I haven't read the source material, and have heard conflicting reports about how well it was, so I can only speak as to what I experienced while watching the anime. Hanebado has everything necessary to be a decent show, perhaps even above average if executed competently. Like so many great sports anime before it, Hanebado attempts to place us in the front lines of the athlete world, and let us witness the physical and mental anguish first hand. I was disappointed by Hanebado, and that is not because I was comparing it to better works before it. I simply watched the show, and at nearly every turn was either appalled or outraged by the writing choices that had been made. Below I will attempt to explain the basis of these feelings, so please bare with me. I do not know if this fault lies with the original author or the anime studio adapting their work, but either way someone dropped the ball here.
Overall the show had good animation, a decent but forgettable soundtrack, good voice acting, and never felt slow. For a sports anime, capturing the intensity of the game and making an audience care about it is crucial, and Hanebado did very well in this regard. I have never watched a game of badminton in my life, nor do I particularly care for it, yet I always found the matches engaging, if not a bit predictable. The main problem for me was the writing of the show. Hanebado essentially follows two high school badminton players as they struggle through their athletic careers.
The first, Nagisa, has been embittered by a loss and thrown off her game, and must overcome physical and mental boundaries in order to rise above the player she had been when she lost, and also to maybe defeat the opponent who bested her. I have no complaints about Nagisa's arc, she demonstrated real growth, and more importantly, all her triumphs, defeats, and actions feel earned. She doesn't do 180 degree flips in personality, and her flaws seem true to her character.
The second, Ayano, also has what is set up to be a profound and very moving arc. Daughter of a badminton prodigy, it is revealed that after her first major loss, her mother pretty much disowns her, abandoning her to move to a new country and adopt a new daughter to seemingly be her replacement because Ayano had failed. This sort of abusive mentor relationship is something that is present in many different walks of life, from students with gifted academics, natural talent in sports, or proficiency with instruments. It is an incredibly pernicious form of abuse, because to an outsider it appears as if the mentor is pushing their student to better themselves, when in reality the student is drawing closer and closer to self destruction in an attempt to please their abuser who will never truly be satisfied with their performance. I think the movie "Whiplash" demonstrates how monstrous such a "mentor" really is. Ayano's mother is certainly one of these people, and she admits as much herself in the final episodes. Where Hanebado truly fails is addressing how Ayano overcomes her toxic relationship with her mother, as well as with the other abusers that have decided to track her down no matter where she goes to try and remind her of her traumatic experiences.
Ayano herself is a decently written character, and as the show progresses, her method of coping with everything that has happened in her life leads her to become a cruel and merciless person lacking any empathy or compassion for even those who had been her friends. It is very believable and regardless of how one personally feels about the morality of her actions, it was compelling to watch. With such a set up, there are really only two ways the story could have gone. They make the ending a tragedy, with Ayano never overcoming her past and continuing to tear through people on a self destructive attempt to try and win back her mother's favor. Or, they make the ending one of catharsis, one where the character has some sort of realization or experience with a massive emotional payoff that allows her to finally move on.
What the show did instead was spend half of the run time trying to trick you into forgiving the abusers so that when she makes up with them suddenly in the end, you really believe that the power of friendship can overcome everything. Its one thing to portray antagonists as nuanced or complicated, because very rarely is someone ever just inherently bad. What Hanebado does, however, is sets up deplorable characters, people that have literally traveled around the entire world just to find Ayano and humiliate her, or track her down to whichever school she goes in order to remind her that she is a failure, that her being a failure caused her mother to leave, and that she should give up. Only for these characters to suddenly out of nowhere do complete 180 degree character flips. The girl Ayano's mother replaced her with who came from Denmark to beat her and prove she's the better daughter? Yeah no actually the whole time she just wanted to become real sisters with Ayano. The pink haired bitch that tied Ayano up and deliberately infected her with the flu prior to the game Ayano lost that caused her mother to abandon her? We should feel bad for her and forgive her because she was afraid of losing to Ayano. Ayano's mother, who only returns to her life once she is winning again and tells her that she abandoned her own daughter because it would make her play better? It's okay because Ayano forgives her.
Hanebado's entire second half (aside from Nagisa's plot) are almost entirely just repeated attempts by the storytellers to force really contrived and unearned forgiveness for terrible and unlikeable people. Ayano is going to far in defeating them and its a cheap trick to try and make us swallow the sympathy pill they're forcing on us, but based on nearly all the reactions I've seen people have, no one sheds so much as a tear when these people finally get what's coming to them. Except even then, they don't get what is coming to them. They get unearned forgiveness, and years of abuse get handwaved away. Watching the ending of this anime was like watching the Hindenburg go up in flames. Even from the half way point, I saw people discussing how whatever the show does, they better not dare try to have a "we're all happy now everything is fine and forgiven" ending. Well spoilers, they did. And it felt so jarring that it actually detracted from my overall enjoyment of the show.
If you build up an person to be such a terrible character, and make it seem like the plot is going towards a direction where someone will call them out on their behavior or they face consequences, or even just have the protagonist rise above it, and then fail to deliver on that implied pay out, you have failed your audience. Had it not been for any of the painful scenes involving Ayano and one of her abusers, I might have been willing to rate the show a 5/10, maybe even a 6/10. But the offenses are as frequent as they are egregious, and for anyone who is bothered by toxic people and cant stand them to face no consequences for their actions, I suspect you too will find Hanebado unpleasent to watch.
