Review of Ahiru no Sora

Formal and Dramatic (Warning: this review contains important spoilers, be warned.) I really liked how Ahiru no Sora manages to act as a collective test of endurance between characters and viewers. The protagonists do not win any game during all 50 episodes. The weight of the practically certain defeats, of the changes that the characters suffer, of the early elimination at the beginning of the championship, all the disappointment experienced by the characters who fail to achieve small conquests is always reflected to the public through a dramatic formality in small details. The anime during matches gives a very significant importance to some more dramatic devices than theoccasional one. There are several things happening at the same time in small details. The anime frames the scoreboard with a distressing relationship. Each basket has a very significant weight, whether the point is for or against the characters, or if they are winning or losing a match.

The result of these formal choices is never related only to the match being played. These small details are very well suited to this dramatic relationship that is very well developed and correlated with Basketball. The main characters already have a relationship linked to defeats and personal problems, or caused by themselves. Instead of the anime victimizing these actions and difficulties, it recognizes and uses them as a means for them to overcome and be able to move on.

Even though the dramatic development is sensational, the way it ends in a few moments disappointed me a little. The truth is that anime most of the time works with this in a very subtle way, and even manages to finish it in the same way in some moments, but in others it does it in a very glaring way, which ends up sounding very appealing.