Stars Align #01 — Maximum Highschool Drama

October 10th, 2019

 

I don't think any soft tennis club should be taken this seriously.

Impressions:

Wow. I feel bad for calling Azur Lane nonsense, because I feel like this needs to set a new baseline. It started out a little dodgy with the raging rivalry between the girls and boys soft tennis clubs despite both of them being over a dozen people, and the girls team looking like it's pushing on an entire bus-load. The boys are such a laughing stock that everyone in school hates them. Not just hates them, despises them. Despises them so much that they're introducing a new policy that clubs which can't win a tournament get kicked out of being a club, which is going to put a real damper on the fine arts people. Even that's not that far out of the ordinary though. It really goes off the drama rails in the other half, with the seeming happy-go-lucky kid who's… I guess sort of athletic but is living with his single mother so has to do all the housework, so they bribe him into being a ringer for the club. But wait, in the final minute of the episode, his dad kicks in the door to their apartment, beats the hell out of him, and steals all their money while he curls up in the corner, a broken, traumatized wreck before going back to cooking like nothing happened. Can someone say Emmy for Maximum Drama™!? It's like if a Prince of Tennis episode ended with a home invasion and attempted murder.

The weirdest part though may not be the incredibly overwrought drama, but the music. It especially loves this one particularly loud and paticularly fast piano tune that it plays at both the start and the dramatic refuse-to-save-the-club scene. But also in the cat scene, it's this oddly chill piano elevator music at complete odds with everyone shouting and crashing around until it swells to the big moment of catching it. Also, like Azur Lane, it's way better animated than it has any right to be. At odds with its drama too, because it goes way out of its way to show Grumpy Glasses diving all over the court while his partner stumbles around like one of the Three Stooges, only to follow it up with "Wow, you were both terrible and should feel terrible." You put a hell of a lot of effort into showing me the opposite. Why? I guess it's effort better spent than on more child beating though.

 

Posted in Stars Align | 1 Comment »

One Lonely Comment

  • The Phantom says:

    This is indeed probably going the drama route, I guess we are to expect lots of crying and melodrama, a shame I found it interesting minus the dad part. I will wait and see , any more crying and I am so gone.