hanebado! – Anime QandA

Swing And A Miss – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 13 (Finale) Review

Swing And A Miss – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 13

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 13.

Oh boy, the season finale of Hanebado…you sure have had a like/dislike relationship with this show haven’t you? That’s an understatement, but yeah… suffice to say the characterisation inconsistencies—specifically in regard to Ayano have been a sore point for me and lots of people if fellow bloggers and the #hanebado hashtag are anything to go by!

So how’s this episode then? Do they fix things? Keep things the same? Or just make them worse? Funnily enough, all 3 if you believe it. Though I think that depends on a couple of factors and how deep into this show you’re willing to go.

Okay, so explain how you think this finale can be all 3 of those things—depending on how you look at it—I’m curious… So just a quick recap of what happens. It’s Ayano vs Nagisa final round, Ayano looked like she was throwing the game until she got some encouraging words—she starts having fun playing against Nagisa—the first time she’s had fun playing Badminton in a while. The match gets tied, they go back and forth with deuce and match points, then after an artsy looking interlude Nagisa wins. Ayano regains some semblance of humility in the face of her defeat, still kind of acts like a cheeky spoilt brat but gone is the dead-eyed villain from before.

Nagisa deserved to have an ‘ugly cry’ after such a hard fought win.

Okay… so Ayano’s changed for the better? That would imply some character development? So first of all, on a very base surface level, yes Ayano is now a better character because she’s not a villainous entity of pure evil—she’s just a smug rival with a cheeky attitude. But the problem with this change is that ~this~ Ayano is what should have become meek and introverted Ayano earlier on. There never needed for Ayano to go full dark-side when this happy medium could have saved the entire series! So as it stands, rather than this just being a middle ground gained through character development, it instead feels like a ~third~ personality that’s been quickly tacked on to make Ayano more palatable. This change doesn’t feel earned, it feels like someone realised too late what Ayano’s character was actually supposed to be and just forced it into the narrative.

Ayano’s next evolution is smug/cute. It’s not very effective.

So when I said, “did they fix things? Keep things the same? Or just make them worse?” and you said “all 3” you meant… I meant Ayano is technically fixed as a character. But things are still the same because they are fixed in a way that’s typical of this show—that is to say, not very subtle or well done. And likewise it’s worse because of how damn great the rest of the episode is!

Everyone just looks fed up, kinda like the people watching this show I reckon…

What’s so great about it? Literally anything that’s not Ayano. The sport is exciting and well presented, the soundtrack is breathtaking and there’s an “artsy looking interlude” that I mentioned before that is legitimately one of my favourite pretentious things I’ve seen in anime all season. Basically everything goes black and white, the soundtrack is faded out until all that’s left is a beating heart sound, Ayano and Nagisa’s steady but tense breathing and the occasional sound of a shuttlecock hitting a racket. It’s arguably unnecessary but it’s so damn cool and stylistic that I can’t help but adore the whole scene!

Fair enough! So overall thoughts on the finale of Hanebado? It’s at least better than this show at its worst! I feel like if things had been different and the worst Ayano ever got was how she was at the end of this episode we’d be looking at a lot more positive reviews of this show. But as often is the case, it’s too little—too late.

Like this scene felt like it came out of episode 3, not episode 13!

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

Sports Anime + Cute Girls = A Better Sports Anime – Episode 1 Review
Emotional Flashbacks & Sausages on Sticks – Episode 2 Review
A Smash To The Feels – Episode 3 Review
Sibling Rivalry – Episode 4 Review
Rivals Are Better Than Villains – Episode 5 Review
Uniformly Improved – Episode 6 Review
Just Like Tennis – Episode 7 Review
There’s No Ayano In Team – Episode 8 Review
Beware of Villains Bearing Backstories – Episode 9 Review
Out Of Bounds – Episode 10 Review
Best and Scariest – Episode 11 Review
Fighting Expectations – Episode 12 Review

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Fighting Expectations – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 12 Review

Fighting Expectations – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 12

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 12.

So what happens in this second-to-last episode? Are you still complaining about inconsistent characterisation? Yeah… more or less, and I’m kind of sick of complaining about this show every week, as I’m sure are the readers of reading said complaints.

