Review of Ahiru no Sora

[SPOILERS CONTAINED FOR MULTIPLE SPORTS ANIME] Mentioned below with severity of spoiler: Ahiru no Sora (major, but mostly summarized), Diamond no Ace (intermediate), Haikyuu (minor), Hosiai no Sora (very minor)The two words I would use to describe this anime is “peak edging”. Watching all 50 of these episodes has made me realize what it’s like to be on an opposing team in a sports anime like Haikyuu. You have players who are amazing and strive to get better and continue to fail and fail until the end. It’s as if this was the unneeded prequel to an actual sports anime.

Story: 5/10
First of all, excruciatingly slow. The story is relatively simple which allows it to be easily followed. However, there were certain occurrences throughout that just threw me off. Perhaps they have meaning eventually, but it feels like fodder in an already stretched out story. One of these is Madoka and the random dude (what I can remember off of the top of my head). I get that adding depth to characters is important, but that whole side of the story felt unnecessary and unrelated to the actual events of the anime. I have not read the source material, but parts of the plot just felt abysmal. I will talk about my disappointment in the constant losing in the enjoyment section. Even though it somewhat adds to the story with “wow they’re so determined” with how they get up and up again, it is frustrating seeing huge losses followed by small wins. Be warned.

Art: 6/10
The art was nothing amazing. Considering the anime completed 50 episodes in one cour, it’s not surprising that the animation was typical. I honestly would also say there weren't any scenes that really stood out either in terms of animation quality. Similarly, there wasn't any noticeable "bad"/lazy art.

Sound: 7/10
Ahiru no Sora had a pretty decent soundtrack. I personally enjoyed the opening and endings. Songs throughout were sort of repetitive, but nothing stood out like a sore thumb for being played in the wrong situation. Nothing really made an impact in an impressive way either. The sound quality was nice though. I did not have to adjust the volume due to parts being too loud or too quiet. Overall, everything sound related flowed quite smoothly.

Character: 5/10
I respect this anime for being able to show such detailed character growth and development between various relationships. I want more, but this could have been done with less. There is just too much. I get that every character has a backstory, forms relationships and so on, but a lot of meaning in the main story gets sort of muffled. This comes from the example previously stated in the story section with Madoka and the random dude. There was so much time spent on that connection, but it is then dissolved in an unsatisfactory way then used to progress the main story (at least this is what I got from watching it)? I wish we got to see more of Sora’s and the other’s on the team stories. I can see there is a lot of effort put into the characters, but one can easily see that effort is poorly directed.

Enjoyment: 4/10
My main reason for writing this review. The exact feelings I have towards this anime is written in the first sentence of the actual review. It pains me to see a potentially amazing anime fail as bad as the Kuzuryuu High School basketball team. I would say that I definitely was expecting this to be similar in some ways to other shounen sport stories where the main character’s team does well or struggles then does well. But no. This anime is literally 50 episodes of a scuffed team with individually strong players. Perhaps they will get better in the future. WELL THEN WHAT’S THE POINT OF THIS? I’m sure wins later on will be sooo satisfactory, but yeah, you need to miserably watch 50 episodes of suffering before you get to see the results. Or maybe they just never get better and the story is meant to be different from the standard of always winning. If drama was a focal point, I would expect games between schools to be less drawn out and a story similar to Hoshiai no Sora. An anime that does wins/losses well is Diamond no Ace. You can actually see progress after the team faces defeat rather than continuous losing. This comes along with the realism of being a beatable team which doesn't win every game.

Overall: 5.4/10 (rounded up to 6/10)
Pain.