Review of Hanebado!

One year ago studio Lidenfilms gave us the wonderful Killing Bites and now they've graced me with this epic anime about Badminton (yes you read that right), Hanebado! If we graded anime based on production quality alone this show would seriously be a 10/10 masterpiece. The choreography in the badminton matches is superb, like you feel like you're watching two real athletes compete, because their movements are so lifelike. The animation is just superb as you see the sweat flying off these girls as they compete, you see their muscles straining under the pressure of returning that smash shot. CG is used appropriately to showthe shuttle cock flying around the court at breakneck speed, and all of the sounds effects are perfect. For these reasons I'm giving a 10 to Art and Sound. Sadly this show has one fatal flaw: its protagonist.

I really, REALLY hated the main girl, Ayano, in this show, to the point where she almost made me turn it off a few times. If literally any of the other players in this show had been the protagonist, the show would have been about said girl's dedication, passion, and love for the sport of Badminton. The problem with Ayano is her motivation ISN'T ANY OF THESE THINGS! She just wants to crush her opponents, doesn't care about having fun or making new friends, and just wants mommy to notice her. Sounds like she'd make a good season villain, I'll grant you, but the heroine we're supposed to root for? Never in a million years!!! What's worse is we HAD a good protagonist in episode 1 with Nagisa (short haired tomboy),before the bait and switch and it turns out Ayano is actually the main character by episode 2. We see Nagisa's muscles straining, the sweat collecting on her forehead as she trains. Compared to Ayano, who never has to practice hard because she's a prodigy, who easily crushes her opponents and even mocks them after beating them? What were they thinking making HER the heroine? Ugh. The score for Character was hardest for me to give since I LOVED Nagisa as a character but I HATED Ayano so much more, and she turned out to be the "heroine" of this story. Ayano starts out annoying and she only gets worse and worse with every episode, picking fights with people for no reason and rejecting any kindness people show her. So I ended up giving Character a 3.

I gave Story a mediocre 5 because it's just a show about badminton, after all. There's the usual cliche high school drama, but that's not what you're here for. You're here for the epic badminton matches that seriously got me as hyped as a boxing match in Hajime no Ippo! But the games themseves aren't story per se, so I'd throw that back in the Art/Sound category. I still had a lot of fun watching the show, but my Enjoyment score dropped from a 10 to an 8 from episode 1 with Nagisa as the protagonist, to the later episodes with Ayano in the lead role. Overall I wanted to love Hanebado but ended up only liking it. I probably would have given it an 8 but that one character Ayano made the show so hard to watch I had to drop it down to a 6.