Well that kind of puts you in a sticky situation, because you have to talk about something? I mean I could just objectively talk about things that happened in the episode and whether I thought they were good or bad rather than repeat the same rant over and over.

That could work, I’ll be sure to cut you off if you stray and start ranting! Appreciated.

Nagisa, still the only character I’m rooting for!

So what happens in this episode? Well we get a bit more context about how Ayano’s mother left in the form of a flashback and yeah, Ayano’s mother is just as awful as we already knew. Speaking of flashbacks, there’s actually a heck of a lot of reused footage in this episode, maybe like 15% of the entire episode is stuff from previous episodes just rearranged into montages and it kind of is a detriment to the episode in more ways than one.

How so? Well towards the end of the episode we get a lengthy montage showing how Ayano was in the early episodes, you know before she turned into a dead-eyed monster, and it goes to highlight how much better her character used to be and how much better this show was in-turn. And I don’t know if this little montage was supposed to show a journey, because all it did was show how abrupt and out-of-place her character decline was.

Getting dangerously close to ‘rant country’ best turn back! Right, sorry.

This version of Ayano is less fun then “dead-eyed monster”.

So aside from the reused footage what else happens? Just more of the match between Ayano and Nagisa and it’s expectedly great—you know the parts where Ayano’s not antagonising people—its exciting and well animated, the music is fantastic and the match is easy-to-follow and even a little bit tense! Ayano wins the first set, while Nagisa claws back the second having tired out Ayano by playing in the opposite style than her opponent had prepared for. Then the third set comes and Ayano kind of just gives up—only to be cheered on by her teammates and of course they’re going to push a ‘the power of teamwork/friendship’ redemption arc for the final episode and nope, not having it!

You can just sense the “Tch!” just wanting to pass her lips!

And that’s your prediction for the finale I take it? Yeah, I mean other commenters had seen it coming a mile away and it’s annoying because you can’t devote so much time and energy into turning a good girl into a bad girl then turning her back again! Or maybe you can, I don’t know, it’s not my anime it can do whatever the heck it wants with its characters! Oh well, only one episode left now, let’s see if they can redeem their mistakes in any way or just screw it up even more!

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Best and Scariest – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 11 Review

Best and Scariest – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 11

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 11.

So what happens in this episode? I don’t know if it’s because the show was off last week, or maybe I’m losing my mind—but I actually kinda really enjoyed this episode.

You mean the show that in past episode reviews you’ve called “annoying”, “inconsistent” and “frustrating”, that show? Yes—and those adjectives still stand true but I don’t know I kind of feel like I’ve been Stockholm Syndrome’d into being a-okay with Ayano’s bullshit.

And why do you think that happened? Because the rest of the show ~around~ the dumb characterisation is kinda breathtaking at times and because I think the show has decided that not only is Ayano a villain but she’s an actual horror movie villain now—for example in once scene this episode the accompanying string music is literally something you’d hear in a classical horror movie like Psycho. And it was kind of amazing, but like in “I can’t believe the show is going so hard with this!” Like I’ve seen ‘Fairy Tail’ villains represented more subtly than this show does Ayano!

To be honest it was worth watching the ep for this moment alone!

So it’s so bad it’s good? I don’t even want to say that because that gives a grave disservice to the rest of the show that as I said, at times, can be pretty exceptional. I don’t often re-watch shows (because who has time for that?) but I’m almost tempted to try and re-watch this with the knowledge that Ayano becomes such an over-the-top villain.

Playing a sport because you love it, seriously you people…

So you going to talk about the plot of this episode, or what? There’s not a lot to talk about really, it’s mostly preamble to the big final between Nagisa and Ayano. Ayano’s mother is irredeemable as always, Nagisa is a pillar of strength, everyone else around them is various degrees of ‘nice’ and Ayano might as well grow a moustache so she can twirl it and tie people to the railroad tracks! There was a good scene where Elena tries to understand why Ayano is treating everyone the way that she is and I don’t know how she doesn’t slap the girl for her attitude problem!

And we got to see Riko’s cute siblings again!

