SEASONAL PRATTLE

It’s official, Hoshiai no Sora is highly concerning. After last week’s showing that paired boilerplate sports scripting with yet another abruptly nailed on, heavy-handed dose of parental drama – the door was cracked open to question this show’s textual aptitude moving forward. Well, after this latest viewing, that door is no longer cracked – it’s wide open.

Episode five essentially plays out in the same, yet in ways deeper, pitfalls that four fell into; Where its content is noticeably awful at trying to elevate itself in either of the genre spaces it wishes to occupy – and arguably worse when attempting to marry the two. From a sports perspective, we’re once again dealing with thoroughly standard writing and delivery, all the way down to the copious amounts of generic banter regarding change and the practice match setup against a dominant team. Five is distinctly thin in its telling in this regard with next to no wrinkles to its approach. A completely average at best effort.

Flipping perspectives, dramatically speaking, Hoshiai no Sora is a brash mess. What’s now becoming a habit – drama occurs out of left field, never blended or properly flowed to, and continues the trend of being deeply competitive with the episode’s already established tone. Any value this show had garnered for its level of realism also suffers from its poor dramatics: Maki’s Dad acts like a third-rate shonen villain in a fourth-rate scenario in five’s waning stretch, with actions and mannerisms that are borderline facepalm worthy in their pursuit to provoke.

Ultimately, this all adds up to an episode that’s not good on either side of the coin this series wants to play too, and a big question if Hoshiai no Sora can actually turn things around for the better. There’s still plenty of run time left for it do so, but if it’s going to, hopefully that starts soon.

Ascendance of a Bookworm (5)

Ascendance of a Bookworm continues to be a fundamentally smooth ride – quiet in its march to its goals but appreciable in how it effortlessly handles that process. While five manages to serve up the usual structural rewards that come with an easily edible, tauter than not, show like this – its ability to reinforce the notion that Bookworm has above average balance deserves a mention: Agile small gags, sturdy interplay between the cast, and consistent sight and thoughtful reflections on the premise all have fine harmony – never truly overplaying their hand one way or another. Good showing all in all.

Assassins Pride (4)

It’s admirable how Assassins Pride can just vomit out tournament arc after tournament arc with so little setup or care all while thinking that’s remotely good writing. As if St. Friedeswiede’s End of Semester Public Tournament wasn’t poorly built, with easily one of the most pathetic attempts at creating an antagonist all Fall, in steps episode four with the “Luna Lumiere Selection Tournament” – a tournament just as vapidly established as the previous one but with the added bonus of needing to complete yet another tournament, round-robin style, first to even reach its end.

Outside of loosely founded tournaments, four continues the streak of offering next to nothing compelling pretty much across the board. There’s a couple of new faces in here for the competition but they haven’t shown anything beyond the puddle-like depth that Nerva brought, and the latest attempt to whip up some shady individual to go after Melida in the side narrative is hilariously flat.

Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! (4)

Predictable does it begin and poor does it end – Noukin’s passion to be achingly generic is bold, absolutely happy with feeding viewers heaps of the rotting carcass that standard Isekai storytelling has become. Plot beats are consistently dull – there is a maximum of two angles of writing that dominates episode four; Stock effort guild quests and “comedy” that’s anything but funny. The frame of the episode is composed of that for basically 18 out of the 24 minutes – the remaining time being spent on the OP, ED, and a tragic backstory for Reina that’s equally as tacked on as it is tonally inconsistent. Very disappointing.