#235: Hantsu x Trash (2015-16)

 

Studio: Hoods Entertainment

Director: Hisashi Saito

Screenwriter: Keiichirō Ōchi

Based on the manga by Hiyoko Kobayashi

Voice Cast: Maaya Uchida as Chisato Hagiwara; Yūma Uchida as Yōhei Hamaji; Kenta Matsumoto as Nakajima; Saki Yamakita as Maki Hayami; Shizuka Itou as Manami Miyoshi; Yurika Kubo as Mai Shinozaki

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Hantsu X Trash is not really defendable. It is neither a full work, as these are three episodes (two over twelve minutes, the third over fourteen) are part of a trend of creating tie-in anime that comes with the manga, the first bundled with the 8^th volume of the manga on October 6^th 2015¹, the second bundled with the 10^th volume of the manga in June 6^th 2016², and the third and final one bundled with the 11^th volume of the manga on November 4^th 2016³. Together, they are not politically correct a sex comedy about the high school male water polo team who is more interested in the female water team, though maybe it is my cynical nature, but considering some of the far more tasteless and sexist content I have unfortunately come across, the less of two evils argument is here. It is still indefensible, as jokes include spying on the female team bathing, which is sexual harassment in real life, but somehow pales next to worse content.

It feels like a throwback, the source manga published originally in Weekly Young Magazine, a young men’s publication which published the likes of the original Akira magazine, but also in the 2010s with this published titles with names like Does a Hot Elf Live Next Door to You? (2019–2021) by Meguru Ueno, sex still something which sells as in the past and still now, only with this one feeling like it has inherited clichés that came from decades earlier. Episode One introduces Yōhei Hamaji, a poor guy doomed like many male protagonists in these sex comedies to have constant head trauma, a young man who has one clear love, his senpai Chisato Hagiwara⁴, one of the committed members of her team, even if like the other men in his team, he is also one with a fixation on breasts, as those making these shorts clearly were. Hoods Entertainment made their bread and butter on titles like this, whether explicit in content or implied. From them are the likes of The Qwaser of Stigmata (2010), infamously the animated show about breast milk powering one’s super abilities, or Mysterious Girlfriend X (2012), a truly bizarre series for me to experience in that, for all its sex comedy, it is actually a sweet romance between a guy and an unconventional introvert of a girl, which however involves her saliva having addictive qualities to it. They are an animation studio who has no qualms in the slightest to even unconventional fetishes let alone lewdness, this in comparison tame even if it does not help defend the content either.

These are part of the modern OVA movement, the straight-to-video era into the 2010s involving for more tie-in extra episodes or specials for existing shows, or tie-ins to manga we never get over in the West, rather than adaptations or unique titles we were still getting into the 2000s but have dwindled out. A lot, as here, are also entirely for the sake of animating nudity, these three episodes not even lewd ecchi, neither hentai, but devoted entirely to bared animated breasts. TV series are censored for television, they sell their physical releases for this content being uncensored, in this case only the sense this was a far obscure work which someone felt was not able to sell for a full television series. What is also is, even if of a different culture, is the equivalent of the American high school sex comedy into the 2000s, like Road Trip (2000), tame works baring their brief scenes of nudity, and with all the potential issues of sexism and their tones to consider upon actually watching them.