Uh-huh and so do we get some actual Badminton this episode? Do we ever! Well we get precisely two points into the game, but you know what, it’s so well-written and riveting it kinda just makes me want to watch a re-cut version of this anime with only the Badminton scenes!

Well-written how? The attention to detail with regard to Nagisa’s strategy to outwit Ayano is masterful and so deftly executed, it’s almost like it becomes a different show during these scenes! Though that’s nothing new, it’s always been like that but it just feels more apparent now than previously.

Talk about a character who’s had almost zero purpose in this show!

So overall thoughts on the episode? I’ll go back to the descriptor “frustrating” for a moment and make an addendum to it. Yes it’s frustrating that the characterisation is so inconsistent and seemingly from two-different ~ideas~ about what this show should be and it’s frustrating that more consideration wasn’t taken with the long-game, i.e. what kind of story it wanted to tell with it’s characters. But, viewed with a certain mindset and being more forgiving of its flaws in consideration of what makes the show great—I’m almost on the verge of re-recommending it for those who’ve dropped it. It’s not ~really~ any different then when it was as its worst, but I think there’s some real comedic potential in just how villainous Ayano has become—if that’s your kind of thing.

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Out Of Bounds – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 10 Review

Out Of Bounds – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 10

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 10.

So how are things this episode? Endlessly frustrating.

Oh? Again, huh? It’s the same as last week and however many weeks before it’s a battle between a really excellent show on a technical level, the visuals are nice, the action is compelling and the incidental/background soundtrack is literally among one of the best I’ve heard in an anime—but wow does the characterisation in this show just suck the life out of the room.

Who are the main offenders this week? Honestly it’s not that bad of an episode—I said it was “endlessly frustrating” moreso because this show is as about as close to consistent as this show has been since the first 3 episodes. I was ~desperately~ hoping it’d claw back some of the momentum of the glory days and while ‘sport’ is happening it’s fine, even while training is happening it’s fine. But the only thing Ayano manages to say this week are the kind of things that’d get your head kicked in if you were playing sport in Australia. The irlwaifu was throwing out more ‘c-words’ directed at Ayano more then she does when driving through city traffic!

Is it just Ayano though? Seems like it’d be easy to ignore if it was just the one character being bitchy. Ayano’s mother is back in her life—I don’t care enough to look up her name—and I get that she’s supposed to be this sort of aloof sports mother whose only real drive is the pursuit of the best but holy hell is she a bad mother. Actually scratch that, she’s not even a mother at all, she’s just an absent coach masquerading as a mother.

How can one person be so unaware of their own actions?

Well not everyone can be a super-mum or even an adequate-mum. Yeah, I’m not faulting that, they got the bad mother thing down to a tee, but the show seems unsure about how it wants us—the viewer—to feel about her return. Like obviously Ayano is perturbed by it, but not enough to say anything, all Ayano’s grandparents say is “please come back home”, why isn’t anyone admonishing her for walking out on her middle-school aged daughter to pursue another life in another country! It’s like everyone’s just so blasé about how she treated her daughter that not one person comments on it. And this is what I’m talking about regarding inconsistency…

Watch out or she’ll cut you with her chin!

Go on… So Ayano’s mean-girl posturing is so catty and over-the-top and unnecessary but only by comparison to how ~normal~ everyone else is and therefore it makes the complete lack of emotional outbursts at home with Ayano’s mother seem even more discordant. Maybe it’s just me but I feel like this show has conflated ‘emotionally inconsistent and confusing’ with ‘emotionally complex’—the latter of which this show is most definitely not.

Nagisa’s always a pretty solid character though.

Is there anything you liked about the episode (aside from the technical merits which aren’t specific to the episode)? While I don’t think it was necessary, the stuff with the boys on the Badminton team actually felt like a sports anime. But I don’t like how straightforward and no-nonsense and logical they were about ‘everything’ it’s almost like this show is trying to push an agenda that boys make reasoned and even-handed decisions about their sporting careers while girls are all emotional and petty and revenge seeking. Pretty shitty subtext there if you ask me.

