SPOILER WARNING:
First of all, for the lazy people out there, a TLDR will be at the end...
Okay, so, the anime has a very slow start to it, and I had to force myself to watch it without looking at the synopsis because I'm not that into sports anime. Low and behold, the sports part to it doesn't actually have much action in it, a little funky animation, but tbh overall not that bad.
The story focuses on the main character, Maki (using his nickname cause who has time to remember their long ass names) who just moved back into his home town. He transfers into the school the story focuses on and gives off a vibe of a very nonchalant, mind-my-own-business person. He gets confronted by the Soft Ball Tennis Captain in order to be recruited, to which he was denied, but eventually accepted. They made a deal and a bit of the MC's past is revealed.
Turns out that the MC's dad is abusive, his parents split up due to this fact, and although they split up, the dad still visits from time to time to basically steal money from them. The mother works constantly and possibly determines the risk of aggravating her ex-husband too risky, and so she lets him steal money. The moments where the trash husband would "visit" had me going for the first half of the show, since, I'll be real honest here, nothing real interesting was actually happening.
The story progresses and it turns out that pretty much all of the tennis' members' parents are literal trash bags besides a few. Some kids are adopted and one is struggling with his identity. Those parts were a bit ehhhh, but since I'm into the whole depression, sad, angsty side of anime, I was all for it. My personal opinion, and may very much differ for someone else.
Now the part that made me rate this show higher than I would've and lower than I would've, is the last episode. Maki's tennis partner's (ngl, forgot his name) mom just told him that she was going to divorce her husband because she can't stand the failure that is her son. Like I side, most of the characters' parents are actual trash bags. Anyways, after that, when Maki gets back home, he sees that his mother is not. And that worries him. He sees the envelope used for paying his dad on the table, ripped open and empty. This alights rage in him, not just any rage, cold rage. He goes out and purchases a nice long knife from a store before heading out to his dad's apartment. There, he stands in front of the door, and a thought runs through his mind persistently, "We'll never be free while he's still alive." AND THE FREAKING EPISODE AND SERIES ENDS THERE. I HATE CLIFF HANGERS AND THAT JUST BROKE ALL LAWS OF COMMON HUMAN DECENCY.
TLDR: The anime didn't really know what it wanted to be. The sports sequences weren't all that interesting and the drama was way too dramatized (but I liked it since it was dark). The MC was also a little too perfect, with a few flaws, and I'll admit a pretty depressing backstory (in terms of slice of life). The series was pretty slow, but the little moments made it better. Overall, not bad, but it ends with a cliff hanger, which just makes it a little worse.