Review of Hanebado!

Screw Denmark! If you wanted her to go to fricken Denmark SCREW IT!! (But for real though) THIS SHOW IS NOT BAD! Need to clarify it because for some reason it has only a 7.2 on MAL and based solely on that most would think it is bad. Hanebado has 2 main characters, both of which are unlikable and boring at the start. We see the tall one turn into a complete incentive piece of crap, then into a genuinely likable Caricature.We see the short one start a peaceful human being, into an insensitive piece of crap, and back into a likable Character. (notice the difference there).

Ayanon is someone who i believe is actually a person, and the amount of emotionally destabilizing events she'd had to put up with in her life make her actions and mindsets warranted.

Nagasaki's personality is non-existant and is just a caricature of someone who works super hard at sports and has a knee handicap. Her character arc in this story is super short to make way for Ayanon (thank goodness). This character arc is just watching Nagasaki being bossy and intolerably rude to everyone... any real teenagers would have called her out on the crap the second time she did it.

Sadly though, this aweful character change is not the biggest sin of this show. The biggest sin is how easy they let off Ayonon's mother. (spoilers about ayanon's mom, skip to next paragraph to skip). Ayanon's Mom left Ayanon when she was in middle school to do 2 things... 1. make Ayanon a better badminton player.... 2. to train Connie. These two things do not warrant LEAVING YOUR DAUGHTER IN JAPAN WITH HER GRANDPARENTS WHILE YOU GO TRAIN YOU NEXT SUPERSTAR! This show does not try to justify this, but it surely doesn't try to bring justice to the child abuse that took place. I believe the quotes from Ayanon's mom were "I know what I did was unforgivable... but I have no regrets about what I've done, and would do it again." The $%&*......? This "mother" if want to give her that title at all, abandoned her daughter because she wasn't good enough at a sport, comes back into her life to see if she's gotten better, and when she verifies that she had, the mother has the AUDACITY to say "come travel with me to Denmark." SCREW DENMARK!!! Tis show would be much close to an 8 if the characters treated this woman with HOSTILITY. Especially the childhood friend who had the mother take Ayanon away from her, but then threw Ayanon out when she was no longer needed. Everyone should be furious, but everyone is jsut so calm and collected i just don't get it.

These two flaws destroy the show's merit from understanding believable character interaction... but there is one thing that makes this show not a 4... and that is the badminton games.

The Badminton games are a fricken blast to watch. After Nagasaki becomes you general protag and Ayanon's trying to prove her worth to her mom through her badminton play, you just want to root for Ayanon to be happy and for her to snap out of her funk, but you also want to make sure Nagasaki doesn't break her knee... so like you don't know how this show was going to end. The last 2 epidodes are wonderful to watch, and by themselves I'd probably rank close to a 9.

So to conclude, this show's animation quality makes the games feel super intense and fun, you do care for Ayanon but only because she's been through hell as a child and you want her to have a win for once in her life that has nothing to do with her mom, and it was just a general blast watching it. Nothing special, and I think the goods and bad's even out each other, but i think this show had potential to be an 8 with just a few dialogue changes regarding Nagasaki in the first few episodes and Ayanon's mom at the end.

Would not watch again, unless it was only the last 2 episodes.