Review of Hanebado!

Hanebado! is the other girl-centric focused sports anime and well it might as well be the diametric opposite of Harukana Receive. Hanebado! focuses on Ayano Hanesaki voiced by Hitomi Ohwada who has talent in badminton however doesn't want to be in the badminton club for parental reasoning's, however she with the badminton coach as well as her colleagues she reluctantly starts playing badminton and faces new rivals and gets back into the game. Ok, so where Hanebado will have a mixed view is on our main protagonist Ayano Hanesaki voiced by Hitomi Ohwada, as a negative, Ayano is a unique main protagonist that yes has some parentalissues that drives her to the point of only caring to reach her goals and not caring about her rivals or allies, only her own goals to the point of seeing her as something of an anti-hero, her goals poisoned and corrupted by her own goals and devastating anyone who gets in her way in a rather clalous way possible. But to Ayano's defence, she does have some legitimate reasonings as to her "callousness" and that is because of her mommy issues and well Ayano's mother outright abandoned her that caused her to just break and the thing is, Ayano's mother abandoned her and had her own prodigal badminton daughter in the process, which by plot standards becomes a major rival for Ayano. So yes, Ayano has her reasonings and has somewhat a good defence for her personality all things considered.

Hanebado!'s cast also does well to mix with Ayano the best being Nagisa Aragaki voiced by Miyuri Shimabukuro, one of the best in her club and works her butt off to be the best badminton player and is the polar opposite to Ayano, everything from their playstyles and beliefs in badminton, along with her we also have LA's favorite character in the anime, Riko Izumi voiced by Yuuna Mimura, a third year and having something of an inferiority complex compared to her younger members but is one of the more supportive characters and someone that cares for the rest of the cast. Other members include Erena Fujisawa voiced by Konomi Kohara, the person who got Ayano back into badminton but doesn't really play badminton and is just a supportive pillar for Ayano and the rest of the club. Of course for a sports anime there are rivals and though there is the initial rivalry of Ayano and Nagisa through their ideals, there are other rivals Ayano goes through, from the irredeemably annoying Kaoruko Serigaya voiced by Asami Shimoda and Connie Christensen voiced by Mariya Ise who not only has a rivalry through badminton but it goes further when it has to do with Ayano's mother in the process that LA aforementioned. Hanebado! makes some of the rivals Nagisa and Ayano goes through as either blatantly evil for the sake of it in this case of Kaoruko but also sympathetic in this case of Connie and LA is fine with that in some sense but also due to the anime's major focus on Ayano's unrelenting belief on how she plays badminton as well how it affects her family life especially when it involves Ayano's mother is a different thing altogether.

Hanebado! goes on a different direction for it's clash of playstyles and beliefs on the sports in question, LA is fine with that as it's brilliantly handled between Nagisa and Ayano. Nagisa being dedicated to badminton her whole life and strives to be the best on her own merits, yes she sticks to a playstyles but she opens up and does new tactics to hone her skills with the backing of her friends in the process, she's essentially working her natural talent as a crutch and seeing how far it takes her, on the other spectrum we have the child prodigy Ayano who uses badminton as both a copping mechanism and naturally flaunts her experience, but she had no backing from her friends and family and when she DOES get the attention and help from others yes at first she accepts it and gets her back into badminton, but due to her anger, grudge and rage towards her rivals and especially her mother she discards it just to get back at her mother and her goals through winning as revenge against her mother, playstyle wise, she keeps to one playstyle but due her being a badminton child prodigy she KNOWS of other playstyles and quickly gets use to it thus being the "experience" vs. Nagisa's talent, but her playstyle reflects her feelings most of which are anger which in some cases are warranted and because of her self-isolating herself to strive for her goal of winning, she isolated herself completely without any backing from her friends she made along the way even when some of her friends WANTS to help her. This opposition between Nagisa and Ayano finally rings true by the final match and what occurs when these two finally face off with one another.....who wins, who knows as they both have great backing as to why they want to win, just with different beliefs and playstyles weighing them through the match and THAT is where Hanebado! comes into it's best with these clash of ideals that just made Hanebado! so great.

Like, LA didn't like Ayano when she slowing transitioned into her demon side (though crazy badass in some sense) but through the clash and lead up to the final match of Hanebado! with Nagisa, LA finally understood what Hanebado! was going for and made Ayano's inclusion all the more unique and interesting which coupled with the great animation only made the anime even better...on speaking of which...

In terms of animation by LIDENFILMS, well to say it's fluid in it's matches is saying not enough, considering how the actions of each of the matches are soo well done and fluid as hell, the animation done by LIDENFILMS was great, along with it's polished character designs making each of them distinct AND Ayano's demon side makes the anime's animation very well done to say the least. LIDENFILMS put their all in the animation and for a sports anime, LA saw some tinge of LIDENFILMS' marks as LA primarily knows LIDENFILMS for their viscerally action packed fantasy animes, Hanebado! has some stylistic touches that LA could only see LIDENFILMS do and it helped on that front. Nonetheless, LIDENFILMS shines when doing the badminton matches as fluid, quick paced and action-filled which is the obvious main draw to a badminton anime which it did just that...

In terms of voice acting, for the most part, LA was just "ok" with the voice cast, not horrible but not in the spectrum of great either. Though LA didn't like Ayano as a character, LA will give it to Hitomi Ohwada that she still portrayed her well with her calm demeanor, vastly changed into her badminton demon form and how much of a stoic monster her performance is is something to give praise too. Due to some of the rivals Hanebado! has being just outright asshole characters (like Asami Shimoda as Kaoruko and in some sense Connie as Mariya Ise), but nonetheless LA will say they did well as rival characters to contrast to Hitomi Ohwada. Overall, the voice cast is ok with some highs that caught LA's interest.

Hanebado! was at first, LA didn't understand why Ayano was such an anti-hero and really unlikable but LA understood by the end of it that this was a good thing making an anti-hero of a main protagonist couple that with the clash of beliefs to her main rival Nagisa and many of her rivals reeling the tension of this badminton anime be it through parental issues or badminton itself to make it a great anime no matter how artificial or not, sure the anime has some of the typical sports anime tropes, from the shy girl opening herself up and gaining the courage, some romantic tension to some of the other cast members, jobbing rivals and "friendship through playing sports" and of course the main focus of Hanebado! being of Ayano and Nagisa's polar opposite developments to strive for their goals to be the best but with all the bad and good weighed up by the end of it, well LA found Hanebado! both uniquely interesting for an intense sports anime and by both balancing and doing good use to it's more psychological family drama added in that worked well, sure LA didn't like some characters namely Ayano but the bulk of the anime involving Ayano and Nagisa had MASSIVELY great development both badminton and personality wise. Seriously both Nagisa and Ayano's rivalry was the best highlight of this anime and made this anime entirely worth it. The only dividing consensus LA will see how you view Hanebado! is all on Ayano, if you hate her or you love her will have problems later on like how LA did but really it's small potatoes to the larger scale of what Hanebado! offers and ONE character being outside the norm is hardly something to bring the entire anime down which Hanebado! handled quite well, be it intentional or not.

Hanebado! is just amazing for a badminton anime, fluidly animated and intense in both it's drama and intense sports and even though LA only watched two sports anime but nonetheless Hanebado! earned LA's respect for what it was trying to achieve and it execute it brilliantly, Hanebado! is surprising enough LA's favourite sports anime of Summer 2018 and fine there isn't much competition (the other being Harukana Recieve) but still...the point still stands and with how LA progressed through the anime, Hanebado might as well also be LA's dark horse of Summer 2018 as well...apt considering Ayano as a character.