Review of Stars Align

I consider this anime very good and it immediately won its place in my top faves. Not for everyone, I guess, but it's a refreshing kind of sports and slice of life mix. It addresses modern topics (domestic abuse, gender and sexuality, amongst a few others) in a very respectful and natural way that I have yet to see from other popular, seasonal animes. (Disclaimer: not claiming seasonal animes are bad in any way, it's just a different feeling.) The animation is fluid and entertaining to watch, specially in the soft tennis parts, and I commend the artists for how they draw character's expressions. The music givesit a final touch, and it really shows the people working on it know how to play with sound cues to tell us a story.

In general, I found Hoshiai no Sora an enjoyable experience. It tells a compelling story and makes good use of their resources, playing a lot with emotional tension and separating with a clear line the "Bad Moments" from the good ones. I recommend it.

Now, for some (more or less) spoiler-ed commentary:

The ending, I feel, is a bit abrupt. I kinda was looking for more. Still, I do think it fits the general theme and it's also executed very well. Edit: upon some simple research, I've found that the director's original idea was the anime to go for 24-25 episodes, but was cut short by the studio. This is most likely why it felt so out of pace.

I've seen the criticism to this anime being mostly about how all the characters have some sort of troubled family situation. In all honesty, I feel like that's an uniformed comment to make, one that plays under the assumption that dysfuncional households are an exception or particular, isolated cases, which is just not true.

Besides, it's not like the characters are mirror copies of each other, much less their family situations. They vary in a million ways, from severity to what the issue is and how the character in question takes it all in. It's not like they're all unhappy, either.