You won’t be seeing Hoshiai no Sora, also known as Stars Align, receiving a second season anytime soon. The show was actually cancelled before it even finished production at 8 Bit Studios, as revealed by the director and writer of the series, Akane Kazuki.
The show is a slice-of-life tale about young boys coming of age while being part of a tennis club. They deal with some of the issues that plague them at home, abuses, and friendship. The show also unabashedly promotes the LGBTQIA+ agenda, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
In a Twitter thread from Kazuki, he revealed on December 26th, 2019 that the production committee axed the show after they spent two years working on it. They asked Kazuki to cut it down from 24 episodes to just 12, and forfeited any mention of a second season.
今年の春に急遽全１２話の放送に変更となりましたが、この作品は2年以上かけて構成を作った経緯もあるし、本編の作画作業も進んでいたので今から12話構成にするのは無理があると判断し、24話構成のまま12話まで作ることにしました（続く↓
— 赤根和樹 Akane Kazuki (@Akane2514af) December 26, 2019
今はメディア自体も変化の真っ只中にあると思うので、星合の空がどのようになるかを見ていただければ面白いかとも思います。今まで星合の空を見ていただいた皆さんに続編が実現できるように応援していただけると嬉しいです
— 赤根和樹 Akane Kazuki (@Akane2514af) December 26, 2019
Anime News Network offered a translation of the thread, with their translation reading…
“Stars Align ended its television run with its 12th episode today. But the story has a continuation, and the characters’ drama will continue in the future. The anime was originally planned to be 24 episodes, and the second cour would have aired after a three-month break. So there is an episode 13 that follows from episode 12.
“In spring, there was a last-minute change in the schedule to make the show 12 episodes long, but we’ve been working on this anime for over two years, and the animation production was already proceeding, so I deemed it impossible to turn it into a 12 episode structure at that juncture. Thus, we made 12 episodes with the 24 episode structure intact.
“I wanted to make this anime different from your ordinary anime, so this way of ending things might be another characteristic aspect of Stars Align. I’ll make the story for the next 12 episodes myself, so I hope you give me the chance to show you what happens in Maki and Toma’s future, along with all the others.
“The form that this media will take is in flux right now, so please look forward to seeing how Stars Align will turn out. I hope that everyone who has watched Stars Align so far can support us to make the continuation a reality.”
The show was rife with pro-LGBTQIA+ content, as outlined in the short video clip from shadowslee1.
The scenes in the clip above are edited together, but one of the clips comes from a nine minute segment where the two boys, Maki and Yu, talk about gender identity. Yu explains that one of the people raising him was a female-to-male transgender.
The show attempts to normalize mental illness and make it seem as if it’s okay. You can view the full clip courtesy of hotel bones
Obviously the news about the cancellation of the show resulted in the loony section of Twitter declaring how great Stars Align is and how powerful and positive it is for LGBTQIA+ representation, and how it’s needed in anime.
@hoshiaino_sora Stars align was one of the only animes that were able to make me cry, the lgbt representation, and yuu coming out drove me to tears, as a lgbt person I felt happy to be able to relate to the character. It’s impossible to not notice all the love and care that went+
— BrunaSdraws #WeLoveYouSCOUPS (@BSdraws) December 27, 2019
This show deserves so much more. Hoshiai no Sora could be the door to other upcoming anime in handling LGBT issues. So PLEASE support the show from legal sites such as Hulu, Funimation, and AnimeLab to show our support. #星合の空 #HoshiainoSora #starsalign pic.twitter.com/SgxBATrbxs
— dumbass ❤️🧡 (@sballslife) December 27, 2019
PLEASE GO WATCH THIS AMAZING SERIES AND SHOW SUPPORT SO THE CREATORS AND WRITERS CAN FINISH THE INTENDED STORYLINE THEY PLANNED FROM THE BEGINING 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
— Merry Crisis ❄ WATCH/READ MDZS [COMMISH OPEN] (@liloloveyou024) December 27, 2019
#星合の空/Hoshiai no Sora/Stars Align deserves a second season, or at least some form of continuation, for sure. It’s groundbreaking in so many ways. Also it has great LGBT representation, which is still rare in anime. I really hope the rest of the story is able to be told.
— Becki Rose (@AmethystDahlia) December 27, 2019
Thankfully there were some right-thinking edgelords willing to drop the truth on the delusional sects of Twitter (which is, unfortunately, the majority of the platform).
Lmao that anime that was pushing western lgbt propaganda was cancelled @Crisprtek pic.twitter.com/DWp2EOEKLt
— Jr 🇯🇵 (@JuniorAutist) December 27, 2019
As pointed out by Raging Golden Eagle, all the virtue signaling online and all the tens of thousands of tweets, likes, and comments don’t equate to viewership numbers. And even so, it’s only a few tens of thousands, which is most times content specifically trying to cater toward Twitter loons fails miserably.
21,901 retweets
55,730 likes
Such a financial flop it got canceled half way through its planned 24 episode runTAKE NOTE CORPORATIONS! Social media likes/RT’s don’t translate to sales! This crowd only virtue signals, never financially supports!https://t.co/lG74bWEyu6
— Raging Golden Eagle (@RageGoldenEagle) December 28, 2019
Now there are going to be the typical Centrists™ who will yell “ Fake news! The movie didn’t get woke, and it didn’t go broke. The production company just cancelled it before it aired!”
What they’ll do is completely ignore the reasons as to why the production committee cancelled it in April of 2019 at only 12 episodes instead of 24 after two years of production.
If they saw money in the show then it would have been broadcast everywhere and licensed out with the sort of enthusiasm that surrounded other highly anticipated outings such as Goblin Slayer and The Rising of the Shield Hero.
Clearly, the most obvious answer as to why the show got axed is that the committee didn’t see any money in it, so they pulled the plug early.
Basically, Kazuki’s work was woke and got axed before it made the production company go broke.
But we’ve been seeing this kind of slippage of Western-themed propaganda seeping into Japanese anime over time as profits from the West increase. This topic was also covered by YouTuber Hero Hei.
If more studios keep trying to pander to the rabid crazies on social media without properly focusing on making content that appeals to their core demographic, then there are going to be rough times ahead for the anime industry.
Nevertheless, for those who are against the widespread propaganda being fitted into mainstream media, the cancellation of Stars Align looks like a small victory in the larger Culture War.
(Thanks for the news tip BitterBear and Animatic811)