Review of Stars Align

The boys soft tennis club of Shijo Minami middle school is, in a word, hopeless. in a set of practice matches against the successful and popular girls soft tennis club at the school, the boys fail to win a single point. Faced with a laughing stock club with a dwindling set of members, trying to balance the books and ashamed of how this 'sore thumb' club sticks out compared to the girls soft tennis club, the student council gives them an ultimatum - win a match at regionals in the summer or the club gets disbanded for good. Toma Shinjo is the president of the club,and despite his own potential and work ethic he can't get anything to work. Until he meets a new transfer student he knew back in junior school who he finds, when he manages to catch a stray cat dashing around the class, has outstanding reflexes. As what he sees to be the only way out for the club, he begs this boy, Maki, to join. With no intent on joining (and living in a single parent household where his mum works long hours, he has to dedicate a lot of time to helping with the chores, shopping etc.) he jokingly suggests Toma pay him and he'll join. To his surprise Toma accepts. Somewhat hesitantly, Maki joins the soft tennis club and from then on its the long journey of kicking the club into shape in the space of a few months in the hopes of saving it from the brink of death.

We quickly find it's less so about tennis, and more so a character study about fraught family relationships and the impact that can have on vulnerable adolescent boys.
Toma has a rocky relationship with his mum, who seemingly no matter what he does sees him as a disappointment compared to his older brother, who used to compete in tennis nationally. Tennis isn't about fun for him- it's about winning and being someone to be proud of when expectations on him are stacked up to the ceiling. Maki, who becomes Toma's pair, gets the most focus - at the end of episode one we find that him and his mum are plagued by his physically abusive and now divorced father for money every few weeks. The mum works long hours for little money- with the father muscling in to skim away money they dont have, the family lives in borderline poverty. As they move house semi-regularly to try and avoid the father (all spoiled due to Japanese laws that allow biological parents to legally apply to find the residence of their children even if they do not have custody), Maki learns to build a front that everything's ok. He's cocky and confident but reserved and detached, and very good at acting like everything's ok, but it's a story of that front cracking open and opening up about his traumatic past and difficult life, and also finding an actual hobby in tennis that makes life something other than work/schoolwork/chores/sleep.

The supporting cast, bar practically none, have some sort of unhealthy relationship with at least one of their parents. In the interest of dodging spoilers, i'll go over some of the most interesting ones and err towards ones covered earliest in the show. One boy is trying to come to terms that he's adopted, as he reevaluates his relationship with his parents after he finds they aren't his biological family. Another is protective to the point of abusive, attempting to domineer and keep control of her only child in any way she can even to the point of trying to bully him away from the tennis club he grows more and more to love. One of my favourite characters in the show is an aspiring artist that secretly has a moderate following of fans online, as they sort of put on a brave face in real life while they have to navigate the toxicity of an unsupportive mum and of their own fanbase, responding cruelly as their interests and style changes drastically to what these fans first followed their page for.

One of the worst things about the show is that it tries to juggle a character arc for all of these characters and more and leaves development for each lacking. As these stories tangle and trip over eachother, nothing gets concluded satisfactorily. In addition to Maki and Toma, it's trying to give a character arc and develop each member of the entire club (at least 8 people), along with two non-players in its orbit, certain key family members important to them, and establishing personalities for key rivals in other schools' clubs. If that wasn't enough, it attempts to resolve all these plot threads simultaneously rather than giving you the time to digest a few at a time. All this in a one cour show. It's a Herculean task, to say the least.

It pays a price on the telling of practically each of these character stories. A plotline about an lgbt character gets promptly forgotten completely after the episode it briefly features in. Whilst Maki is compelling and believable and is given enough screentime and development to be satisfying, its hard to say that for any other characters unless their arc is intentionally brief and succinct for example with Itsuki (whose arc is centralised into a chunk in a single episode, and feels finished).The show was planned to run two cour and, supposedly, relatively late in the game was only given clearance for a single cour, so that helps explain the situation somewhat. But for most of the characters I felt attached to their situation and invested in their story only for it to develop only part way, and that feels quite disappointing when, for a few of the reasons listed below and its uncomfortable and non-prime-time TV friendly forefronting of domestic violence its quite unlikely it will ever get a continuation to resolve things.

