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I'll try a review for once:
To be perfectly honest with everyone I have no clue how to review something based on the structure and all those stuff Lit majors can do. That's said I can rated it based on my own personal bias opinions.

Before I actually begin, I should probably address the elephant in the room. Aokana is a great show, great in the way that the overall theme didn't require romance. Let's take a look at the opening scene. The few slides after the beat drops, we see a few words "The True Battle Comes After Losing." I don't see how in any way, ... where having this pop up in the opening could ever lead to any romance. The show has never been about romance, if you so duly desire some romance download tinder or play the visual novel. If you can't understand how this adaptation is ruined with romance, you haven't seen enough anime.

Now that we've address that, the first thing I'd like to review is the animations. However bare in mind I typically enjoy mecha animations so I cannot say too much about this section. That said compared to the game CG (which I've not played yet) they were pretty accurate with some of the effects toned down. But much like most anime, there are scenes where people are drawn correctly, but as long as it isn't on the quality level of Rail Wars, then it gets a passing.

Characters. Where do I begin? While each of the heroines are developed, most are lacking. Notably the Main Character from the visual novel. But once again THIS IS NOT A ROMANCE ANIME. Thus his role as a supporting character is a good choice and is fine to underdeveloped. In my personal opinion the true main characters were Misaki and Asuka. We see both of their emotions and struggles with the sport. And how the few words in the opening actually reflect this. However it falls short because of some characters. Their presence is so small that the anime could have been the same without that character or that scene in general (there are few trust me, you can't miss them). The characters as a whole are likable in the cast, but some characters could have had more of an impact, like Rika and Mashiro. But overall the cast is enjoyable.

Now I would go into the sounds, but unfortunately, I'm not particular good at describing it beyond saying each soundtrack and that insert, all flowed well with the show.

Now onto the plot. There's a reason why I called this show "beginner's luck the animation." This is one issue where sport shows fail at, and it's usually why I don't watch many, but it always shows the character having some natural talent in the sport that they had no knowledge of. This is taken up to 11 when Asuka decides to have a match with another student on the day she just learnt to fly. Now you may be asking, isn't the theme of this show "the true battle comes after losing?" And I'd answer yes little one. So it's no spoiler that some main character will lose the will to continue playing the sport. This is when it gets good, you see tensions rise between friends and teammates while that character tries to understand why she wants to fly (please it's not a spoiler when there's only 2 guys who actually do sport), what compels her. And it's these parts that make the show good.

And sadly we must come back to the elephant. Throughout the series there are hints at why Masaya doesn't play the sport anymore. The main character of the show also has flashbacks about a certain boy she met in the past, yet she brushes it off and decide not to put 2 and 2 together. I believe this is what most people got angry at. However if we look at it from another perspective, these flashbacks allowed the characters reaffirm what's important to them and how to achieve their goal.

Now let me address the romance for all the haters. How would the writers incorporate it? According to some places I've read this is Asuka's route. Now if Masaya and Asuka were to develop some romance how will Masaya as a coach be any importance to any of the other girls. But if you reply, Misaki has Shindou, I'd reply but they needed to make room for Masaya's development along with him and Asuka, where would Shindou be if they story had focused on Masaya and Asuka. That would leave Misaki unable to develop her own way of playing the sport. Anyways, Masaya doesn't play much of a role, but he's still there. Also we only know a few things about him but not so much besides the fact that he's quit the sport when he was a star as a child. What would the writers cut out so they could develop his character? Understandably the show points at this from time to time with the new neighbor and the windows incident, but that's just poor writing, as that scene wasn't useful to the story as a whole. If this was a two cour show and lacking in romance, then yes I can see an issue. But for this short one cour show, it does fine without it.

Sadly that's all the praise I can give it. The plot isn't all great. While the main characters find their reason to fight, so does Masaya. Which is totally irrelevant, along with the Sensei. A bit of an explicit spoiler here, but near the finale, the Sensei and Masaya decide to actually start trying. Thus they trained with all the athletes. And at the end, the Sensei says "I'll tell you this super secret move" and at the end of the series they didn't even show it, granted we don't what it is, but I assume it wasn't shown. And the shows ending brings me to another point. The main antagonist uses a technique on Asuka (please, as much as I wanted Misaki to win we all knew that it would be Asuka who wins and that is not spoiler unless you're new to anime) to which causes the match to go into overtime. The overtime allows for a short break to which Asuka decides to use the same technique on the antagonist, much to everyone's surprise, because the technique should require a lot of practice. It's because of this that I found it bad that the story ended like this, especially how Asuka got the final point.

All in all, the show is great for all the tension it provides, however it falls short with the cliche ending. While I really enjoyed it, for other reasons I won't say, I can see why people were disappoint with it. It's like getting a game that's only half complete, oh wait...