And this little subplot kinda went nowhere too, thanks for that…

Overall thoughts? Can we have a do-over? Like keep all the quality technical aspects of the anime and the voice actors and what not but just re-write all the absolute dumb shit about this show, that’d make me happy… No? We can’t have that? Well, whatever, at least there’s only 3 more episodes and it’s sad that I have to say that because there was so much potential.

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Beware of Villains Bearing Backstories – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 9 Review

Beware of Villains Bearing Backstories – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 9

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 9.

So… what happens in this episode? Adventures in inconsistent characterisation continue!

Oh dear, should I prepare myself for a rant? I mean I’ll try and reign it in, but this show is just so frustrating because parts of it are so unbelievably good that I find myself in love with this show and then it goes and tries to be super edgy and dramatic for absolutely no good reason and I’m left throwing my hands up in the air in annoyance!

Okay, so what specifically about this episode had you doing that? I loved so much that this show spent its time just doing cute and light-hearted fun things with Ayano and Connie going to a weird sort of indoor fun-centre, probably intended for much younger kids all to do with Ayano’s favourite cartoon mascot, a whale called Wei-Wei. And there was all sorts of nice character moments as they played crane games to win prizes and did cosplay photo-shoots and ate themed foods. Maybe I’m biased but this is my idea of a good time and I thought for a second it would bring Connie around to being more accepting of Ayano but, guess what?

What show is this from? Surely not this one?

What? Turns out cackling villain Connie, was never actually a villain this whole time as we’re treated to one of the most inconsistent character turns in anime history (probably, maybe). We get a long-winded multi-year spanning flashback to Connie’s childhood with Ayano’s mother in which Connie ~pines~ to be closer to this other daughter she’s heard so much of but never met and I’m just left scratching my head thinking, “IF YOU WANTED TO BE “FAMILY” WITH HER FOR SO LONG WHY DID YOU TREAT HER LIKE SHIT THE FIRST TIME YOU MET HER?”

Oh boy, here come the CAPS… I don’t mean to shout it’s just this kind of soap-opera characterisation does this series zero favours in the long-run, makes the writers look like they’re making things up on the spot and worst of all makes all the orchestrated drama that’s been a detriment to this series from early-on feel all the more pointless in hindsight. If Connie wanted to be one big happy “family” with Ayano for as long as she has, it makes zero sense for to have been so antagonistic during their first meeting. Connie literally says to Ayano at the end of Episode 5, “she’s my mother now” or something like that and yet here we’re expected to buy the idea that she’s just a sweet, misunderstood girl who’s wanted to be a ‘family’ with Ayano and their mother? Fuck off…

Are you upset? I’m not upset. Also stop trying to cheer me up with Pop Team Epic references…

Sorry… so, uh, dare I ask what your opinion of this episode is overall? Overall I’m just frustrated and kind of exhausted. Like this show seems to be forever in reach of greatness only to shoot itself in the foot repeatedly just for the sake of having ~drama~ which is even more annoying because this show is more dramatic when its focusing on down-to-earth rivalries like between Nagisa and Nozomi in the previous episode. Or even whatever the heck was going on between sausage girl and random dude (seriously what was that?). Either way that should show there are ways to do drama without resulting to the kind of shit that has permeated Ayano’s storyline.

Anything else to add? Well the episode ends with Ayano returning home only to be greeted by her long absent mother and well… I know I’m supposed to be ‘on the edge of my seat’ as to what happens next but I can’t help but expect something unrelentingly stupid from this reunion. Guess we’ll find out next episode…

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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There’s No Ayano In Team – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 8 Review

There’s No Ayano In Team – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 8

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 8.

So… is this a good episode or a bad episode? Seems like your opinion varies depending on the wind… I don’t like what you’re insinuating, sir! From hence forth you are forever my rival and I will take you down no matter what it takes! I will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and drive you into the dust from whence you sprang!

Is this a bit? Like, are we doing a sketch? I would have liked a bit of pre-warning if that’s in fact what we’re doing? Pfft, like I have the energy these days to do anything as interesting as a gimmick review, those days are long gone.

