Category: Finished Series: Sports

Hoshiai no Sora – 11

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

What happened to Hoshiai no Sora? Only a shadow of the remarkable animation it displayed in its first half remains at this point. There are recycled cuts all over this episode, and its general sense of progression reeks of a hurried ending. Half the show’s scripts are saturated with personal and familial drama, while the other half follow the sports anime playbook to the letter. Maki’s dad hasn’t shown his face in six episodes, and its original pay-to-play hook has hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. At this point, I’m hoping that the cryptic post-credits conversation between Ryouma and his mother will lead to a major development in the finale. The series needs to tie off at least a few of its many unspooled plot threads somehow, and a late-game curveball might be its only chance at a cohesive finish.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 11 [Leaving a Hovering Mist Above the Trees and Grass]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

So that’s why Harada’s match was omitted last week – Sudo yielded the game before it could even begin. I suppose I ought to be happy that we were given any sort of detail about the East Japan finals, but this “reveal” felt kind of backhanded. Tying Sudo’s concession to his bet with Taichi didn’t affect me the way Chihayafuru desired, because Harada was never the focus of the past few episodes to begin with. If Taichi was indeed instrumental in Harada’s victory, wouldn’t you want to dramatize the moment when he achieved it, even if it proved anticlimactic in the short term?

Ah, forget it. The East/West tournaments are in the past now, and the all-important challenger match is just ahead. This episode was a great stage-setter, in my view, so let’s get into the details.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 09/10

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

With these two episodes in the books, Hoshiai no Sora is preparing to enter its final set. There are still half a dozen unresolved plots involving members of the soft tennis club, though, plus the most crucial tennis match of the show thus far is coming up next week. I’ve said this multiple times in the past, but surely *this* must be the point where Sora stops adding abusive parents to the character roster. Director Akane has an axe to grind and that’s fine (except when it isn’t), but at this point it’s going to take a herculean effort to wrangle the events of the last two episodes. The show’s production is in trouble, too, but it’s been fairly well-disguised in my opinion. The staff got away with all the stills in episode 10 by properly setting expectations for the weaker pairs’ performances, plus consistent use of on-screen text to summarize the matches. A much bigger challenge approaches, however, in terms of both animation and scripting.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 10 [Scarlet Kadsuras]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

Harada-sensei was robbed. I know that he’s not a main character, and I recognize that this tournament has kept Taichi and Arata in view since the beginning. Given that prior focus, it’s only natural that Arata, who made it all the way to the Western qualifier finals, would get the spotlight here. But Harada-sensei is the underdog in all of this! Battling against knee pain and general exhaustion, fighting to prove himself a worthy competitor despite his age, striving for a second shot at the Meijin after losing the title match decades ago – what storyline could possibly be better? Arata is my boy and everything, but the drama of this episode is ultimately the result of his poorly-timed bathroom break.

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Chihayafuru S3 – 09 [I Recall How My Own Efforts Were in Vain]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

What’s this? A Chihayafuru post going up the same day that the episode released? Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. I happened to have some spare time today, but more than that, “I Recall” was the rebound that the show needed after recent events, ping-ponging between half a dozen characters in two locations with great results. Years from now, when people look back on the third season, this episode will be seen as a stepping stone on the way to the Meijin and Queen title matches – but it accomplished much more than that. Sure, the matchups for the East and West qualifier finals are now set, but some of the best material here revolved around people who didn’t participate in the tournament. And then there’s Taichi, whose crushing loss in round 3 was given little time to resound, but whose character arc will certainly pivot on this moment.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 08

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

The list of unsupportive and abusive parents grows even longer with this episode, as Nao, Mitsue, and Yuta’s mothers join a handful of others in stifling their children’s self-expression. Yuta’s situation is the big one, given both the story and major themes on display this week, but we can start with Nao, as the mystery caller from the previous post-credits scene ends up being his mother. I was expecting the culprit to be either Toma’s mom or Maki’s dad – the former in a misguided attempt to reduce the burden on her son, or the latter as a means of sabotaging Maki’s friendships. Instead, Nao’s mom is a typical achievement chaser, pushing cram school onto her clearly uninterested child and telling him to quit that lousy sports team, already. She’s so locked into her own perspective that she asks her preteen son, “How could a barbecue be any fun when you can’t drink alcohol?”

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Chihayafuru S3 – 08 [As Friends and Strangers]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

Last week I labeled Mizusawa’s class trip an obvious maneuver to isolate Chihaya from the rest of her Class A rivals. To the show’s credit, though, it made the most of the opportunity, with many of its strongest karuta players making appearances. Even though we were blessed with an Inokuma match just a month ago, I was grateful for her return, and Sakurazawa’s competitive fire being rekindled is good news for more than just Eromu. Sudo was released from the penalty of his losing bet, and Harada-sensei’s bear mode was in full effect, proving that he’s still a beast even at age 57. Meijin Suou and Queen Shinobu made unconventional appearances at the West Japan qualifier, too, as foreshadowed last week. These are all worthy characters, but the real stars of the episode were Taichi and Arata. Were they able to carry the show with Chihaya sidelined in Kyoto? Fortunately, the answer is yes.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 07

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

This episode was a tale of two halves in my view, but there’s no good tennis metaphor that I can use as a comparison, so a direct explanation will have to do. Essentially, I found the first half (the conclusion of Maki and Toma’s doubles match) to be a dull affair, while the team barbecue during the B part reignited my interest in the series. Hoshiai no Sora established itself as a character drama from its very first outing, and with so many unresolved anxieties still to address within Shijo’s tennis club, the recent emphasis on sports has generated mixed results. No such issues arise, however, when the show sits a bunch of people around a table to converse about their lives (the food is just a pretext).

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Chihayafuru S3 – 07 [The Storm Blasts]

by SuperWooper, posted in Chihayafuru, Finished Series: Sports

I’ve positively loved the last five episodes of Chihayafuru’s third season, so I don’t derive any pleasure from saying that I kind of hated this one. “The Storm Blasts,” in my eyes, makes an unwise narrative choice to achieve a convenient result, and creates a minefield of non-credibility for the show going forward. Though it’s this episode I’ll be criticizing here, Madhouse’s adaptation is perfectly faithful to Suetsugu-sensei’s manga, so her plotting is the thing that actually troubles me. The mechanical aspects of the anime are great, as usual, but the issue of Chihaya attending her class trip has implications beyond delaying her run at the Queen title by a year. Hit the jump if you’re interested in a breakdown of why that is.

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Hoshiai no Sora – 06

by SuperWooper, posted in Finished Series: Sports, Hoshiai no Sora

I’ll say this for Hoshiai no Sora – the tennis scenes look good. Characters are shown positioning themselves, swinging, and following through with remarkable consistency. The shortcuts that once plagued Baby Steps and Prince of Tennis rarely appear during this series, and that’s worth celebrating. There were even a few serves in this episode that approached Hanebado levels of frame density, so it’s clear that the show’s animators are reaching for the stars. That said, many of the characters are given the same form on their forehand shots, and the matches are composed with ample time for them to set up in front of the ball. Without mixing in more backhand winners, smashes, and diving returns, games will start to feel too familiar once we enter the eventual tournament arc. The alternative would be to be to rely on gimmicks, and judging by this episode’s third match, that’s not Sora’s strong suit.

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