyond the door are Mickey and the now
recovered Riku, and Mickey and Sora use
their Keyblades to lock it so that
Heartless will not escape from there.
Nevertheless, he, Donald and Goofy
continue their search of Riku and
Mickey.
In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories,
Sora's group stumbles onto a fortress
known as Castle Oblivion, believing they
will find Mickey and Riku inside. Upon
entering, Sora's memories are
manipulated by a girl named Naminé who
is being held captive by the group
Organization XIII and forced to replace
memories of Kairi with herself. However,
as Sora travels upwards in the castle,
he meets Naminé and learns the truth
from her. Sora still wishes to protect
Naminé and stop the Organization members
in the castle. After the Organization
members opposing him are defeated,
Naminé helps him, Donald, and Goofy to
restore their memories to their state
prior to entering Castle Oblivion at the
cost of losing their memories of the
events in the castle. This requires them
to sleep in the castle for the
restoration of memories to be completed.
In Kingdom Hearts II, roughly one year
after Chain of Memories, Sora reawakens
along with Donald and Goofy in Twilight
Town once his Nobody, Roxas, merges
within him. They visit the King's
master, Yen Sid, from whom they learn
about the existence of the Nobodies and
Organization XIII. Sora sets out with
Donald and Goofy to find Riku and King
Mickey, traversing new and unfamiliar
worlds where they encounter the
remaining members of the Organization.
Sora later encounters their leader,
Xemnas, learning that the Organization
now has Kairi captive to force Sora to
gather more hearts for them. Eventually,
with Mickey joining them, Sora's group
finds a way to the Organization's main
base in The World That Never Was. The
group soon reunites with Kairi as well
as Riku, and continue fighting the
Organization. Sora and Riku are
separated from Mickey, Goofy, Kairi and
Donald as they finish Xemnas and find a
way back to Destiny Islands where they
reunite with all their friends.
During the majority of events during
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Sora is in a
state of sleep as his memories are being
restored by Naminé, but is also playable
in the game's multiplayer mode. In
Kingdom Hearts Coded Sora himself does
not appear until the game's final scene,
in which he receives King Mickey's
letter and reads it with Riku and Kairi.
A computer program created from Sora's
data serves as the primary protagonist
of the game, finding out the truth
behind a mysterious message found inside
Jiminy's journal. A young Sora and Riku
briefly appear in Destiny Islands in the
prequel to Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom
Hearts Birth by Sleep. After Ventus, one
of the protagonists, has his heart
damaged following a confrontation with
his dark side, Vanitas, his heart finds
its way into Sora, entering the boy's
body. In the game's secret ending, set
after the events of Kingdom Hearts II
Ansem the Wise tells Aqua about Sora's
adventures, and how he may help all the
people connected to him. In the final
scene, Sora decides to save them after
reading Mickey's letter.
In Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop
Distance, Sora is summoned with Riku to
Yen Sid to undergo a Mark of Mastery
exam in response to Xehanort's coming
return. The two are sent to the Dreaming
Realm to awaken several worlds submerged
in sleep following the defeat of Ansem,
but once the task is complete, Sora's
heart is damaged by Xemnas whose
companions plan to turn him into the
last of Xehanort's Thirteen Vessels.
Riku and his comrades manage to rescue
Sora from his fate and brings him back
to Yen Sid's tower, where he dives into
Sora's body and repairs his heart,
awakening him from his coma. Once Sora
wakes up, Yen Sid only names Riku as a
Keyblade Master for gaining the power
used to awaken Sora. Sora, undaunted by
it, congratulates him and departs to
continue his training elsewhere.
Sora is slated to return as the
protagonist in Kingdom Hearts III, and
will have his long-awaited final
showdown with Master Xehanort.
A 2D cartoonish avatar version of Sora
wearing his original outfit in Kingdom
Hearts is also present in the online
community-based social gaming networking
service, Kingdom Hearts Mobile. Sora
also appears in the Shiro Amano's manga
and Tomoko Kanemaki's novels in which he
reprises his role in the video games.
Concept and creation
Sora was designed by Tetsuya Nomura as
the protagonist of Kingdom Hearts.