Right. Okay, I’ll just assume that was some drunken rambling and proceed with caution. What’s this episode about? This show is an enigma, it’s either being infuriatingly inconsistent with characterisation or being flawlessly brilliant with its portrayal of a sport I’m still not sure is even ~interesting~ but the medium of anime keeps driving home the fact that it absolutely is (forgive my ignorance, I’ve not watched a second of irl Badminton). Basically what I’m saying is this show has a whole heap of a lot of issues with making its characters seem ‘human’ (there are some exceptions) while otherwise being an exciting sports anime!

This lady is clearly lot paying attention to the show she’s in.

I ~think~ I get what you’re saying… what’s explicitly ‘wrong’ with this episode? Ayano. I never thought I’d be saying it but Ayano is everything wrong with this anime. And it’s not like it’s an organic change—granted it came about some weeks ago and I’ve been more-or-less ignoring it since then but my god she makes for an obnoxious “villain” and I use that word with the biggest possible inverted commas because I know it’s absolutely temporary and it’s going to be a big effing deal when she realises the ‘error of her ways’ but these OTT outbursts she gives just grate on me so because they’re absolutely unnecessary to her characterisation.

Think you could do better? Oh no, you’re not getting me to fall into that trap again—I’m done re-writing anime into something I think is better. No, Ayano’s character is… flawed and I mean that in every sense of the word and execution. And thankfully, she is given minimal screen-time here so for the rest of the episode the material is really good!

I think Ayano is giving me a fetish for anime girls with muscles… damn it, anime!

Such as? Nagisa goes up against her middle-school rival—who beat her out for a scholarship to a prestigious sporting school. Nagisa’s rival Nozomi though is someone who’s always lived in Nagisa’s shadow and thus never thought herself worthy of the scholarship nor to be compared to Nagisa—as her school mates often did just out of virtue of her attending their high school. Added to that Nozomi has a super controlling coach who micromanages her every play to the point where she elicits no joy out of the sport. It’s not until Nagisa recognises and acknowledges her talent and Nozomi realises the fun in playing for herself and not others, does the real game begin!

So… good episode then? You’re not going to suddenly go off on a tangent about Tennis players or cartoon villainy? ‘Tis a fine episode. We finally get an inter-school match up we’re both characters are well-developed characters—each with their own trouble to overcome (for Nozomi it’s her coach and her mindset, for Nagisa it’s her knee injury). But aside from all that it’s that endearing combination of friends and foe that make for an interesting and entertaining episode—just the less said about Ayano the better at this point. Hoping that she gets put in her place in the next episode, or at least gains an ounce of humility to make her character return to ‘human’ rather than being such a cartoon vil—

End of review!

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Just Like Tennis – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 7 Review

Just Like Tennis – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 7

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 7.

So what side of the coin does this episode of Hanebado fall on? Ridiculously unrealistic characters or super-realistic sports action? Hmm~ a little of both if I’m honest… and it’s kind of better because of it…

Wait, what? I thought you despised the “cartoonish villainy” that some of the rivals spouted at each other, specifically to Ayano. I do, or rather I did. But the irlwaifu explained things in a way that made ~way~ too much sense to me and now I can’t help but kinda be okay with how the characters were behaving in previous episodes and are (to some extent) still behaving here.

Right, let’s here it then, what revelatory information did she impart upon you to change your mind? So I’m going to get very specific here for a minute so forgive me if either a) you’re not Australian or b) you don’t loosely follow international Tennis. So the irlwaifu is well abreast of many Australian sports and by proxy I am ~passingly~ versed in whatever is interesting enough to cross over from sports news into ‘real news’. And while Australia is a country unnaturally obsessed with sports it’s also a country that loves to succumb to “tall poppy syndrome” which basically means cutting someone down to size when they’ve become too big for the boots—basically when someone begins to act like an arrogant douche just because they are the ‘best’ at what they do. And for some reason Tennis players in this country seem to especially susceptible to this.