Episode One warns of this in the content, though as I will get to, this is following the trope that, whilst still objectifying the women, the men are punished painfully for comedic effect, which has always been a curious side to Japanese anime and manga in their sex comedy in that they constantly undercut their male characters, in work targeting men in their gazes, in being completely immature figures. Even what could be seen as a gay panic running gag undercuts itself in presentation, where Yōhei keeps imagining erotic fantasies of Hagi-chan, whilst recuperating in the nurse’s room, only to keep envisioning Nakajima, a team member looks in his late thirties with sunglasses permanently on, because of the strange tone to it. The main joke for that first episode, whilst Hagi-Chan is the woman he loves, Yōhei is someone clearly who has both an obsession with large breasts, and that due to the tone of this joke, far from homophobic it comes off like he is denying his bisexuality. If not latent desire to buff his team leader’s nipples, his super ego denying his sexual desire is a really unconventional, a mind which envisions Chisato being seduced by one of her teammates Shinozaki, someone who is very physical with her friends, and in a more complex show than the fragments we got would have been compelling, even if tasteless, for imagining the sexual id of a guy who is confused in a lot of ways about his sexuality even if there is one girl he loves dearly. That is as much trying to stretch out a sex gag which most would roll their eyes by excusing it through a layer of amateur interpretation, but that becomes the most interesting thing, even if by accident, how much of this does become a curious gag anime about the strangeness of the male libido, even if the work is not great.

This is still an anime about the male water polo team being perverts, even with episode three having them trying to spy on the female team so Yōhei learn the nipple colour of the woman he loves, words I cannot believe (or defend) recording as dialogue. This follows however clichés common in anime, including that this always leads to the men being punished as already mentioned, one going too far in his delirium seeing one girl naked he even gets a baseball bat up a painful area. It is a strange paradox of getting away with behavior in real life with these fictional characters which would not be (rightly) justifiable, more problematic by the time these episodes were being released, with explicit nudity here shown to the viewer, only to punish the male characters for their libido. The female teacher for both teams is neither helping in breaking teaching ethics too. In Episode Two, she even made a promise to let the male team touch her breasts if they won a match, three seconds only each, and has a desire for Yōhei beyond the boundaries of teacher-student relationships, only with the issue that he loves Chisato and wants to keep his virginity except for her undercutting this.

None of this has aged well as, least in the English speaking world, content like this is considered more and more taboo even if this title is from the 2010s and was an obscure title which is not commonly available. Most would rightly not want to watch this, which comes up just past the thirty minute mark only, but it is here too though, so I do not come off as a hypocrite, where I admit I did laugh. Every time it was entirely when a clear theme was up front as the joke, of how every male character here is as thick as a brick, even Yōhei, whose obsession entirely to breasts is to the point they all believe touching them is enough for an orgasm for a woman, which is comical and in an actual relationship would been the most embarrassing reality check they all could have. It is the kind of premise which, for all the content here with is clichés from previous anime and not aging well, still hits close to home as a joke at mocking the male heterosexual libido. More so, as I have seen titles which have casual edged into sexual violence and far more misogynistic content, this feels more antiquated and with this Super Ego slant to how the joke always punished the male characters, even if the plots here are not defendable and yet reward with their explicitly topless nudity, Here there is a scene of all the swim team on the floor just from touching their teacher’s breasts, or that she has beaten them all up for not following the three second rule, the exaggeration here of these male character coming off as something itself ridiculous to laugh at, that image in itself the encapsulation of what is clearly the joke but also unintentionally the theme, even a neurosis, running through this.

It is sexist? Yes, though this crude OVA accidentally nods to this paradoxical tug of war between titillation and punishment which is interesting if perverted. A story is also here if there ever was a sense of trying to tell one out of this, the romance between a sex fixated Yōhei who yet wishes to be a good person for Chisato, a romantic triangle set up in the finale episode with another girl on the water polo team with a crush on him. Not many of the cast are set up beyond this, though the premise of a sap like Yōhei trying to balance between water polo and his libido is a premise that could be good, as most could, is focused and were trying for more than clearly here. That this is not really a water polo genre story, and likely is not in the source manga, is itself disappointing because, as a genre hybrid, a sports show combined with absurd sex comedy and romance would work, or least be something really original.  

