Review of Hanebado!

Although I’ve marked this series as “Completed”, I actually ragequit in the last episode with only a few minutes left to go. I’ve never seen a supposedly character-driven show fail so hard on every plot-related aspect while acing everything else. The OP drew me in with its slick, beautiful animation and the charming smile of Ayano Hanesaki. Unfortunately, upon finishing (or near-finishing) this show, the only positive impressions I was left with were indeed the animation and Ayano Hanesaki. Hanebado! seemingly wants to depict the growth of Ayano and her counterpart Nagisa into badminton players who play with a happy, healthy mindset. Yet while itsets that up decently, every step along the way is fumbled. Most damning of all (and it’s hard to pick any one thing here) is the treatment of Ayano. Ayano is depicted as a girl with massive trauma lying underneath her seemingly cute, innocent surface. She’s been abandoned by her mother because of her inability as a child to be a perfect badminton robot and as a result, playing badminton reverts the paltry progress she’s made into having feelings or developing a persona separate from vying for approval from her only caregiver, even if it’s stunted, childish, and a little backwards. It’s actually a nuanced and realistic portrayal of childhood trauma that I deeply relate with.

Somehow, every single character watches her relive her trauma and shift back into a zombie who plays solely to avoid being abandoned and to create some feeble sense of self-worth, with snark and arrogance as her only defense, and NOBODY HELPS WHATSOEVER. As they witness this descent that they themselves brought upon her, her clubmates fail to see that she needs people to care about her and react to her with jealousy and hostility as soon as she really begins falling apart, her coach gives up on projecting his failed Olympic dreams into her when she fails to have any emotional response towards them and dismisses all her hard work as “natural talent”, her best friend doesn’t realize she needs to take responsibility for pushing Ayano into this until the very end, and worst of all— her mother. The story idea of “I’m a poor trauma survivor and everybody hates me” isn’t impossible to work with, but everyone here is portrayed with no critical eye, and absolutely nobody has to deeply rethink their worldview. The sideplots with the other club mates whose names I can’t even recall are dumb and boring as a result, and absolutely nobody is likeable. What’s the point when we’ve clearly seen a setup of “Ayano’s trigger is badminton and she’s reliving her trauma because of that” and then proceed to have everybody stomp on our protagonist?! Shouldn’t we hate them then?! But, of course, this show doesn’t care about that— just look at the mother.

The mother returns to Ayano in the second half of the show. Unsurprisingly Ayano reacts with pure numbness and completely rejects her. The mom doesn’t realize the error of her ways— AND THE SHOW REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. Up to the end, her mom holds the same messed up belief that she raised Ayano the right way by abandoning her because she’s better at badminton now (?!?!) and the show STILL attempts to depict her as a sympathetic figure. When Elena weakly calls her out, there’s no follow up. When it’s nearly the end of the show and it’s time for Ayano to magically 180 and decide she loves playing badminton because the club mates who previously hated her also magically 180’d and suddenly don’t hate her for being snarky anymore, Ayano forgives her mom. And that’s when I closed the episode.

These magical 180s pop up often: sometimes for drama or plot convenience, and sometimes for no reason at all. Whether it’s Connie suddenly coming to Japan and her flip flopping on whether she likes Ayano and what she actually wants with her (wants to be sisters, but is cruel to her? but then sugary sweet? but why?), her club mates randomly changing their opinions on her (sometimes even before she has a breakdown, club mates tell her they hate her... but now they’re friends! Even though she hasn’t talked to them for two episodes.), Nagisa’s Tension Creating Potential Injury, Nagisa’s power level, Ayano’s power level, Nozomi deciding losing is how she wants to play, Nozomi’s coach being okay with that... the character motivations and actions simply don’t make any sense. I’d praise the badminton strategy and technical showings, since it’s a sports anime, but the complete whiffing of the final Big Badminton Final (power levels aside, SWITCHING HANDS BETWEEN HITS?) also makes me strongly question the writers’ ability to write something coherent. Sure, it’s beautiful— the faces, the unabashed depiction of sweat— and the breathing sequence is ambitious, but it’s completely soured by the heavy baggage of the plot.

In summary, just enjoy the opening. Look at Ayano’s cute smile. And for both her sake and your own, don’t watch Hanebado.