Hoshiai no Sora (Stars Align)

Constantly outperformed by the girls' club, the boys' soft tennis club faces disbandment due to their poor skills and lack of positive results in matches. In desperate need of members, Toma Shinjou is looking to recruit capable players, but he fails to scout anyone. Enter Maki Katsuragi, a new transfer student who demonstrates great reflexes when he catches a stray cat in his classroom, instantly capturing Toma's attention. With his interest piqued, Toma ambitiously asks Maki to join the boys' team but is quickly rejected, as Maki doesn't wish to join any clubs. Toma refuses to back down and ends up persuading Maki—only under the condition that Toma will pay him for his participation and cover other club expenses.

As Maki joins the team, his incredible form and quick learning allow him to immediately outshine the rest of the team. Although this gives rise to conflict among the boys, Maki challenges and pushes his fellow team members to not only keep up with his seemingly natural talent, but also drive them to devote themselves to the game they once neglected.

This story focuses on the potential of the boys' soft tennis club and their discovery of their own capability, while also enduring personal hardships and dealing with the darker side of growing up in middle school.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters & Voice Actors

Katsuragi, Maki

Main

Hanae, Natsuki
Japanese

Shinjou, Touma

Main

Hatanaka, Tasuku
Japanese

Asuka, Yuu

Supporting

Yamaya, Yoshitaka
Japanese

Mitsue, Kanako

Supporting

Mineda, Mayu
Japanese

Ameno, Itsuki

Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu
Japanese

Tsukinose, Nao

Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuusuke
Japanese

Soga, Tsubasa

Supporting

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Ouji, Arashi

Supporting

Terashima, Takuma
Japanese

Futsu, Rintarou

Supporting

Satou, Gen
Japanese

Takenouchi, Shingo

Supporting

Satou, Keisuke
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Itou, Shousei

Producer

Hasegawa, Yoshinori

Producer

Herek, Samantha

Assistant Producer

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Opening Theme

"Suisou (水槽)" by Megumi Nakajima

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Ending Theme

"Kago no Naka no Bokura wa (籠の中の僕らは)" by AIKI from bless4

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Dec 26, 2019

kataneer

Not Recommended

Spoiler

This review contains spoilers
(tl;dr at the end)

Since the last year, I have been trying to find that one anime every season. Yeah, maybe you know it: that one who has "Source: Original" in its description, flies under the radar for the most viewers who prefer sequels of the already popular shows, and has a potential to become something unique. Original anime means that you don't need to try to adapt 50 chapters of the manga or 4 volumes of the light novel into 12-episode format, to create original ending or give your anime no ending at all, to cut a lot of storylines and ... the character development from the source material — because the source material for this one is only the imagination of the scriptwriter. And, honestly, I hate it. I always hate when original anime with a curious premise disappoints me. RErideD, Fairy Gone, Bem, Tokunana — all of them have decent ideas in their basis and horrible realizations of them.

Of course, HoshiSora (or Stars Align in the English version) is a lot better than all those abominations, but it is still not enough to become something enjoyable. Pilot episode from this "Fall 2019 sleeper hit that isn't your average sports anime" was really well-done and gave me high hopes for something fresh in the sports genre — but this show became an average slice-of-life with horrible forced drama really soon. Sad bad true, once again. So, what went wrong?

In the first episode, we meet our main characters. We have a school soft tennis club — a bunch of losers with a useless coach and zero motivation to improve themselves, the leader of this club, Toma, who already in despair because he can't change anything, and Maki, transfer student and a potentially good player with a talent who can become a savior for a team. Sounds like a generic sports anime, right? Maybe, but the direction of this episode was really great. Conflicts between Toma, his team, and a school council, dialogues between Toma and Maki ("pay for play"), first interactions between Maki and neighbor girl — all of that was really well-done, with the usage of "show, don't tell" rule and some direction tricks. Add a pretty good animation, comfy music, and, of course, surprising ending with Maki's abusive father - and you will get the best pilot episode of the season. What this show will be? A "not your average sports" anime? A realistic drama? A romance between Maki and that girl whose name I don't know? I was excited and asked for more... and got this.