What you get here, just over thirty minutes, could have been a pilot if released separately into three parts. Its content, even if I found aspects funny, does come with my own guilt that, absolutely, and that episode two does at times look rough. It is fascinating though, as a lot of shows still had this tone of sex comedy, even the badly aged content, over the decades before into the modern day, this one fixated as much on the stupidity of its male leads as much as clearly exist to sell its titillation. I cannot help but contrast this too, back to the concern of the lesser of two evils argument, in mind to other anime I have seen which have more problematic content, where this is still not the place I wish sex comedies were in, but with far worse out there. I think of the first season of High School DxD (2012), which I once watched to cover for a cult film blog I wrote for anime rated for eighteen year olds in the British Isles, where alongside one of the female characters (at least one) being uncomfortably young looking, there was an extensive Pokemon parody within one episode with tentacles that I could have done without. I think of the shock of an obscure series like Sakura Diaries (1997) when I returned to it; for the most part a sweet natured toned sex comedy even if about cousins, it abruptly (including its ADV Films English dub) enters some horrifying misogyny and the male lead nearly considering raping his cousin, only to brush that aside for the rest of the premise. No, the gag of spying on the female water polo team bathing is not justifiable as a joke, but it is antiquated like an American Pie film inexplicably appearing in the cinemas in the 2020s, rather than just uncomfortable to sit through.

Instead this evokes Colorful (1999), a micro-series anime. Whilst the question of whether its content is defendable means revisiting it, its humour was less sex humour, vignettes about men trying to see women in their underwear, or the garments under their clothes, but the jokes entirely about how ridiculous these men were, and the punch lines making them look like egits. Whether that has aged well or not is to debate, but you look to these works which are as much the joke is a guilt reflex of the creators, and they are fascinating even if Hantsu x Trash is very conventional even in the genre. In the perfect world, these types of sex comedies would not involve this type of sexual harassment humour – where even Hood Entertainment with Mysterious Girlfriend X, with its fetish some will find off-putting, managing to have at its center a pair who really liked each other and embraced this quirk of the relationship. Yet that is the only sin of Hantsu x Trash, a slight production, one which will likely be forgotten as an actual anime production, but managing to produce far more here on paper than what these thirty plus minutes should have produced because there is stuff here of note it accidentally spells out. That, and because one wishes there was an erotic water polo sex comedy out there which was more wholesome and progressive with this tone even if still breast fixated.

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1) Hantsu x Trash Manga Bundles Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime News Network on August 23^rd 2015.

2) Hantsu x Trash Risque Water Polo Manga Bundles 2nd Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime New Network on April 24^th 2016.

3) Risque Water Polo Manga Hantsu x Trash Bundles 3rd Original Anime DVD, written by Rafael Antonio Pineda and published by Anime News Network on September 9th 2016.

4) Maaya Uchida and Yūma Uchida, the voice actors for these lead characters, are siblings, which is somewhat an odd casting choice as romantic leads. That is not a slight against either of them, Maaya the older sister, both prolific in their careers, just an odd choice which I hope they found funny in hindsight to what happens in the show. 

#198: Ping Pong the Animation (2014)

 

Director: Masaaki Yuasa

Screenplay: Masaaki Yuasa

Based on the manga by Taiyo Matsumoto

Voice Cast: Fukujurō Katayama as Yutaka "Peco" Hoshino; Kouki Uchiyama as Makoto "Smile" Tsukimoto; Masako Nozawa as Obaba; Mitsuaki Hoshi as Takamura; Shouhei Shimada as Yamada; Shunsuke Sakuya as Ryuuichi "Dragon" Kazama; Subaru Kimura as Manabu "Demon" Sakuma; Takanori Hoshino as Ota; Yosei Bun as Kon "China" Wenga; Yūsaku Yara as Jō Koizumi