In the sections it does actually focus on tennis, there's plenty to criticise. For an anime about a tennis club playing, it doesnt actually explain much in terms of the intricacies of the game. Though i learned a lot about some aspects of the game - strong servers are scary, stamina pays off in the ends of longer games, in doubles pairings are hugely important (in terms of being on the same wavelength and communicating, but also accommodating the other players' playstyle and personality and playing to their strengths, and you can abuse the weaker link even if one player seems indomitable a team's only as strong as its weakest link etc), the importance of the mental game and how you can throw even a challenging opponent off-balance by nudging them in the right way (and how gimmicks can gain real results by catching an opponent unprepared and putting them on tilt) - these points are the sole things it ever communicates about the games that get played, and it breezes past everything else in between.

Whilst it's good at expanding upon that chosen handful of the intricacies to higher-level play and at explaining the absolute basics, it forgets to establish much of the inbetween. Beyond brief platitudes to the roles of the front and back player and a repeated emphasis on smashes and volleys as confirmed ways to win points capitalising off of errors, as a complete novice to doubles tennis coming into the show i still come out not much wiser on the in and out rhythms, win conditions, roles, movements and shape of a point, a game, and a match of doubles should look like at the show's close. While part of that blame can surely he pointed towards the animation problems i'll detail in the following paragraphs, its also a problem with the show's understanding or at least conveyance of how the game is played to an audience that doesnt have at least some experience in doubles tennis prior.

For a sports anime, it's also quite a confusing how its animation is such a weak point. This is usually the easy bit, and something you'd expect to see down pat, particularly in a shorter runtime than your average sports-shonen. It's difficult to find the tennis compelling when the animation looks so shoddy. Though a handful of shots look great, theres a lot of shots that blatantly gets reused, uses very limited animation or just looks lazily made. It infringes on the pacing of the games as it can make it difficult to interpret why someone's winning or losing when there's not much animation budget to spare to animate many of the points in each game. When you do get more than a brief still with a score change layered over it, most actually animated points rely on enough reused animation there's little room for nuance in communicating the improving talents of these supposedly radically improved talent this club develops.

In the scenes and episodes the show focuses more on the people than the tennis, the show can pivot off of the broken leg of its limited animation and onto its stronger foot - the candid view on its characters' mental health through harsh family situations that arent handled much in most anime (and certainly not in its genre), and its portrayal of the unspoken atmospheres of the club changing throughout the series as bonds strengthen, talents grow, results turn around.

As for other things worth praising in the show, there a few aspects worth mentioning. It's art is very very pretty, and some of its backgrounds are gorgeous (I'm thinking of the riverside walk the gang take to and from school). The pastel colours and simple backgrounds take a leaf from Wandering Son's book, and are some of the biggest reasons I jumped into the show in the first place. The soundtrack is nothing to go crazy over and occasionally suffers from its best tracks getting overused, but it's generally quite a good fit for the show and has a few bops (including one surprisingly math-rocky track I quite liked). The OP is a beautiful track that really captures the wounded but proud, fighting vibe that its communal cast effuse through the show. The ED is, hands down, the best animated part of the show, and is brimming with personality as it shows pairs of its characters dancing each with their own measure of style, bombast, stamina, timing and interest.

Hoshiai no Sora was a show I was expecting to love after one episode and came away somewhat disappointed in after thirteen. But having listed all those quite biting points of contention as strong flaws against it's name, I'm surprised I still liked it enough to give it a 6/10. In so many ways, something that's such a mess for most of its runtime is something I shouldn't be so kind to. And that's partly why I'm writing this review - despite all of its glaring faults, the show has heart. It's fascinating, and I hope despite knocking it down a few pegs, it comes across I think it's totally worth your time if you can stomach it's occasionally gratuitous portrayal of domestic abuse and want a sports anime out of the ordinary or a decent character study.