Realistic sports anime? Not really. After joining the team, Maki suddenly becomes literally a god of soft tennis. One practice - and he already knows how to play. Two — and Maki/Toma pair destroys all other club members. A few days - and in the ep 2, he becomes an actual leader of the team and a great strategist. He provides a manager to a club, he already knows how other members of the team must play, what tactics they should choose, their strong and weak points and how to improve their results - and yeah, it works! All the players in the club suddenly started to play a way better — and in the match against one of the top soft tennis schools in the prefecture (episode 5-6), the soft tennis club is playing with them like they are equal!

Really, scriptwriters? Yeah, I can understand why Maki became a solid player after only a few pieces of training. Maybe, he is a genius, he has a talent or something like that — yeah, cliche, but why not. However, how Maki suddenly received his strategical skills? In the pilot episode, we've got that Maki and his mother have moved numerous times before because they've been trying to escape from Maki's abusive father. So, a guy who don't have any close friends (because he changed a lot of schools), who was often bullied by his father (domestic abuse, yay), who is unsociable (episode 5 and how Maki speaks with Toma in his house)... actually becomes a coach and a psychologist who knows all weak points of his team and how to improve it? How to speak with all members and how to train them? Are you kidding me? And yeah, all problems in their playstyle were successfully resolved because of Maki. He is a genius! He is perfect! He is... just a typical Gary Stu, honestly.

And what about the "pay to play" idea? I thought that Maki will be talented, but an unsociable player who doesn't care about this team, who acts like "I play just for the money". Or, for example, money for the game will become a drive who develops relationships between Maki and his father. What have we actually got? Nothing again. Maki is already a very friendly player who always helps the team, so in ep 5 was the last time when this idea was mentioned, the same as the Maki/Kenji relationships. After the fifth episode and Toma's defense, Maki's father just went out of the house... and never come back. Great job!

Exciting tennis matches? Not here again. All members of the club weren't revealed at all (except our main pair Maki/Toma), so all of their matches look like "undeveloped characters vs cardboard opponents". Add here the fact that tennis (especially pair soft tennis) isn't as exciting as more traditional sports in anime (football, basketball, etc), and all that you got is just some dull matches between bland characters. Nothing interesting and nothing awesome, most of the matches (except maybe some Maki/Toma ones) was simply a boring mess.

Maybe this show is not a sports anime, but a heavy teen drama? Yeah, right. It's a teen drama — one of the laziest and annoying examples of it that I've ever seen in anime. All parents in HoshiSora are abusive and hate soft tennis. Every member of the club just has a random dramatic background. One of them is illegitimate, second has step-mother who abuse him, third has a helicopter mom who hates tennis, fourth has mother who poured boiling water on him when he was a child... drama, drama, drama, a bunch of random conflicts that haven't any development at all because this show has only 12 episodes and that's not enough time to successfully solve them. All of these conflicts just don't bother me at all — "Oh, another forced drama and another abusive parent's background story, how interesting". Because of it, all the characters in this show (except Maki and Toma) seem so bland that I even hadn't remembered their names. Random LGBT themes? Child abuse? Also here. Because what else do we need for the forced drama? Seriously, even Akame ga Kill's deaths were way more dramatic and touching than any of the background stories about these characters.

A romance? Mmm... we have a girl who likes to watch tennis and draw something about it. She exists. That's all.
We have a student council president. She also exists (we even saw one random flashback about her). That's all.
LGBT romance? Well, one of the characters is gay. Why? Just because. That's also all.

Maybe it's a slice of life anime? Yeah, most of the SoL moments were really well done. Good animation, comfy visual style, relationships between Maki and Toma, Maki and the girl, the team and their opponents are actually the best part of the show. However, even those moments don't make the show better. After a comfy moment, we got another forced drama. After well-done dialogues between characters - another shitty dramatic flashback. Nothing enjoyable here again.

TL;DR - Hoshiai no Sora is just a trainwreck. It has cute animation, some good slice-of-life elements and interactions between members of the club, fine music (op and ed), but all of that was ruined by shitty forced drama, incompetent writing, and Gary Stu as the main character. Wanna see good tennis anime? Watch Teekyuu, it has a way better character development.

