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Fans of sport anime are a weird beast.I'm not saying they're stupid but it usually takes a few years for them to realize how things are. Remember how Kuroko no Basket was considered identical to Haikyuu even though one just makes up superpowers on the spot while the other one has long slow arcs building tiny victories based on flawed characters. You can also look at Prince of Tenis' dominance over the genre for almost a decade, the love for Tsubasa's remake even though everything it does has been abandoned as the genre progressed, or the common idea that the genre is a shonen when most of its tropes come from shojo. As you can see, I'm extremely pedantic about this topic and I'll remain that way for the rest of the review.
Hoshiai no Sora uses the sport as a comparison point with the drama. I feel that even mentioning that there's drama is a big spoiler, the first time we jumped from happy boys being sort of cringey in a good way to violent parental abuse it felt like the most beautiful kick to the face I took since Sangatsu no Lion. But every review mentions it so there's no point in hiding it. Those reviews have this weird idea that sport anime has to be this math problem that can be done a single way, usually with an underdog, a training camp, senpai's sacrifice, one big loss, side characters explaining basic rules for the millionth time (what is this "goal" event you speak of? are you telling me points are tracked? how uncool is to punch the other player in the nuts? what is this "passing the ball" sorcery you speak of? and so on). I'm sorry to say that Hoshiai no Sora follows another sport anime style and that's a good thing you should learn to enjoy for your own good in life. If you think this isn't a proper sport anime then I guess Ashita no Joe, Ace wo Nerae o Big Windup aren't either. And now you're the elitist, but a really weird one.
In a spokon sport is an end in itself. Ippo is happy because he has boxing, boxing is good because it makes him happy, sometimes sad but that's part of being happy. In an otome sport anime sports are a medium for pretty boys to be pretty, the way sweat falls is more important that how did he move 30 feet in half a second. In a sport drama sports are a tiny spider thread that buda sent to save you from hell, it will break at the slightest mistake and best case scenario Joe is gonna get a warm meal this week but probably just alcoholic rants.
Some reviews say that sports are secondary to the plot. That's like saying firefighters are secondary to arson, I'd say they're pretty important but I get your point. You won't get anything epic out of this anime, no one is gonna get metaphorical ghosts holding them up or a single instant of victory changing their lives forever. You're gonna get sad kids being justified in their sadness, trying to do something about it, maybe getting a tiny bit ahead in life, trying to help each other and clearly failing to solve the underlying issue because they're kids and not even adults can actually do that much.
Complaining that this isn't doing a genre the way that you decided on your own it has to be isn't a critique, it's a really bizarre form of schizophrenia.
