Have you ever wanted to be able to fly, not by planes, but by a certain kind of shoes? With those kind of conditions, have you ever wondered what it would be like if there was a sport that you only play in the sky? I'm sure a sport like that would be quite enjoyable, especially in this anime. The only reason for me watching it is the artwork, which I thought was very beautiful, but honestly, I didn't expect too much. Needless to say, the moment I planned to include Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm, or Aokana for short, among the anime I watched for the winter 2016 season, I had gotten myself in for a pleasant surprise.

Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm introduces to us the sport of Flying Circus, or FC for short. Grav-Shoes, which are used to fly for transportation, are also used in this sport. Touch either your opponent's back or one of the four buoys that float above the ocean, and you score a point. This anime focuses on Asuka Kurashina, a girl who is completely new to flying but quickly falls in love with FC. She, along with Misaki Tobisawa and Mashiro Arisaka, joins her school's FC Club and, coached by Masaya Hinata, competes in various FC matches.

The story of Ao no Kanata was quite an interesting one, and I was fully invested in the FC matches that took place within this anime. There are also a decent number of interesting characters that got a decent amount of development throughout the story, like Asuka and Misaki; those two are my favorite characters, to be honest. There is a problem I have involving the characters, though; there are a number of them I personally thought didn't appear as often as they could of. For example, Masaya was the protagonist of the visual novel, but in the anime, he doesn't appear so much; even when he does, he doesn't have much significance. Instead, the protagonist torch seems to have been passed on to Asuka, and as much as I love Asuka, I would have loved to see more of Masaya.

The opening and ending themes, "Contrail ~Kiseki~" by Mami Kawada and "a-gain" by Ray, were actually pretty good songs, and I'm surprised by how much they fit the anime. The voice acting was pretty good, too; Misato Fukuen as Asuka was just so freaking adorable! However, we can't forget about the best part about this anime, which is, hands down, the animation. The animation is colorful and bright, and it's cool this way. The animation especially stands out in the FC matches; it had a great use of 3D animation during those matches.

Overall, Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm was a good anime. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see a great sports anime for a sport that isn't even real. Who knows, though? Maybe several years for now, we may have the technology to make Grav-Shoes into real shoes and Flying Circus into a real sport! (At least, that's a nice thought I'd like to have.)