Most sports actually but no reason to be a douche about it…

Okay, but what’s Australian Tennis got to do with a Japanese Badminton anime? I’m getting to that! Geez…

Sorry, go on… So the worst offenders of just being general c-words in Australian tennis are Nick Kygios and Bernard Tomic who are basically just spoilt brats given too much money and too much praise and who love to be outspoken douche bags at every available opportunity. The irlwaifu says these two people are reminiscent of Connie Christensen and Kaoruko Serigaya from Hanebado, in terms of being relentlessly antagonistic and over-confident of their own abilities—even to the point of alienating those closest around them. It’s in that respect that I have to recant my previous comments about them being “cartoonish villains” as it seems that in the sports world unchecked ego makes villains out of otherwise ordinary human beings.

…’kay. But what about Ayano, doesn’t she act ~strangely~ throughout this episode? Very astute of you to notice since I didn’t even mention it—almost like we’re the same person—Ahem! So the irlwaifu says Ayano is a lot like an older Aussie tennis player called Leyton Hewitt, who went back and forth between being a douche and being a genuinely humble sports figure depending on so many different factors that were going on in his not-so-personal life. And yeah I totally get that, but then again Ayano was never a character I had a problem with it was more the people opposing her but do you see what I’m getting at here? One man’s “cartoony villain” is another man’s “nuanced character” and just because they’re ‘women’ doesn’t mean they can’t be petty and shallow and catty without it being about their gender because the male ego is very much capable of all these things and more!

Oh no, what happened to the ‘good girl’?

Wow, we’re far down the rabbit hole here… Can we return to talking about anime, I mean I can’t believe I just said that but the alternative is kinda scary if you know what I mean… Fair enough. So yeah, I really dug this episode—maybe this show isn’t representative of all sports, maybe it’s not even representative of the manga this is based on (that’s a topic for another day) but what it is representative of is the absurdly arrogant and prideful and scathing nature of human nature. Kinda sad that it took this many episodes to realise that fact but oh well… The Badminton action throughout this episode is top tier, and even if the frequent asides distract from said action there’s no denying its overall importance to the story as a whole. My biggest take-away from this episode is that once this show is finished I need to watch it all over again with fresher eyes…

Nagisa’s spit take right after this moment was *hilarious* FYI…

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Uniformly Improved – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 6 Review

Uniformly Improved – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 6

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 6.

You weren’t impressed with the direction the show was going in last episode? Has the show redeemed itself with this episode? For the most part surprisingly yes. Or maybe my expectations had been tempered—either way I really enjoyed this episode, well right up until the final scene but we’ll get to that in a minute!

Exactly. So how did this episode improve so much in such a short period of time? By getting the sport to drama ratio perfect… well as perfect as this show can manage. This episode was about Riko and not only did they give her the drive to succeed (it’s her last chance to make a name for herself in high school Badminton) but also an obstacle to climb (she’s up against a powerful opponent and previous middle school classmate). And the action is tense and it’s well animated and exciting and her little brothers and sisters are there to cheer her on! And… she loses. It’s honestly a bit of a shock, though it carries with it a good emotional core that I can’t fault. Speaking of things I can’t fault—those new Badminton uniforms!

This show is just so good at making Badminton look cool.

And here I was thinking I’d go one damn review without you perving on high-school girls. Fictional anime high school girls—there’s a difference! But seriously those uniforms…

Ahem, moving on. So you said there’s something about the end of the episode you didn’t like? Yeah. So Riki’s opponent is you know, an actual human being and comes across as such, whereas the cartoon villainy that is pink hair returns in full force at the end of the episode as she offers Ayano a handkerchief—to wipe up all the tears she’s going to be shedding! And ugh, I just don’t get what the point of making a character so broadly villainous especially in a show like this where (most) everything else is pretty grounded and realistic. Oh and Ayano’s mother comes back…

Uh-huh… wait what?! That’s kind of a big damn deal to drop that on me so nonchalantly, isn’t it?! Just doing it the way the show does it, which was surprisingly low-key, with her just showing up in the stands and asking Ayano’s teammates when she is going to be playing. I liked it, even though I don’t like her and am not looking forward to the extremely forced reconciliation they’ll have—which they will because otherwise why else would she be here…

Right, got some strong feelings about that then, huh? Noted. So anything else you wanted to add? Dem uniforms tho…

No! Wrap this review up, or I’ll wrap it up for you! I think there’s some promise in this episode that this show can recover from the various missteps it’s cast recently, just focus on the sport, focus on the teamwork, focus on the camaraderie and focus on the friendships. There’s no need to turn all the opponents into bitchy villains, it’s just poor/mismatched writing and at worse, well… it’s ~kinda~ sexist. Speaking of which, how about those new unifor—

End of review!

