Yawara!

This is not a sports anime really. The story is about a Judo prodigy named Yawara, who doesn't really like the idea of doing Judo. But it is sort of the family trade and she doesn't have the - I am going to go with the word backbone here for the lack of a better description - to put her foot down so she does Judo even though she strongly dislikes the idea. But hey, everybody else seems to love the idea that she does it, so she does it.
Story:
This is the whole plot of this anime. It is said in the description on ... many websites that it is a sports anime but in my opinion it is a shoujo'ish slice of life anime with the touch of sports in it. The plot moves along the same track over and over in an eternal loop, "She dislikes Judo, she is going to stop, something happens, she does it, and she wins." Then the circle starts again. The sport Judo is not the focal point, it is the reason. At the end of 124 episodes you are left with the impression that she doesn't hate the sports that much anymore but that is it. That is all the real satisfaction you get out of the whole plot of a 124 episodes long anime.
Art:
The art reminded me a little of Itazura na Kiss. I am not a giant fan of that style but I don't hate it either. At least they do have "real" bodies and no matchstick limbs with watermelon sized chest area and giant heads with triangular noses. All the characters are distinguishable and no two characters look the same.
Sound:
All I can say is, it didn't bother me. There was nothing outstanding for me, no piece of music I started tapping my foot to or started mumbling the words unconsciously.
Characters:
If I tell you they annoyed the hell out of me to the point where I started assembling assassination plans for imaginary drawn people, it is an understatement.
Inokuma Yawara: Is the main protagonist. She is a whiny, indecisive, weak and a not very smart girl who wants to have a boyfriend and thinks she cant have one unless she doesn't do Judo. She gets older but does not really evolve in my opinion during the whole 124 episodes.
The Grandfather Yawara: A manipulative old Judo "God" whose only objective is to gather certain medals through his grandchild. Said grandchild could be Male, femaie, plankton or alien. He is not really prejudiced. As long as that holy Judo family genes and -name bearing being practices Judo. To meet his objectives he is not above or below anything that could help this purpose. Admittedly he does provide a comedic relief now and then.
The mother and the father: Each a piece of work. Father up and left. We really do not know exactly why, even though there are two theories, both Judo related. Apparently he is a wimp and a wuss and a sore loser. He left, either because a five year old bested him once or he lost a practice match to one of his friends/rivals. ONCE. After that, he left his wife and daughter and vanished. He is like yeti, they hear stories about him but he is always elusive. And the mother is the yeti hunter. Whenever there is a story of the yeti-father the mother runs to check it, and doesn't come back until she knows more. This could be a day, a month a year. Who knows. We don't.
Love interests.: There are two. One is a playboy, the other is a fan-boy. The playboy gets engaged to the rival. And lo and behold, the Miss goodie 2shoes-protogonist doesn't really see anything wrong still going out with an engaged man and hanging on to him. The fan-boy gets at some point a bo..bie-wonder attachment, a co-worker who decided they are in love. The guy doesn't really like her. He says he likes Yawara, but doesn't really tell the annoying co-worker off, they go on dates, but hey, the guy likes the main character. Same goes for the playboy by the way. But at the end of the day they are both very lukewarm in their pursuit of the girl.
Friends are more or less interchangeable. the main rival is annoying and repetitive at best. And there is no real tension in the air, because she is too mediocre and too lukewarm to be a real villian and yet she is too villainous to become a friend. Oddly enough the only characters that evolve in my opinion are the ones from the judo clubs. Both High school and the College one. But the main characters and the first string supporting characters are always the same. Yawara is whiny, Grandpa is manipulative, mother is a doormat, father is, well, I don't have a polite word to describe him. So think your own words. The rival and the lover-boys also are always the same. Really, I could go on this raging negative review for 50 pages and I would still be annoyed. And this is coming form somebody who actually got over middle-aged looking middle school boys with supernatural tennis shots and glowing, flying bodies for over 178 episodes with giant plot holes.