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Sports as a genre of story can have an appeal even beyond their subject to a universal concept which using the structure to explore them. For an example, chosen as I saw both of them for the first time within each other with today's subject Ping Pong the Animation, was Hanebado! (2018). Hanebado, set within all female badminton competitions, was a controversial show for drastically rewriting the original manga, but by way of more heightened melodrama, it dealt especially in its most controversial aspect, turning the lead into a much more emotionally destroyed character, of how being taught to become the best can cause harm, in a theme of parental neglect or the cruelty of competitiveness. Ping Pong is significantly more light-hearted, or at least whilst with one very tragic back story and another character with severe homesickness, one where no one is broken, only needing to find their real desires to become a better person. More faithful to its source manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, this may be about the sport of its title, with a lot of scenes of even casual spats between players in table tennis clubs, and treated with the respect and accuracy of getting into consultants, but it is definitely a drama first of young men finding themselves first. It is one which just happens to have their existentialism transpiring around ping pong tables.

Not surprisingly, from director Masaaki Yuasa, who also wrote the screenplay, this was going to be an integral part of the adaptation. This is fascinating in terms of his career¹ as, a year before with Kick Heart (2013), he needed to be funded on Kickstarter to create a short film, but in 2017, not only did the theatrical film Night Is Short, Walk On Girl came to be, which would become a film of great interest for many getting into his work, and a certain television series named Devilman Crybaby also came out in Netflix, which was the title which thankfully meant a cult director, held in high regards but difficult to access, broke through the glass ceiling to become a very busy auteur. After Devilman Crybaby finally gained his due, Ping Pong is interesting to see from just before that turn from an obscure and admired anime auteur. He is, as mentioned, also adapting the acclaimed manga author Taiyo Matsumoto here as well, with a work which even if unconventional as a subject matter has a lot of emotional depth within itself. 

Even as a show whose tone is eccentric, and very funny, this is very mature and thoughtful as a tale, clear when you reach the point no one is an antagonist or a villain, just very confused young men in certain cases. Two childhood friends are the leads, Yutaka "Peco" Hoshino and Makoto "Smile" Tsukimoto. Peco is the boisterous and cocky ping pong prodigy who will be humbled early in the show, needing to find himself and his skill in the game, whilst Smile is a quiet and extremely guarded young man, viewed as a robot by others. Smile is very good at ping pong but also incredibly isolated, turning into a cold and ruthless player. Even those against them are complex. Chinese player Kon "China" Wenga, who feels exiled in Japan, is a figure who is a tough player but openly misses his home, the games with a greater risk if he loses as it will mean he will be stuck from his homeland, whilst Ryuuichi "Dragon" Kazama, head of the dominant Kaio ping pong school team, has the most tragic back story despite his depiction in games being a behemoth who is larger than his opponents as he crushes them. A young man who has to play, and dominate, as much due to the failure of his father's passion in flower selling, that is implicitly likely to have led to suicide, as it is compensating from a background where he hides in the toilets whenever he needs to express emotion.

To try to describe Masaaki Yuasa's style following these characters is difficult, as always has been the case for myself as Yuasa's style always experiments with all his work. The influences on him are known, but he varies per show or film, with this having the added fact he is indebted to Taiyo Matsumoto's distinct character designs which provide their own personality. This show nonetheless, even next to the ambition of his debut Mind Game (2004), feels a high bar. For what is such a secretly emotional and quiet narrative, in terms of his experimentation it feels more distinct straightaway with the opening and ending credits, the former a highly detailed sequence that, in monochrome, feels like it is in chalk drawing at times, whilst the later is a bright almost expressionist look at a bright coastal town. Whilst the ping pong action when shown is lovingly rendered, and the drama is treated seriously, metaphor and blatant symbolism are embraced and exaggerated. There is style to burn, be it scenes telling the story within one shot between multiple images at one, to how even points of great drama have exaggerated symbolism to tell the material, such as Smile's literal robotic outer skin or how Kazama's weight is literally a masochism with a nihilistic edge, his battle with a certain hero of ping pong who finally comes to be ([Huge Spoiler] Peco when he gets his act together [Spoilers End]) is a man struggling up a mountain being forced to fly and enjoy himself in the game again, as the music becomes more chirpy and heighten.