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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Rivals Are Better Than Villains – ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 5 Review

Rivals Are Better Than Villains – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Hanebado!’ Episode 5

What’s the show? Hanebado! Episode 5.

So another episode of the Badminton girls, huh? How’s this episode fare? It’s good… I mean, well you know…

Know what? Well I’ve spent so long waiting for some sports anime action and now that it’s come I’m not sure how to feel about it…

Oh so we get something resembling an ~actual~ match? Well we did a bit last week and its just picking up from last episode, but the second half of the match between Ayano and her “big sister” Connie is pretty damn tense—if not the least very well animated and dynamic to watch!

And yet you’re not sure how to feel about this for some reason? Ugh, I don’t know… I just feel like I’ve seen this all before which I know—sure I shouldn’t be complaining about cliché’s in anime—and in sports anime of all things—as that’s what I was expecting all along but now it’s here I’ve got this strange sense of ambivalence about some of it.

Care to elaborate? I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed the character development of the first 3 episodes until I was berated with the sports anime tropes that came with this episode. And that’s not to say there aren’t good sports things that happen in this episode—when Ayano loses her match against Connie she’s in disbelief, she makes excuses, but it’s all because she’s afraid of being abandoned like she was by her mother and that’s gorgeously heartbreaking, and the fact that even the ‘coldest’ of her teammates comes to pay her a compliment on her game was such a nice moment. But there’s also this sense that none of this takes place in a tangible reality, which given both the amount of character development and that it’s around something as grounded as sport feels like an oversight.

Let me know when you’re done being a cartoon villain, I’ll be waiting.

Again… care to elaborate? Hmm, it’s hard, really hard to criticise this show because it is a quality show in so many ways—I’ve not spoken about it before but the incidental soundtrack on this show is intricate, complimentary, stirring and downright flawless. But our main antagonist, Connie, doesn’t feel like someone who would exist in the real world, and I don’t know, maybe grounded antagonists make for boring villains but given how much time and effort was put into our protagonists the two-dimensional villainous posturing feels downright silly. Especially compared to the actual highlight of the episode—at least as far as Connie and the competing team is concerned.

Oh and what is this “actual highlight” you speak of? Well Connie goes to have a bath with her teammates—

—I’m gonna stop you right there. You seriously about to tell me that you’re favourite part of this sports anime is the part where a bunch of girls get their clothes off? Yes.

…I don’t even know why I bother at this point… Are you going to let me explain or are you just going to pre-judge me?

Fine. Go on then… So Connie goes for a bath with her teammates and it’s all naked ogling and groping and fun times and for the first and almost only time this episode Connie feels like a human-being and not some Saturday morning cartoon villain. I mean say what you want about the validity of these kinds of shenanigans in anime in general and whether women actually behave like this in ‘locker rooms’ etc. but she felt like a part of the team—which let’s face it is the entire point of these types of anime. It’s not about being the best ‘singular’ it’s being about the best ‘as a team’. It’s about camaraderie and friendship, just like the bus scene in the last episode and just like the brief but substantial moments with Ayano after her loss.

Another rare, purely ‘nice’ team-building moment of the episode.

All right, fair enough. So anything else you want to add? Anyone else think that rival team had a lot of girls with really nice racks? No? Just me?

Jeez! Sorry I asked… Ultimately, all jokes aside (am I even joking?—I don’t even know anymore—I’ve become a perverted parody of myself, send help!) this show could really take a leaf out of Haikyu’s book, I may not have been the biggest fan of that show but it at least felt realistic—especially in its portrayal of rivals—which is what they should be, and not ‘villains’. I still like this show more than Haikyu for ~reasons~ but admit there are flaws that need to be fixed if it wants to stand the test of time among other great sports anime.

Just when I thought we’d fixed the girl, Connie goes and messes her up again! Glad we spent those 3+ episodes getting her into a good head space!

Previous Hanebado! Reviews:

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