Hoshiai no Sora

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, Touma 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 Touma's attention. With his interest piqued, Touma ambitiously asks Maki to join the boys' team but is quickly rejected, as Maki doesn't wish to join any clubs. Touma refuses to back down and ends up persuading Maki—only under the condition that Touma will pay him for his participation and cover other club expenses.

Maki joins the team, and 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.

As the members of the boys' soft tennis club discover their own capabilities, they endure personal hardships and deal with the darker side of growing up in middle school.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Katsuragi, Maki Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Shinjou, Touma Main

Hatanaka, Tasuku Japanese

Asuka, Yuuta 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

Cook, Justin Producer

Itou, Shousei Producer

Kyoutani, Tomomi Producer

Mukaichi, Motoki Producer

Reviews

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 10, 2020

Hei41

Mixed Feelings

I'm usually the one that only reads reviews but I felt like I had to write something about this show.

Why ? Because I felt kinda disappointed at the end. I've watched the firsts 7 episodes straights because the show had a good rythm, but it lost it during the last episodes, that are either too slow or too rushed (especially the ending)
I am somewhat frustrated because it began really nicely and thought there was finally a show that deals about serious subjects such as abuse, bullying and LGBTQ+ characters but is also "plot focused" (on sport events).

I think this show had some good ideas but ... in the end they were poorly executed. I read somewhere that there had to be 24 episodes at first but then they decided to make only 12 so it can explain this brutal ending. Maybe it lacks of "normal" supports characters (who have no tragic background or shitty parents to deal with)
So, I'm not gonna blame the story writters for daring to make something new, but I hope there will be more slice of life animes which deals with serious issues and with more character development.

Also, I am sorry if my review is hard to read but english is not my mother tongue. I hope it is still understadable for yall,

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 26, 2019

RPWPA

Not Recommended

Repetition ruins a lot of things. It can ruin a job, a movie or even an anime considering the rate at which the repetition happens. Sadly, in this anime, the repetitive drama was one of the worst things I saw in an anime.

When it comes to sports anime, I tend to judge it based on 2 main ideas: The sport's part and the human interaction/plot part. So I'll do that here.

First one is the sport's part, it gets a 3/10. As a tennis fan watching these games, I felt a lot of cringe. The rules are kinda the same but the excution is ... bad. I can understand for example a player trying to touch the ball before it falls to the ground the first time but no one ever just jumps at the first ball like it's a bomb that would explode if it touched the ground. I could understand that the characters didn't care about the sport but they were in the club for a lot of time to not know the very very basic stuff.
Also, using the same animation over and over again to make it seem like there was a big rally going and how the rallys were actually happening in the anime were so stupid.

The idea of making every match end 4 3 or 4 2 to make it seem like it was close was also annoying. Why not let an underdog win if you want to make it exciting?
I'm really generous giving the sport's part a 3/10 tbh.


Now to the 2nd part which is the characters. 3/10.
"My parent/s hates me so I'm sad". This is legit 100% the drama. Not a single character has good parents iirc. Having a character who lives a shitty life because of a bad parent or 2 is ok but when this is almost every character in the anime then something is wrong here. This is just playing on the fan's feelings and sympathy in the dumbest way possible.

There is the MC who is so wise, accepting and has the answer to every problem you face. The annoying female girl that is too edgy for the world yet is sometimes made as the victim despite starting a fight for no reason. The LGBT guy that has to be there for the anime to be inclusive even thought he helped like once in the entire anime. There are lots and lots more of bad characters filling the show up from the start to the end. This was just bad to watch simply because of the characters' interactions which were just bad.

There were legit 2 characters I liked to see that had reasonable drama, the red haired guy and his sister. I think those were the most acceptable ones tbh.

Overall I would give the anime a 3/10. Really disappointing for an anime that had a very good start to it yet failed so hard. Considering how the anime went, it may get a second season but idk how it is going to actually be better than this one or even give a saving grace to this.

Wouldn't recommend it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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