English Dub Review: Stars Align, “Episode 11”

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Maki and Toma finally enter the tennis court in the tournament, as the hopes of the tennis club ride entirely on their success.

Our Take

Maki and Toma’s debut match in the tournament against the infamous half-foreigner Joy begins. At the start, he returns everything they throw at him with interest. After all this buildup being promoted skilled player, Joy just comes off as a talented and vain teenager, constantly feeling himself after each point scored. But after the first game, Maki and Toma begin to notice he’s just like Arashi was, in that he hogs the ball all the time They start directing all of their shots over Joy and to his partner. Joy slips up and is unable to realize his faults, winning them the match.

I find this kind of funny and a tiny bit disappointing because they were so intimidated by him that they undertook an elaborate undercover mission to spy on him playing. But in the end, what ended up winning them the game was a strategy they already created before they even knew who Joy was. It’s great that they were able to win in such a familiar and confident manner, but I feel like this was an opportunity to show some more foundational growth. It feels like they found a cheap and easy way to beat a boss fight in a video game.

The final service of this match was preceded by a mini clip show showing off the formation of the Maki/Toma tennis pair and all of the practice they had done to get here. It’s a fairly emotional moment, and it works well for what it’s trying to achieve. My only complaint is that it is effectively a mini clip show, instead of just a brief flashback. It dragged on a little bit too long.

High off the fumes of their first victory, Maki and Toma go on to completely stomp their opponents in the next two matches. It’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t get to see these matches, but two entire tennis matches is a lot of time and there are a bunch of other plot threads in this episode. 

Their fourth match is against the illustrious Itsuse twins, previously shown off in the last episode as rivals of Arashi’s. The first few rallies against them result in a pretty devastating reality check. The remainder of the match is reserved for the final episode, so this may either be the biggest match yet or perhaps the shortest as we deal with all the other subplots in this anime. 

The biggest of the subplots addressed here is Nao dealing with his mother. When she calls him during a match, he’s able to muster the confidence to ignore her and put his phone away. While it would’ve been nice to have seen him obtain this confidence on screen, rather than have the others talk about it, it’s still great to see it come about this way. Unfortunately, his mother appears nowhere near close to relenting. Though she is allowing him off the hook this once, she is still leaving like 100 voicemails for him within the space of an hour. I didn’t expect this to go on this long, so it seems like they’re milking it for all it’s worth.

Rintaro’s birth mom texts him during the match, telling him that she came by to see his match. I found it kind of creepy to both watch him and text him unannounced, but Rintaro seems eager to contact his mom despite this. Once again, the biggest problem with this subplot is that they show far too little of it at once before dropping it. Now that it is building up to be a pretty big moment, it just becomes more frustrating that they keep trickling it in like this. Hopefully, the last episode does it justice. 

Finally, there’s the matter of Toma and his mother. We first see it in this episode during the match against Joy, when Maki and Toma are struggling to figure him out. Toma begins to get angry with himself once again as he falters. This dredges up a flashback where his mother disparaged him, comparing him in a negative light against his older brother, Ryoma. Toma’s intense self-criticism seemed like a congenital character flaw up until this point, as he is naturally just very intense. But perhaps his mother’s seemingly unwarranted contempt for him may have something to do with his behavior. 

Additionally, the stinger at the end of the episode shows his mother resolving to take action of some sort. Ryoma is there with her and he seems to at least tacitly approve of what she’s told him, though he accentuates that he is ultimately on Toma and Maki’s side. The dramatic lack of detail and placement of this scene indicate that it’s very likely it will be important to the finale.

On the topic of animation, after last week’s relatively poor showing, this week it seems to be back in proper form. The important matches are executed well, with the full arsenal of techniques we’ve seen up until now being deployed. There are a few obvious reused shots in there as they gloss over the middle two matches, but I don’t think it harms it too much. 

The next episode will be the last, but we still have quite a few stories to wrap up and perhaps not enough time. I’m expecting a good chunk of it will be dedicated to the tennis match. Then Nao, Rintaro, Toma, and perhaps Yuta and Maki will receive resolutions, or something close to it. A lot is riding on this match, and even more within the personal lives of these young men.