In episode 1 Yawara is in high school. She doesn't have a boyfriend, but she has a few friends. She is real good at Judo and she wants to quit Judo. 124 episodes later: Yawara is in college, she doesn't have a boyfriend, but she has a few friends. She is real good at Judo and she is kinda sorta maybe ok doing Judo. 124 episodes. And that is all that there is.
Altogether, this is NOT a sports anime. This is a shoujo, slice of life, useless personal angst and drama anime, where sports play a role. I am guessing at the time they were trying to create a hype for the upcoming Olympics in Barcelona but apart from a countdown and an honorable mention at the final arc (About 30 days before the Olympics they START training to join the team. Yes you read it right. I said 30 days and start)

That all said, before I got this anime I checked all around and there are more glowing reviews of this anime than not. I am apparently odd ball out here. Still, if you are searching for a sports anime, watch the first couple of episodes before obtaining the entire series. You know, just to be on the safe side.

Wrote a review at Episode 33, so I'll post it below and an updated review follows right after finishing the anime:

-- [ Currently watching the show and at episode 33 ] --

I read that this was on par and even better than Ranma 1/2, so I was excited to watch this show.

However, I'm 33 episodes in and I'm kinda frustrated. This may sound like an exaggeration, but the main character, Yawara, literally says the same lines over and over. After 33 episodes, I would have expected SOME kind of development from our main character, but it's only very minor and it doesn't even last ... long.

The grandfather is quite manipulative, and i don't understand how he can be the 'comic relief'. The only comic relief I get is when Kazamatsuri runs away from the reporters. Other than that, nothing in the show has ever made me laugh... And I'm the type of person to laugh at anything, even the stupidest things.

So 'comedy' in this show is kind of a no-go.

Yawara wants to be like a normal girl and feminine, however, she fails to realize that she can still be a normal feminine girl and good at sports. Yawara's friends are pretty judgemental and don't really support her doing judo, even if she's good at it. For a long time, her 'friends' are unsupportive of her doing judo and could not be considered her true friends.

Considering it's an older anime, I didn't come in with high expectations since anime from now and that time ago is very different. However, I wasn't prepared for how bad the show is.

Pretty much what happens each episode:
Yawara says she hates judo, grandfather manipulates her, she does it, Yawara is 'meh' about it, then continues to complain about wanting to act like a girl. Then repeat.

Overall, to describe this show in one sentence:
The show is very repetitive with its dialogue and Yawara, only having cheap comedy with poor execution of the story and character development.




I'm gonna continue watching, perhaps until I can't take anymore. I was hoping to find a good anime that has a martial arts theme with a female MC/lead, but this was the worst example. If anyone has any better recommendations, let me know!



-- [ Finished Watching All Episodes; FINAL REVIEW ] --

To be honest, my review didn't change much. After episode 33, things start to pick up a bit, and then things get really slow again.
I think that's one of the fatal flaws for this show; random or unnecessary scenes are sometimes dragged on for a whole episode (i'm not even exaggerating here), and then the 'climax' scenes get rushed and only take up a really short time. The random scenes that get dragged on get pretty ridiculous so a lot of times I have to speed up the video.

The last 2 episodes are a perfect example LOL ^^ Literally the fight gets resolved within 30 seconds of the next episode... No buildup, nothing.

The pacing of the show is done very terribly. There have been scenes that had SO much potential to evoke a lot of emotions, but they were often rushed really quickly or executed poorly.

I think we saw more development with Fujiko than our main character. I won't say exactly what happened, but I will say that by the end, I felt like we were taken back to square one. Really frustrating to be honest, ***so please don't bother trying to continue watching this anime if you're hoping to see the loose ends tied.***

*** Lastly, I will say this upfront because if I knew this beforehand, I would have never watched this show— Yawara is not a likable character (as in, viewers most likely won't like her character).

The only decent character was Fujiko and her friends at college (absolutely not the ones at her HS).