The music here is a huge virtue to Ping Pong in Yuasa's catalogue, such as that sequence where, as Kazama is given light, it becomes more chirpy and heightened. Considering Yuasa's use of music in his previous work, such as having Seiichi Yamamoto of the Boredoms score Mind Game, he has always had good music, and composer Kensuke Ushio (who would work with the director onwards) adds a great deal to the material. Here it is a huge virtue among many, and in truth, the entire show is fascinating in that, for all the more dramatically elaborate work in his CV, Ping Pong among them hits so hard with its emotional depth. In just eleven episodes and only two tournaments, quickly getting through a lot without hassle, the show alongside its elaborate production style does stand up in a career that already had big surprises among them. In just eleven episodes and only two tournaments, the show quickly gets through a lot without hassle, alongside its elaborate production style it does stand up in a career that already had big surprises among them. Yuasa in the beginning with Mind Game lived up to the notion of throwing everything including the kitchen sink into his work, and likely a huge factor in his favour, by the point of The Tatami Galaxy (2010), was how he was focusing this material carefully whatever genre he was in.

And in areas here he, and the teams he worked with, still should levels of grace here with one show you normally do not get. Replicated in the English dub, they went as far as casting Kon and his coach with actors who fluently speak the characters' native language, which is rarely done when, honestly, you usually have native Japanese actors trying to work around a second language phonetically or with random words brought up in the script. Even the show's sense of humour, following from its source material, feels more mature, a playfulness of banter, bickering or Smile's mentor, a retired ping pong tournament player and an elderly man, starting their love-indifference relationship to improve him like a crush trying to be noticed in a high school romance, all done with an amusing air.

And as mentioned, this only is eleven episodes, which is curious when they are traditionally around twelve or so, but in mind that this was screened for Fuji TV as part of their Noitamina block, of "alternative" anime (including some of Yuasa's) which stretches the storytelling type and targeted audiences, this varying episode length and how idiosyncratic these shows could be is a common trope from their screening block. Ping Pong manages in quite little time, able to be binged in a day or two, to encompass a lot more existentialism in episodes than some anime have at all, boiled down to its basics a narrative of trying to find oneself. A random male character, a random opponent who loses, is even treated with a journey of renouncing the game, feeling he is not good enough to compete, only to find he has literally having wandered the world only to return to his mistress in the last episodes passionate for the game again, little details like this among the many that make the series as good as it is.  

Ping Pong the Animation altogether is an exceptional work, which considering Masaaki Yuasa has quite a few gems in his catalogue, from before this series and after, also shows how the series has managed to stand out for me as well considering the strength of his other work. Again, as stressed in the first paragraph, sports narratives can be as much metaphors for other themes as they are the subject, and especially in this case, you have the reward of a very idiosyncratic narrative premise but one you can also connect with. Certainly, it is a hidden gem for its creator for me.

 

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1) Yuasa did direct an episode of Adventure Time in 2014 too, so this was definitely a sign the tide was turning in his favour.

#152: Hanebado! (2018)

Director: Shinpei Ezaki

Series Composition: Taku Kishimoto

Based on a manga by Kōsuke Hamada

Voice Cast: Hitomi Ohwada as Ayano Hanesaki; Miyuri Shimabukuro as Nagisa Aragaki; Ai Kayano as Yuika Shiwahime; Arisa Sakuraba as Nozomi Ishizawa; Asami Shimoda as Kaoruko Serigaya; Konomi Kohara as Erena Fujisawa; Mariya Ise as Conny Christensen; Mikako Komatsu as Miyako Tarōmaru; Nobuhiko Okamoto as Kentarō Tachibana; Sayaka Ohara as Uchika Hanesaki; Yuuna Mimura as Riko Izumi

Viewed in Japanese with Subtitles

 

