Hanebado or Longer "The Badminton of Ayano Hanesaki" is typical sports anime in which several characters are fighting in intense badminton matches to reach the top of the nationals, which is apparently the most prestiguous spot to have for them. We have Ayano Hanesaki an actually talented protagonist, that trained a lot in sessions when she was younger. Together with her mum, who is the most notorious, well-known prodigy in Japanese Badminton she trains to become better, but one day her mum leaves the home and leaves her alone back in Japan. Ayano thought here she has been abandoned by her mother for not being good enough and thus turns into a literal "badminton demon". Her counterpart and rival Aragaki doesn't have it as "easy" as Ayano and has to train very hard to become as good. The anime here first introduces us Ayano as the protagonist, as the title also tells you, but it does really clever things here which puts it over the rest. The anime switches between protagonists and creates technically a back and forth between both and their seemingly tragic backstories.
And this is also the tone of this anime, since it is a badminton game which is likely one on one or at best doubles, it really gets you at some point, because the games are actually well animated, show a ton of creative shots and angles and are overall just nice to see. I did not think you could make Badminton this appealing honestly. What also creates nice flow is the way the anime uses stuff like speedup shots, spins, slowmotions and more. What is first a soft-paced sports anime quickly turns into Shounen-like battles, as you actually feel when the characters are putting things on the line they turn the court into a battlezone where nothing matters but their own next creative shot and how to serve it back. Here is also where the strong point of Hanebado lies, because it never outright tells you who to root for and this is a course throughout the whole story even till the end. Hell, not even the characters in the game know who to root for so how should we? This is something everyone decides on their own as both characters are somehow depicted as harsh and villainy at times and none of them have actual a motive that would warrant them being so overly dramatic on the field. Hanebado is a Seinen Anime though and rather than a basic sports anime its a sports drama and one that will suck you in and not spit you out until you finished the series. You don't know who will win at the end, because this depicts the unpredictability of the sport. That is great.
Something I did not like though were the characters, particularily the side characters. I'm bad with names first so I personally just remembered the names of Aragaki and Ayano and that shows how forgettable the side-characters were. Theres the sister of Ayano who is also very good, but thinks that other people just hinder her success and outright refuses to play with them, what a bitch!
Next there are the friends and team-partners of Ayano, who she completely disgustingly refuses and tells them to fuck off figuratively. Really painful to see how villainy the people want Ayano to be. The rest of the cast mostly sits on the bench and acts as a spectator.
There is a memorable scene with Ayano where she actually is on the lower side of the field and loses and her trainer then blames her for not using good tactics to win. She then turns around and outright refuses his pleadings saying "It's not my Badminton". Sadly she throws away just that and says afterwards that her Badminton wasn't too successful and then uses the trainers strategies...and loses even harder. This scene probably just showed that there is no way to win everytime and that heart works better than theory and tactics. Good scene and a nice moral.
Anyways. I would've enjoyed if they toned down the musical support a bit, because it might be somewhat exciting, i just think working with pure silence and sound effects would've had a better effect and atmosphere overall. In the final confrontation they actually use this and they also display a great detail. The anime at this point shows two badminton virtuosos fully at match with each other and fighting until they have no breath anymore. Absolutely thrilling and then the studio decided to cut the voices, soundeffects and panting sounds in a way the whole presentation is split the same as the field they are playing on. That detail amazed me, as it just works so well because in this battle the whole buildup of the anime just comes together well and it coincides with this concept of making you root for both.
All in all Hanebado is a really thrilling experience already from the third episode forward, Ayano has this monsteresque personality that comes out only when in combat and you just want to see how she fares. There are no super-powers and special shots with fire or sure-fire win strategies. But Ayano doesn't have anything unique like Kurokos presence or Midorimas 3point throws that give her an edge over things. Both just compete at the highest strength with hard work and willpower and thats whats exciting about hanebado.
Rating: 8