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Dec 26, 2019

KANLen09

Recommended

This show truly has the definition of "don't judge a book by its cover", because it ain't just a sports anime, but one that is rife with the daily affluences of family drama and matters that's spread all over it. And knowing director Kazuki Akane on this show's influence taken mostly from his creation of "Noein" and planning this original story for over a decade, I'd say that while this has caused A HELL LOT of backlash, like Satoshi Mizukani's Planet With, the end result is truly the icing on the cake, whether you'd decide to take it literally or not, I believe that what ... Akane-san wanted out of it, he truly accomplished it to its feet with his unorthodox method of storytelling.

You must be wondering why the title literally says "Stars Align", but it's Kazuki Akane's way of foreshadowing that no human is ever perfect, and we're like the stars of the sky, when life beats us down harsh, the common interest in question (soft tennis) aligns us in the thread of fate, that is adolescent trauma (which happens to be his favourite theme). Being grown-ups, the world that they know is never a bed of roses, so the harsh reality of families growing through the different pangs and uncertainties must know how to counteract on their very own. While the school/soft tennis club part is there to help expose and alleviate their true natures of the sufferings going through with parental disabilities, or expectations as simply you would call it, all kinds of nature are laid in bare sight. What these adolescent teens (i.e. Maki, Toma and the others) must do is not to take that emotional attachment and let it be the ridiculing point of their lives, but rather, no matter how much understanding others may have on their struggles, it's the reconciliation that leads to the amalgation of their feelings and work it out to experience their joy (which again, is in the soft tennis club) as an output.

And to this point, all the dysfunctional boys in the Shijo Minami Boy's soft tennis team, budding artist but introverted and bullied Kanako Mitsue, and Kinuyo Kasuga the student council president, all face different but similar parental dysfunctions that affect them both physically and mentally, but not without some help from the same outside community that was once split but now bonded with understanding and acceptance, to push past their fears and limitations to be the best they could be. Even the worst of issues have a silver lining that despite how much relentlessness was given, any amount of joy would overcome the overglaringly terror and rebuild it into something special. All were alone, but the least of forgivings were not enough to separate each and every single member to reunite and conquer these harsh battles together.

Studio 8-bit's visuals have never looked so better, especially with the soft tennis matches that seem to glide by every so often with the amount of exceptional precision and realism. While the overall stance is decent, the character designs are one that pops out in the slew of recognizing who's who and what's what, being that informative for reasons I cannot fathom, but with the puzzle pieces put together, paints a canvas that excels better than my initial thoughts about what this could be. Light-hearted visuals but not without the more serious moments (a.k.a parent-child arguments) make this one of those shows that stand out for reasons.

And speaking of the music, I do enjoy the music and sounds of the show, with some realistic voice acting in the parental issues and OP and ED (of which the former comes VERY often), playing into sound design of the show that's just well done IMO. Always been a fan of Megumi Nakajima's music and this OP shows, while the ED's music is also good, and the dance...let's just say that copyrighted material needs to be attended to foremost.

More than just a realistic drama-ified anime, Kazuki Akane's Hoshiai no Sora brings one important point to start and end its story: "Wherever you are in life, everyone goes through thick and thin, and it takes two hands to clap, so grab a partner that can help spur each other's life forward and achieve things you couldn't have imagined you'd accomplish." Love it or hate it, Stars Align truly will forever be misunderstood under Akane-san's direction, but for those who got the gist of it, make your life count, and keep moving forward.

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Dec 26, 2019

Navaneeth_007

Recommended

Well, First Of all The Anime was Axed At 12 episodes by the production company even though the director wanted 24 episodes to Completely Tell the Story. So when he was given opportunity to choose either one from fast pace of story or Leave it at half he chose to keep at decent page and leave it Half.

Now coming To the Anime Review,
If you are suggested to watch the anime based on Sports Genre what you found was Half Correct. Coz this Anime is 50% Sports 50% Drama.

But This anime is Off the chart with mind blowing character Development and surrounding coverage. ...

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Shinjou, Touma

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