Hanebado

[SilkScarf]

Hanebado!

Season: Summer 2018
Studio: LIDENFILMS
MAL: https://myanimelist.net/anime/37259/Hanebado

After marathoning all three seasons of the high school volleyball anime Haikyuu!! a few years ago (and LOVING it), I had proven myself open to watching sports anime. So when I saw this clip from episode 1 of the badminton anime Hanebado!, I decided to try it out.



Things that stood out immediately (contains spoilers from Episodes 1 and 2):

1. Life-like animation, realistic sports

If LIDENFILMS can maintain that level of quality all throughout the show, I'll give the show at least a 7/10 on that merit alone. The animation is on par with Haikyuu!!, and strives for an even higher level of realistic movement, which is PUMPED UP with dynamic camera-work.

Seeing how GREAT Hanebado!'s animation is honestly makes me feel pretty bad for Megalo Box (Spring 2018), which finished not even a month ago. Megalo Box had a slick animation style going for it, but the actual boxing scenes were poorly done: choppy frames, floaty and repetitive combat, camera-work that obscures the action instead of enhancing it.

The boxing in Megalo Box was like the fighting in Dragon Ball Z. Hanebado! is definitely top notch.

2. I LOVE THE OP

So dynamic and pretty it's amazing. The song is aight, but nothing to write home about. I'd say Haikyuu!! OP 5 is an example of an amazing OP song. (Not to make this all about Haikyuu!!, but OP 5 also did a great job telling the stories of the characters while also building hype for the match of the season. It's very rare you get narrative cohesion AND good animation AND a great song all in one OP).


Bad things (so far):

1. No clear goals/hype. No sense of urgency.

So right off the bat we meet our 'two' main characters (more on that later), and get character conflict; the older Aragaki loves badminton but has no talent, and the younger Hanesaki hates badminton but is an accomplished prodigy.

Cue angst and jealousy from Aragaki, and an honorable badminton duel between the two to settle their differences.

OK, so we get awesome fight scenes, but is the whole season going to be about their passive-aggressive sniping during after-school practice?

The Coach/mentor character was introduced here, but there's no game-plan! When's the tournament? Who are the rival schools? What's the path to nationals?

I'm trying to remember when the hype kicked in for Haikyuu!! It definitely took a few episodes, but once it started, the ride was non-stop amazing. Haikyuu!! excelled at establishing stakes, hyping up rivals, and forcing the characters to earn each victory.

I could see Hanebado! fizzling out without a similar driving force, which, in sports anime, comes from tournament arcs.

2. I don't care about one of the "main characters"

Episodes 1 and 2 gave us a lot of background and motivations for Aragaki, but almost none for Hanesaki. So despite being drip-fed bits and pieces about her history, I get so fucking fed up with Hanesaki's refusal to play badminton, BECAUSE I CAME HERE TO WATCHING THEM PLAYING FUCKING BADMINTON.

I've seen shows before that had a bunch of interesting side characters who have their own little subplot and then disappear, while supposedly setting up a great character arc for the MC. But then after all the side characters get their 5 minutes of  the MC gets a rushed character arc

Haikyuu!! is a show that could pull off having two main characters (even though it was basically an ensemble cast), because we got enough time to see both of their motivations, struggles, and eventual triumphs.

Hopefully we'll see that for Hanesaki.

3. Randomly weird character designs

Pink hair in anime is pretty common. But why include a pink-haired twin-tails girl when the rest of the cast has relatively realistic dark-toned hair colors? It just stands out in a bad way, making the cast design seem incoherent.

Ongoing evaluation:

I'm definitely keeping up with this one, but hoping the plot and hype arrive soon.