Review of Stars Align

Without Drama, this series would be 12 episodes of boring; exploring the concept of drama we are able to experience the characters rather than just watch them. This review will contain a lot of spoilers. TL;DR if you enjoy Drama and plot twists along with a bit of sport action, you will enjoy this. Story: 8/10 As such on the surface level, Stars Align is a series about the High School Boys' Soft Tennis Club replenishing their hope from being disbanded after 4 years without a win. However, the series manages to explore deeper connections between the charactersand their personalities; i.e Maki and Toma are victimsof domestic violence - Maki's abusive Fatherleeches money from his Mother whereas Toma's Mother loathes him and at one point during his infancy, he had hot water poured onto his back by his Mother leaving him with permanent scarring. Their personalities supplement each other because they understand each other's domestic hardships.Furthermore, Stars Align explores bullying and its roots through Kasuga who was born into a wealthy family with many internal conflicts which may have fueled her passively aggressive personality. This series also manages to explore a Rintaro's exposition to being adopted which adds fuel to the flame and stirs the plot a bit more. Overall, I'm expected a heated sequel since that ending left a large cliff hanger with Maki and his abusive Father...

Art & Sound: 7/10 8/10

I noticed a few action scenes where CGI was heavily relied on in the character figures but it wasn't bad comparedto a few series that fully implement CGI characters. I enjoyed some of the transitions that were used in the series such as the fading shot when Maki's abusive Father approached his apartment. Art & Animation were pretty good, I still don't understand how this series flew under the radar with that many fans enjoying Haikyuu, this series is similar but doesn't have an obnoxious and greedy MC like Hinata.

The Outro Song is amazing, it suits with the dancing outro... One of the best mixes of choreography and sound design in a non-idol/dancing Anime I've seen in a while! Enjoyed the background Soundtracks and character VA.

Character: 8/10
I didn't hold high expectations for this series in terms of character development since sports series tend to revolve around a power duo which makes the other characters in the team more or less redundant to the plot however, the drama that occurs between the main characters of the High School Soft Tennis Club allows each character to have their back story focused on. Love triangles, unrequitted love and oblivious love are subtle in this series but I think the sequel will elaborate on this between the Main female and the homosexual male character(s).

Overall, I think this series is worthy of an 8/10; I don't have much experience in drama but watching this was fairly an intense binge of a sports drama.