Bad endings are a given in many anime. Whether it’s because sudden time constraints causing things to rush into a messy conclusion or trying to fart out an anime original ending to an ongoing sourcework, lots of times anime just doesn’t end cleanly. And that’s fine, if a show is enjoyable for most of its run then a stupid ending can be forgivable (see Nana, No Game No Life, Angel Beats).

All you have to do is wrap things up in a bow, no matter how messy, that doesn’t undermine the spirit and message of the show or recontextualize all the moments of growth into a way that makes them all across vapid and pointless, meanwhile wrapping up none of the loose ends that are presented throughout the better part of the show. I mean. Easy enough right? Well.

Hoshiai no Sora is an incredibly frustrating show for me. From episode 4 on, I was confident it would be a 10/10 and an easy addition to my all time favorites list. There’s just so much that does right throughout it’s first eleven episodes, and all it had to do was stick the landing at least halfway. And as soon as I saw the 12 episode run, I knew it wouldn’t be a pretty end, but hopefully end with enough good will and room to grow should there be another possibility in another season. But I guess fucking up everything monstrously in a way that makes me rethink how much I actually enjoyed the show is also a viable option huh.

Well, let’s talk about the strengths of Hoshiai no Sora. Because at one point I did really love this show. I can’t say it ever did anything particularly heady or high concept, but did manage to maintain a level of thoughtfulness in its drama that I appreciated. Hoshiai no Sora is a show about a soft tennis club made up of space-y, dispassionate guys, on the verge of being shut down because the lack of effort really comes through. But when best boy of the year Maki Katsuragi is convinced into joining the club, he breathes a new life into it and the team begins to grow. Meanwhile all the individual members have their own drama back home (because every parent in this universe is abusive, controlling, or whatever varying shade of asshole you might choose), all with some nice BL undertones.

So it’s a very nice mix of sports, slice-of-life, and hard drama for the better part of 12 episodes, and I think it pulls it off very nicely. The art and animation throughout the show is incredible, I absolutely love the soft, round character designs and light, pleasant color palette. The characters are adorable and expressive, and the sports action segments are very well animated, 8bit is a studio I usually anticipate having above average production and they delivered here.

And the artwork isn’t just pretty wrapping paper, because the actual content of the show manages to stay pretty gripping too. There’s a wide breadth of emotions in this show, from harrowing and gritty scenes of abuse to the heartwarming and exhilarating scenes of the tennis team growing together and achieving something as a unit. And I think that the emotions of these scenes are presented perfectly through Kazuki Akane’s direction, he really is great at capturing the mood of a scene and making the viewer feel it.

And while the direction and visuals are very strong, it’s really the excellent, detailed, diverse cast of characters that these heavily dramatic scenes are based around that make them go down so smoothly. Every character in this feels so real and thought out, believably quirky without feeling gimmicky. I love how the pairings in the tennis games allows the cast to be directly toyed with, to see how they interact with each other and show different sides of their personalities. And it might be a bit reductive for me to boil down the dramatic centerpieces of Hoshiai no Sora as “parents are assholes” (or maybe it’s not...), but that is essentially a lot of these characters’ dramas. But they’re all handled pretty well, even if it is a bit simplistic.

Every character has their own goals and struggles that they must face as teenagers, but not belying the fact that they are just kids with parents who care about them (though often either too much or in the wrong ways). And that’s not really something you see in high school anime, oftentimes the characters are treated as just not fully matured adults with no responsibilities or higher authorities to report to, save for the occasional home room teacher. So for a high school drama to have these authority figures present and taken to their extremes is...interesting at the very least, sets it apart from most teenage dramas.

Couple of these characters narratives really stood out to me too, the LGBT+ themes approached in Yuuta’s arc are handled with a level of grace and subtlety that most anime is way too scared to touch. Baby goth’s struggle with artistic passion and actually find application for it is relatable and fleshes out the character in a way I wouldn’t expect. And I absolutely adore Maki and his ability to stay responsible, energetic, and positive in the face of a terrible home life. Also his relationship with Touma was some of the cutest BL all year and I was dying to see it go all the way with it, this show does not shy away from gayness, and, given more time, could have seen it going in that direction.

And overall I feel that Maki’s character really captures the spirit of what this show is supposed to be. Lots of these characters do have rough home lives or are just struggling with their own personal issues, and yet when they get together and accomplish something together, it’s a very positive experience and only adds to the hype of seeing cute boys achieve something together. It’s just such a smart approach to sports anime and hard drama, reminiscent of something like Tsuritama which I also love.

So, to get back at the thesis of this review, I really did love this show for the most part, and maybe you think I’m being melodramatic when I say that the last five minutes made me drop it from a 10 to a 7, but it really does miss the mark that badly. Apparently this show was supposed to be 2-cour, was cut down to one. And the end result is just so underthought and so bad and aimless and nihilistic in a way that isn’t even smart.

After reaching one of the highest highs of the show at the end of the final game, things just go completely off the fucking rails. New dramatic plot points are introduced only to go completely unresolved. All these characters’ struggles are remembered for one last time, but only in the grimmest, most hopeless lights, culminating in an almost laughably creepypasta-flavored scene where Maki buys a knife to go kill his dad THE FUCK.

So this is where we’re left off huh. I guess in some ways there is a level of artistic tragedy in this exceedingly grim ending, but it doesn’t come across as...smart. Or thought out at all. Just an “fuck you” at the end. Try as they might to overcome their personal struggles, tennis is only a brief escapism and ultimately there’s just no end or resolution to the personal suffering. All of the highs are hopeless.

And doesn’t that kind of shed a new light on all of the hard drama in the first 11 episodes? Instead of these characters growing together to overcome their struggles it’s just an edgy showcase of suffering that ultimately accomplishes nothing except to make you feel bad. Any of the theming and detailed character writing is just undermined by the sense of none of it mattering.

And again, I don’t think this kind of ending is innately wrong in and of itself. I think shows like Texhnolyze and Shiki and Fate/Zero really succeed in finishing their stories off in a similarly hopeless fashion, but where those shows excel is that their very existences reflect on the pointlessness of war or killing and end apocalyptically in a way that reflects more on human existence more than teen melodrama. It’s ugly, but the point is to showcase the flaws of humanity and the pointlessness in the bigger picture, the magnitude of the themes are so huge that the idea of growth and thriving are just dwarfed.

Meanwhile Hoshiai no Sora is a very personal, introspective show about characters that haven’t grown and have hope and room to grow and overcome their struggles. And these glimpses of hope and positivity are shown throughout the show as its very focus and theming. So to end with this idea that all of that was completely pointless just doesn’t fit. It’s just a stunted, sudden ending to make you feel bad, resolves absolutely nothing and ultimately completely misses the point of the characters and the show itself to such a degree that it makes me like the whole show significantly less.

I’ve been needing to review this show awhile now, so glad to finally have it out. Would I recommend Hoshiai no Sora, I don’t know. The whole thing is just building up hope really, wow this is a good starting point, I want to see where these characters and their struggles go. And at the end of the day, there are just too many starting points to care about that ultimately remain unresolved and in the ugliest, worst way possible. I’d say I enjoyed my time with the show, but now in the face of this conclusion, I realize that my like of it comes more from a hope of things to come than the actual events of the show. Falls from grace this hard don’t come often, and it really really sucks. Going from a 10/10 to a show I can barely recommend based off the worst 5 minutes of TV anime this year is just the Ultimate Despair.