However, he was not originally slated to
be the protagonist as Disney wanted
Donald Duck to be the protagonist of the
game while Square wanted to have Mickey
Mouse as the protagonist. Nomura wanted
neither as the protagonist of the game
and went on to design his own
protagonist with the concepts of the
Disney characters in mind which resulted
in the creation of Sora. Sora originally
wielded a weapon resembling a chainsaw;
however, the weapon was not well
received by Disney which led Nomura to
redesign the weapon into a Keyblade.
Sora's original outfit in Kingdom Hearts
was also designed with Mickey Mouse in
mind with Mickey Mouse's trademark white
gloves, red shorts and giant yellow
shoes due to Square's original
preference to have Mickey as the main
character of the game. The tail was
removed as the staff found his design to
be similar to the one of the Final
Fantasy IX protagonist Zidane Tribal who
also had a tail. After a talk with the
Disney staff, the design was further
reworked, and Nomura finished it after a
night's work.
One of the main concepts of Sora's
character in the series is that,
according to Nomura, he is a normal boy
instead of a supernatural being even
though he is deeply connected with other
characters from the series. With Sora,
Nomura wants to give players the message
that even though they are not important
people, they can have the opportunity to
accomplish notable actions. This was
emphasized in Birth by Sleep‍ '​s secret
ending, game in which he hoped players
would like to see him. In early versions
of development of Birth by Sleep, Nomura
thought that Ventus would actually be
Sora before being reborn, but due to
overseas opinions, such portrayal was
discarded.
Nomura has stated that Sora's name can
be interpreted as "sky" as his name,
sora, means sky in Japanese and was also
chosen by Nomura to symbolise his role
as well as personality in the story. It
also shows his relation with Riku and
Kairi, making their three names together
"Skys, Land, and Sea." The writings from
Jiminy Cricket's journals which are
supposed to be written by Nomura in the
Japanese versions joking that they have
similar writings and wanted people to
recognize his hand-writing. He was also
described by Nomura to have a forward
personality, which allows him to make
friends across the series. Of all of the
characters Nomura has designed, Sora is
his favorite, calling him "special"
after having worked to develop the
character over many games.
Following the first Kingdom Hearts,
Nomura was worried about how players
having Sora in a high level would use
him in Kingdom Hearts II starting once
again with a low level due to the games'
natures. Therefore, he developed the
plot of Chain of Memories to explain how
Sora loses his abilities in Castle
Oblivion and then start anew.
Additionally, with Chain of Memories a
new mystery regarding Sora's memories
from Twilight Town was added and while
Sora did not have any memories from such
town, this fact would be explained in
Kingdom Hearts II. The team in charge of
Kingdom Hearts II expressed difficulties
in animating Sora's Drive Valor Form for
having a completely different motion
except in the part that Sora walks which
is shared with his regular motion. After
finishing Kingdom Hearts II, Nomura
wanted to give Sora a rest from the
series in order to focus the following
games on other characters from the
series. Moreover, the events from the
endings of Kingdom Hearts coded and
Birth by Sleep hinted a new mystery
regarding Sora's character which will be
revealed in Kingdom Hearts III. Although
Nomura stated in March 2010 that Sora
will once again be the focus of the next
Kingdom Hearts, he will share it with
another character with a big importance.
In response to rumors saying that Sora's
story would end in Kingdom Hearts III,
Nomura answered that Sora is the
protagonist of the series and that his
role will end once the series ends. For
this game, Nomura expressed a concerned
if whether Sora should wear a new outfit
considering how popular his Kingdom
Hearts II outfit was. In the end he
decided to create a new one as Kingdom
Hearts III was a new numbered title.
Reception
Various types of merchandising have been
released based on Sora's character.
There are several types of action
figures which show Sora with a different
appearance such as his original form,
the Kingdom Hearts II design and others
variants. Other accessories include
plush, necklaces and phone charm straps.
In January 2010, Famitsu featured Sora
as its reader's fifth most popular
character of all time. They also
featured him on its issue #1105 cover,
gaving him a tribute, showing his many
appearances through the years. UGO
Networks placed Sora nineteenth on their
list of "Top 25 Japanese RPG Characters"
calling him a "charismatic and visually
interesting" character. Although he did
not make to the top ten of Electronic
Gaming Monthly‍ '​s "Top Ten: List of
Videogame Characters", he was
nevertheless an up-and-comer. In an
ASCII Media Works poll in which fans
voted selected whose video game or manga
character would like to name their
children after, Sora's name was second
in the male category. In a Famitsu poll
from 2011, Sora was voted as the most
popular Kingdom Hearts character with
his fight against Roxas from Kingdom
Hearts II also being listed as the best
scene from the series. He was also 15th
in the Game Informer poll of best
characters from the 2000s.
