Sora (
Japanese:
ソラ?) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of
Square Enix's
Kingdom Hearts video game series.
[1] 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.
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.
[2] 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.
[3] Sora's Keyblade's primary form is the Kingdom Key (
キングダムチェーン Kingudamu Chēn?, Kingdom Chain), resembling a classic skeleton key approximately 3.5 feet (1.1 m) 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.
[4] During
Kingdom Hearts II, Sora dual-wields Keyblades, but their forms depend on the player's use of Keychains.
[3]
Across the series, Sora is depicted as a cheerful teenager who cherishes his friendships and relies on them for his strength.
[5] As a result, several of Sora's enemies use his friends as bait to use the Keyblade for their purposes.
[6] 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.
[7]
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.
[8] However, they are separated when their world is attacked by a group of dark beings known as the
Heartless[9] with Sora drifting to a town known as Traverse Town where he learns the Keyblade chose him to eliminate the Heartless.
[10] 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.
[11][12] 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",
[13] 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.
[14] Once arriving to Maleficent's headquarters, Hollow Bastion, and defeating her, Sora finds Riku
possessed by
Ansem,
[15] who reveals that Kairi's heart has been hiding within Sora's body.
[16][17] 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.
[18][19] After taking Kairi to safety, Sora and company confront and defeat Ansem until his defeat in the door of Kingdom Hearts.
[20] 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.
[21] Nevertheless, he, Donald and Goofy continue their search of Riku and Mickey.
[22]
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.
[23] 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.
[24] Sora still wishes to protect Naminé and stop the Organization members in the castle.
[25]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.
[26]
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.
[27] They visit the King's master,
Yen Sid, from whom they learn about the existence of the Nobodies and Organization XIII.
[28] 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.
[29][30] Eventually, with Mickey joining them, Sora's group finds a way to the Organization's main base in
The World That Never Was.
[31] The group soon reunites with Kairi as well as Riku, and continue fighting the Organization.
[32] 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.
[33]
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,
[34] 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.
[35] A young Sora and Riku briefly appear in Destiny Islands in the prequel to
Kingdom Hearts,
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.
[36] 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.
[37] 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.
[38]
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 main 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.
[39][40]
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.
[41] 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.
[42]
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.
[43]
Nomura has stated that Sora's name can be interpreted as "sky" as his name,
sora (
空?), 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."
[44][45] 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.
[46] He was also described by Nomura to have a forward personality, which allows him to make friends across the series.
[47] 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.
[48]
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.
[49] 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.
[50] 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.
[51] 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.
[44] 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.
[43] 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.
[52] In response to rumors saying that Sora's story would end in
Kingdom Hearts III, Nomura answered that Sora is the main protagonist of the series and that his role will end once the series ends.
[43] 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.
[53]