Review of Stars Align

Tired of watching all those isekai or comedy anime? Wanna actually watch an anime that’s close to real life? Then Hoshiai no Sora is that anime for you! But please let me tell you this. Don’t view it as an anime. Don’t just look at it as a fictional story. This isn’t for people who only watch anime to “escape” from real life. Watch it as if it’s actually happening in front of you, as if it’s happening in reality, as if the characters are people you know, as if you’re a third party observing what they are going through. If you can do that,then watching this will be very worth it.

Before I begin, I’d like to point out that this review will focus on what happened in the anime rather than how it happened. What I mean is that I won’t focus on things like character development or story pacing or stuff like that, since I’m not good with those aspects of stories. I’ll be talking about what they said and what they went through. This also may contain some spoilers.

When I first saw a PV for this show, I thought that maybe this would be like other sports anime. Almost all the sports anime I’ve seen has had drama in its run, and Hoshiai no Sora is no exception. But when I watched it; boy, was I wrong. What makes this anime different from other sports anime is that the drama is a more realistic reflection of the problems that happen in real life, and the sport the characters play isn’t the main focus of the anime, rather, it is a catalyst for the characters to help one another with their problems as they go through life. The first episode already had something major happen, which made me instantly love the anime (Don’t get me wrong, though. I hated what happened.).

Basically, the anime is about a soft tennis club on the verge of disbanding, until a new member shows up and helps make the club better than it was before. But don’t let the cute and clean art style fool you, as there are deep themes involved in the characters’ lives, and the characters try to go through them with the help of one another while at the same time trying to win a competition to save their club. The different problems that each character has are what make the show realistic.

One of the major themes that is seen in the anime are family problems. Almost everyone in the team has a problem with their parents, and there’s a whole episode that focuses on families. First, we have Maki, and from the very first episode, we can see that he has a major problem with his father, who was very abusive since he was born. Then we have Nao, who has what we can call a “helicopter parent,” as we can see that she doesn’t support what he likes and makes decisions for him thinking that it is for his own good. Basically, almost all of them have family problems, and the tennis club is there to bring them together for each other’s support.

Another theme the show tackled, which was something I liked, was sexuality and gender identity. In the second episode, one of the characters, Yuuta (a guy), was discovered by Maki to have liked another guy. This scene made me like the show even more, as this gives us some LGBT+ representation in anime where the supporting character isn’t judged or made a big deal out of, or used as a major plot point. In another episode, due to some circumstances, Yuuta and Maki end up talking about gender identity, and it is revealed that someone Maki knows is actually transgender, which gives us good trans representation in anime. This scene is probably one of my favorites in the series, as Yuuta mentions that he doesn’t know what he identifies as, and Maki says he doesn’t have to rush. It’s okay to take time to figure yourself out. What matters the most is being able to discover who you are and what you want to be, and it doesn’t matter how long it takes to do so. This really hit close to home, as I am also part of the LGBT+.

Some of the characters of the show that I think are worth mentioning are Maki, Yuuta, and Mitsue. I have already talked Yuuta before, so I will be talking about Maki. He’s a 14 year-old middle school student who just moved back to his hometown and started studying in the school where the story takes place. We see that he is very active, he uses the stairs instead of the elevator, and he also does basically all of the chores. We then also notice that he has insane reflexes, and Toma (his classmate) also notices this and asks him to join the tennis club. After certain conditions, he accepts and that moves the story forward. What I like about Maki is that he’s one of the mature ones in the group. Because of what happened in his youth, he’s able to see the important things in life, and he’s able to talk about it with his friends. I think it’s even better given how young he is, because a lot of us when we were his age didn’t really care much about doing good things or not, we just did what we wanted to do. Maki does things his way, but with a goal in mind. Him being there helps improve the tennis club, and in a way, slowly helps relieving his friends’ emotions from all of their problems.

Next, I’ll be talking about Mitsue’s character. When we first see her, the first thing we might think is that she’s a cynical jerk. I thought that way as well. But as the time passed by, I realized why she became that way. Her parents are unsupportive of her dream, and people online diss her for it, so who wouldn’t be cynical? While some of her actions aren’t good, they are understandable. The reason she was a jerk to the tennis club was because they were enjoying what they liked when the people around them don’t support them, when she was also going through the same thing. While she was a jerk, she still supported them, as she still went to some of their activities even if she said that she didn’t want to. And by the end of the anime, we can see that she really is to start rooting for them; she is more supportive to them and actually starts drawing soft tennis drawings, and she starts to ignore all the hateful comments thrown at her from art, which I think is a good development for her.

Another thing I liked about the show was how they implemented some things that a lot of people worry about, but for others it doesn’t seem like a big deal. An example is when the club was in one of their activities and everyone was talking to each other and having fun except for Toma. Yuuta noticed this and asked Toma about it, and Toma replied that he isn’t good at slipping into groups and having fun. I also felt this, since I’m not that much of a social person as well.

At the end of the day, even if there were tons of drama, it’s still a sports anime, and the sports did not disappoint. Even if the sports weren’t the focus of the anime, the show was properly able to explain the techniques and rules soft tennis has. The animations of the sports scenes were fluid, and it was really exciting to watch. The closest I have with playing soft tennis is badminton (the players have to use rackets), but I think I can say that everything here related to the sport is pretty spot-on. The sports peaked at the final episodes, and they were amazing as well.

All in all, I think that was an amazing anime, especially with it being an original. They were able to talk and discuss about different problems that people go through in real life, and they were also able to execute the drama with the sports perfectly. I’ve noticed that people think it’s weird that they just placed some drama here and there without any build-up. But that’s how one would see it if they just viewed it as an anime. If one were to view it as a reflection of real life, however, not just a normal show, they’d be able to better understand why. You don’t just know someone in real life then they’ll slowly gives hints about their problems and then BOOM, that’s when you feel some emotion for them. In real life, you wouldn’t be able to know who has what kind of problems, and people you know that don’t seem to have any problems with their lives might end up being hurt because of them. You shouldn’t expect some build-up before that happens. But I guess that’s my opinion, since other people care a lot more about that aspect of the show

I guess since I viewed it like real life rather than just the regular anime (probably one of the rare times I’ve done this), I thought it was amazing and pretty realistic. I was even able to learn about new topics that I didn’t know of before, like postpartum depression, and also some soft tennis techniques (not that I’ll ever use them though, I'm not that sporty). Although it ended with a major cliffhanger, with everything that happened here, I can say that this anime has rightfully made it to my favorite Sports and Drama anime, and if there’s a 2nd season, I’d definitely watch it. But this anime probably isn’t for those who watch sports anime just for the sports or cares too much about how much drama there is in an anime.