Overall, critics and fans have generally
praised the character of Sora. When
Sora's character was first revealed in
2002, GameSpot's Giancarlo Varanini
regarded him as "an appropriate
amalgamation of the Square and Disney
universes." He also comically noted he
"doesn't look like much, but you know
how it goes." A 1UP.com writer called
Sora "one of my all-time favorite Square
characters", praising his cheerful
personality. Gamasutra commented on
Sora's journey along the series in their
feature "The Birth of Collecting: The
Osiris Archetype In Games" by Jason
Johnson; While comparing Sora with Isis,
Johnson found Sora's adventure
appealing. IGN praised Sora's resilient
character noting how such an ordinary
"youngster" could face up to his
challenges during his adventures for the
sake of friendship, while RPGFan's
Nicole Monet Kirk labelled him as an
"extremely likable hero". Furthermore,
in the book "Interactive Storytelling
for Video Games: A Player-Centered
Approach to Creating Memorable
Characters and Stories" it is noted that
while Sora follows a "standard hero
archetype", his character becomes more
believable and strong when worrying
about his friends' fates. Haley Joel
Osment, Sora's English voice actor, has
also been praised by Gaming Target's
Matt Swidder who mentioned Osment "makes
a perfect fit for Sora". While remarking
Osment's work, Louis Bedigian from
GameZone mentioned that "Sora had
something rarely found in video-game
characters: depth" also praising his
role in Kingdom Hearts. Game
Informer‍ '​s Bryan Vore found that in
Kingdom Hearts II, Osment has improved
in voicing the character, praising his
work. In their Super Smash Bros Brawl
list, IGN described Sora as "...the most
active and evolved hero on this week's
list." IGN listed him as a possible
character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl;
though he was not chosen as the
"reader's choice".
Sora's transformations in the various
Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts II were
commented to be entertaining by Julia
Reges from AllGame due to how variated
they are. Also reviewing Kingdom Hearts
II, Greg Bemis from G4TV praised Sora's
development in the game, including his
growth and the fact each of his attacks
from the title are entertaining.
Although Computer and Video Games also
found an improvement in Sora's movements
due to sequences made with the Reaction
Commands, they found them "fairly
straightforward." RPGamer's Cortney
Stone stated that Sora now moved "like
an acrobatic honed fighter" in contrast
to his "adolescent awkwardness" seen in
the first Kingdom Hearts and remarked
Sora's transformation into a lion seen
in the sequel as enjoyable. His new
outfit was also well received by GameSpy
who found an improvement from the
original one that looked like "wardrobe
from Mickey Mouse's closet". GamesRadar
had similar opinions and particularly
focused on Sora's transformation and his
new abilities. Game Informer viewed
Sora's Drive Forms as well as his
combined techniques with other
characters as one of the best additions
to the gameplay. Although IGN also
praised Sora's growth in Kingdom Hearts
II in their article "Kingdom Hearts III:
The IGN Concept", they stated that in
order to make his role in a future
sequel more entertaining, he would need
more development making him "be
confident, collected and committed to
the tasks at hand". Also commenting on
his role in a future sequel, GamesRadar
stated that having Sora's character
older would be necessary to make the
story more mature.
On the other hand, Sora also received
negative comments regarding his
characterization. He was third in
1UP.com's "Top 5 Most Irritating RPG
Protagonists" with writer Bob Mackey
commenting he is "a human version of
Mickey Mouse", criticizing his original
outfit and relationship with Riku and
Kairi, and finding him to be less
popular than the Disney characters
featured in the series. In January 2007,
Sora was listed the fourth "biggest
dork" of 2006 by Game Informer, citing
the Atlantica singing portions of the
game. GameDaily listed Sora as an
example of "The spiky-haired hero"
archetype, type of characters who have
appeared in RPG games since Final
Fantasy VII.
References
External links
Sora at the Internet Movie Database
