Review of Stars Align

I had seen many people recommending this anime on Instagram and I’m glad I watched it because it’s really good! These types of slice of life anime tend to get overshadowed by big shonen anime, but personally, they’re often the ones I end up enjoying the most. It’s a short show with a simple story but nevertheless very interesting. As soft tennis is being introduced to the main character Maki, it is also introduced to the viewers, and that is well-done. Before watching the show, I had no idea this sport even existed, but without doing any research on it, I understood the basicsjust by watching. That’s because the rules and the moves are introduced gradually and are kept very simple, we don’t need to know about complex technique. Still not once have I felt like the sport was explained to me directly. It’s rather well-done and I thought it would be relevant to raise it.
Beside the sport, the show actually deals with abusive parents and social pressure, showing the consequences of that on teenagers. The relationships between parents and children depicted in the show are very interesting and are not as uncommon as one might think. Let’s dive into some of them:

Katsuragi Maki – Maki is a great character. He was raised by a violent father and an abused mother, which is a not so uncommon situation, alas. The children of an abusive parent tend to have one or a mix of these personality traits: they can mimic the abusive parent and themselves become abusers, they can act as a victim, letting themselves be targeted by bullies, not being able to stand for themselves, and they can be over-protective with the people they care about. The latter often happens when the child is not the only one to suffer from violence (one of their parents is being abused too, or their siblings). In those cases, the child is going to feel like they have to protect their abused parent/younger siblings… and sometimes even dare to step in to stop the abuser. Maki has this type of behaviour. He easily spots people who are in distress and offer them his aid. He also tries to hide the money his mom leaves for his dad and don’t tell her about his dad’s visits. He wants to protect her from him and from suffering. The only thing about Maki that makes me ponder is the way he seems self-assured and not afraid to speak up, as children of abusive parents tend to be less confident and more withdrawn. Though I am not an expert on the matter, and don’t know anyone around me who suffered from that (thankfully).

Shinjou Touma – Touma is not loved by his mother. We can see that he constantly seeks for his mother attention and recognition, when he is being very angry at her, making scenes, or when he desperately tries to tell her that he won several matches. It sometimes happens that a parent “loves” one of their children and despises the others. They usually abuse the children they don’t love while putting the one they love on a pedestal. It’s very likely that these parents don’t actually know how to love a child at all and are just enjoying creating envy and competition for their love among their children. In the case of Touma, I thought at some point that Touma would get angry to see Maki getting so good and so popular among the team, kind of taking his place in the spotlight, and reliving what he goes through at home with his brother. But no. It would have been interesting though.

Asuka Yuu – I was so pleased to see a queer character in an anime that is not a yaoi. I feel like homosexual characters in anime/manga are either there for fan service or because the anime revolves around that (I see you all the girls out here binge reading yaoi) or they’re just not represented at all. I might be wrong though because I haven’t read/seen that many manga/anime. One thing that I found interesting about Yuu questioning his identity and gender and the role of his gender in his life (does that make sense?) is that this need to put a label on yourself is one of the issues of the LGBTQ+ community. And I agree with what Maki says, one doesn’t need to put themselves in a box or be pressured to fall under one of the already-established-LGBTQ+-category. Gender is a social construction and most of the time people don’t have a problem with their sex but with the way their sex is considered and represented by society – their gender. “Make up is for girls, but I like wearing make-up, therefore, am I a girl? Not necessarily, maybe you’re just a boy who likes to wear make-up.”

Tsukinose Nao – Nao has an overprotective mother, and as it is said in the anime, being overprotecting to the point that you project your dreams and desires onto your child is a form of abuse. The problem is that the parent does not consider the child as an independent person with their own life, personality and goals but as a part of themselves or as their belongings. It’s a very toxic behaviour that is not that much criticized because after all, the parent is just caring for their child, right? No, being overprotective is damaging for the child who might feel smothered and guilty of never being good enough or not being able to meet their parent’s expectations which eventually results in them having low self-esteem and self-confidence. Also from what I have witnessed in my life, when the children are freed from their overprotective parent(s), they tend to be limitless and have dangerous behaviour, as an answer for having been frustrated for so long and/or they can develop anxiety and fear of the outside world, seeing everything as a potential threat. The show makes it clear : no matter the relationship between people, parents -children or lovers, no one belongs to anyone.

Kitsue Kanako – At first, she got me a little bit confused because she would spend her time hanging with the boys without them even asking her to be here. My introverted self was quite uncomfortable. But towards the end I understood her better. She didn’t have any friend, and Maki was the only one really nice to her so she just sticks with him because she has no one else to turn to and loneliness feels heavy. I like that even though she is a side character and seem to do nothing but follow the guys around, an other side of her is shown, her goals, her interests, her fears, her feelings. She not just watches the boys train and play but uses this as an opportunity to practice her drawing skills, she wants to become an artist though that job is not regarded as a “real job” or at least a proper job, she is scared her parents won’t let her do this, or people will consider her as dumb for choosing that path. Also she has the awkwardness of an introverted and I relate lol.

There’s more to say but I’ll stop here. The end let me confused. *spoilers to come* It’s not uncommon that parents or children victim of abuse kill their abuser. It can be either during a fight, when they feel like their life is in danger and if they don’t act now this is it for them or sometimes it can be premeditated. It’s a choice they are willing to make as a very last resort, the only way for them to protect themselves and their family. But it killing is not something trivial. And what got me confused is Maki’s smile on his face when he’s about to take action. It feels weird and out of place, as it killing his father was pleasurable, it is probably going to relieve him from a tremendous weight, but will never free him from the trauma he got from 15 years of being abused. Anyway, this is way too long already but I’m looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds in the second part of the season.

Also I think the show lacks a little something. The author seems to keep their distance with the characters. Their emotions lack depth and intensity. We need more close up shots, more exaggeration. In order to convey emotions to the viewers, animated shows have to exaggerate the characters emotions, maybe push it so far that it's almost a caricature. Still obviously one has to know when to push it and when not to. One last thing is that all the boys from the soft tennis club have dysfunctionnal families, resultin in the show to spread itself too much, and it's going to be difficult to deal with every character's situation in just 24 episodes. Maybe it would have better to just pick like three characters and focus on them. Quality is better than quantity. This show has a great potential and some of the topics that it covers are rarely dealt with in anime so I’ll give it that.