Review of Hanebado!
No words could better describe this series than a progressive trainwreck of its characters, amidst the overall setting, and we literally just got so trolled over the fact that we don't ever know what this anime wants to be anymore. And that was the result of Hanebado!, a pretty intense yet mind-boggling series that has everyone calling foul over many issues that have since happened. Let's get the bad things out of the way, then we can end this on a good note. (Spoilers be warned) First off, it is the adaptation from the manga that immediately develops its own material while taking snippets from it. Immediately,with how Episode 1 focuses on the introduction of Ayano Hanesaki, a normal looking high school girl with a hatred from playing badminton, and that was displayed magnificently. However, it is from there that the anime adaptation slowly leashes away from the light-hearted manga adaptation, and drops the ball, heavy and hard, on the original drama that we've come to see throughout all this time.
And that brings me to my next (and BIG) pointer: the biased character development.
3 months of production runtime was more than enough to showcase every character's development of how they had persevered throughout timeless trials and tribulations, but somehow, series composer Taku Kishimoto (Joker Game, Erased, Haikyuu!!) had chosen the route that with the light-hearted manga source material, it wasn't good enough, so the heavy character drama was what we got instead, for good and for bad.
Take our MC Ayano Hanesaki for example. She is the stereotypical character of a lunatic, that is not apparent at first, but throughout the series, we definitely can see why she has to act like a sovereign BS of a character that's crapping over everyone else, and that's due to her upbringing. WHICH immediately questions the single-handedly bashed neglected side of a perfection: her own mom Uchika. Every parent wants the best for their own children, but Uchika's actions paving the way for Ayano's devilish side is really pushing the extreme limits of a stereotypical adult teaching his/her own children of what to do and how to follow in their footsteps.
Another hindrance followed with competitor Kaoruko Serigaya, wanting to compete dirty with the high consequence of getting Ayano sick and limiting her potential of losing the junior finals, adding onto that with Uchika's "seeking for perfection" causes her to abandon Ayano and find her next line of protégé (which resulted in another stranger, Connie Christensen). All that pent-up frustration is solely there to give the thought that Connie lives up to Uchika's name and Ayano being the back-burner is seriously excruciating enough. With that set in mind, Ayano has to work her way up again and regain her own neglected mom's very high expectations, to prove to her that no matter her growing-up years of staying away from badminton (and brought back by Elena), she still has the in-game going for her and hopefully her mom will recognize her again.
The other characters had lesser screen-time to focus on their weaknesses and problems to eventually get better at their craft. One such side character, Nagisa Aragaki, falls into that pit. She lost to Ayano at the junior finals, and swore that she will never take anyone lightly, which explains her initial amounts of frustration for perfection from others that limits her potential. Only once did she start to understand that with strength comes confidence in playing better, then she is able to enjoy playing badminton (and that's for Episodes 1-3), and that sets the basis for future matches to try and outwit Ayano's prowess and play badminton her way. In the midst of focusing in both Ayano and Nagisa's efforts, the other members (mostly Riko who has been playing alongside Nagisa) of the Badminton club too have each of their shortcomings, but they do work hard (off-screen, that is) to also prove why they play badminton in the first place.
Honestly, with so much that the anime has shown us, it almost felt like the character drama was very overbearing to the point where people started to drop this series, and honestly it's a very big flaw on the series overall. The (minimalistic) redeeming part is the small snippets that it actually adapts from the manga, but then again, the overarching mainstay of the drama still will force people to turn away with conviction.
The best thing going for the series is the art and animation. As I've mentioned before in my prelim review, the art is good, but the animation's way leaps and bounds better. The production staff at Liden Films really took extreme care to showcase the realism of the characters from the non-grotesque body motions to the 3DCG stop-gap motions of the badminton rackets and shuttlecock responses, so much so that it stands out from the get-go. And throughout both art and animation didn't let me down as it's mainly used for the badminton matches, which makes me wonder that if this aspect is meant to eclipse the over-the-top character drama that we had seen the ugliest of it. Which side wins, it's up to you to decide.
On the music side, it helps that Kazuhiro Wakabayashi has maintained his flare when it comes to brilliant OSTs and his work here doesn't let us down as always. This is YURiKA's third OP (accounting for Little Witch Academia and Houseki no Kuni) and as nice as it sounds, it is nothing short of methodical and fantastic and was an OP that I couldn't afford to just skip and let loose. Alongside Yuiko Oohara whom has the same music repertoire with YURiKA (performing the same series songs, plus Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san's sweet OP), it was an excellent song through and through and really spoke life into the host of characters. Overall, another great strike for the win.
Hanebado! as a series, it's very controversial as much as its realism depict and reflect the happenings of such sports in real life. The reasoning for not being able to follow in the parents' footsteps, to one that eventually makes and breaks oneself is brutal AF (but definitely not the way to go), and I thought that it did justify the case studies of such family-based situations, and for what it does, it did a heck of a job (but not everyone's gonna take it well). So unless you care for such forced unnecessary drama, you can throw this series out of the bag. I never thought I would say this, but if drama is your forte like so many cringeworthy drama-based shows act like the way it should be, then this is your sauce. If you ain't any match for drama, then why are you watching this?