English Dub Review: Stars Align, “Episode 9”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

At the practice rematch against the girls’ tennis team, an incident erupts involving Shingo’s little sister. Later, Tsubasa’s conflict at home results in another unfortunate event.

Our Take

The dial seems firmly set back onto “overbearing parent drama,” as they cram the entirety of this episode with it. 

We come back to Nao and his terribly controlling mother, who wants him to quit tennis and study for entrance exams. The control she seeks to assert over him even extends to “correcting” his left-handedness. We see Nao is constantly zoning out all day and the look in his eyes shows that he is approaching his boiling point.

Next, we peer into Shingo’s life at home with his precious little sister, An. She wants to go to Shingo’s practice match, but their mother has strong reservations about this. Their mother’s concern over An’s well-being is one thing, but then the next few minutes are completely dedicated to delicately supervising her. This much dramatic attention creates some tension, which predictably results in a fiasco regarding her. Fortunately, it’s rather tame compared to the usual fare of this show.

Unsupervised, An goes to the bathroom and proceeds to explore the school on her own. The team goes looking for her and Nao finds her sleeping in a bed in the nurse’s office. He figures that if they are unable to find her, they will cancel the practice match that day, and does so. Why he did this is not entirely made clear. My thought is that he wants the practice match canceled to abide by his mother’s wishes to stop playing tennis. Why he suddenly wants to submit to his mother is beyond me. Perhaps this is due to some onset psychosis as a result of his mother’s super overbearing nature.

The entire fiasco is resolved very peacefully and Nao does feel guilty. However, instead of using this moment to examine Nao further, they skip past the practice match and go straight to Maki and Toma walking home. They have a brief conversation about lying and ponder the potential abuse an overbearing parent may inadvertently inflict. As a result, this potential opportunity for some character resolution becomes melodrama fuel and another PSA. 

That seemed like enough overbearing parents for one day, but that’s only the first half.

We see Tsubasa’s home life for the first time, a thoroughly athletic family. Everyone is all-in on soccer, except Tsubasa, who plays soft tennis. His brothers pick on him a little bit for it, but Tsubasa gives as good as he takes. When his father steps into the room, however, it seems less like poking fun and more like condemnation. Tsubasa angrily decides to disengage, but his father is more determined and follows him. An insult and a slap result in Tsubasa falling down a flight of stairs and landing wrong on his wrist, injuring it. He runs out of the house, runs by Shingo’s house, who then takes him to the hospital. Tsubasa is out of commission for 2 months and it seems likely he’ll be missing the summer tournament. 

Though Tsubasa’s situation is not as intense as the others, it still receives no hint of a resolution. It may receive it in a later episode as it was just introduced in this one, but I doubt it. Except for Maki, Toma, Yuta, and Kanako, whose narratives pervade the entirety of the series, nobody’s conflicts receive resolutions before they are dropped for the next one. Focusing on and defining all of the members of the tennis team has been great, but not seeing them find solutions to their problems is disappointing. Familial conflicts like this take time to work out, so I wouldn’t expect them to be solved immediately, but a start is infinitely better than nothing at all.

I think the greatest offense this episode was that they skipped over the rematch with the girls’ tennis team. That would’ve been another great opportunity for the boys to acknowledge and improve on their skills. It also would’ve been kind of nice to see how the girls reacted as well. But all the focus was on these brief melodramas and I can’t say we’re entirely better off for it.