With this, I begin my first foray into sports anime, a genre I had never really dived into at all until now. Sports shows in Japanese animation are numerous, and with cases like Star of the Giants (1968-71), a baseball series, they are important parts of the medium which have been neglected as in that particular case, that was a major mainstream success but has never been a title talked of in the West. In the West, few if any were imported into the United Kingdom, whilst they were never really financial successes for DVD runs in the United States. Now streaming exists this has opened the doors for them, and a title like Yuri on Ice (2016)¸ an ice skating series that also happened to be an LGBT drama, which managed to even gain recognition from professional ice skaters and be a cross-over hit, has helped considerably. I can see how sports titles can be sold to a Western audience, particularly now we do not have single disc releases of a couple of episodes like in the 2000s, but streaming and box sets.

Note the word "drama". That is the secret little detail, and that is where I am enticed now by this genre. I come to Hanebado, for example, expecting a badminton story about teen female players. Hanebado is actually a melodrama which drips with dark psychodrama, merely set in a world of girls' badminton, and it is compelling when this pulled the rug out from under me only a few episodes in. Premise wise, it sticks to two female leads Nagisa and Ayano. Both are traditional archetypes. Nagisa is the super tall and muscular tomboy, the powerful striking player who can hit the shuttlecock hard and would normally be the boss or minor boss in any other premise who joins the good guys, whilst Ayano is a quiet and meek girl who has to be dragged back into playing badminton by her best friend, quitting in spite of the fact she is insanely talented.  

Nagisa does at first have a withdrawn, cruel attitude to her fellow players in their badminton club, unresolved collateral damage to how Ayano beat her soundly, which she eventually overcomes to became a better person. Ayano, when returned to the game, turns out to be a monster, as seen in the first episodes, and psychologically damaged. Her mother, an international badminton champion, left her as a young girl, even currently in the story raising a protégée named Connie instead in another place, causing a huge psychological shock on Ayano where, when she fully absorbs herself into badminton again, she is remorseless and egotistical to even members of her own team. The show's hugest issue is that even at thirteen episodes, there is a lot that could have been fleshed out as well as it could have, particularly her relationship with her mother, but it is a surprise to find Hanebado is as it is. A huge factor to consider is that this anime takes drastic artistic license with the original source material, which is also liable to provoke controversy. Even without this detail, much to the horror of the Crunchyroll users following the comments section, this shows gets far more anguished then its light and artistically vibrant opening and ending credits suggests.

Inherently sports as a narrative, just seeing this, allows for stories of psychological growth. Nagisa, shaken by her defeat, is confronted for her selfishness early on by her best friend Riko, growing and preparing for a tournament in hope for facing Ayano again, also part of the same badminton club. Despite her size and prescience, Nagisa is an outsider, everyone from childhood presuming she had an innate advantage in games rather than from skill, significant as she has to overcome speed disadvantage and that using her power to win would not work against trickier opponents. Ayano is so insanely good, and having suffered emotional damage, that she almost has a split personality, the shy and almost childlike innocent who yet in wanting to symbolically abandon her own mother turns into a figure from Gothic literature plonked into a badminton story. She is still capable of being sweet and thoughtful, a simply signifier the cute whale keychain found on her sports bag, but like a succumbing poison, whenever she has a racket in her hands she gets intense and antisocial, even the production using creepy faces normally found in a horror anime. Whilst, again, the show does rush, this even gets to her best friend realising when it is too late how her own decision, playfully forcing Ayano's hand to join the club, has caused this to happen.

Ayano in particular, in my research, is one of the biggest changes from the source material. In taking a very big risk, turning a potential fan favourite into an at-times unlikable character, the production clearly wanted to take on the idea of how one's talent, and how one strives to win as is common sports drama, can actually turn one into a villain. A comment asked a few times between characters is why they actually play badminton, and whilst this is likeably to be even a cliché in the sports anime genre, it is already fascinating that this show tackles something arguably existential. One character, in the position of the ends justifying the means, becomes an innately sweet figure who yet when pushed turned into a demon, worse as Ayano, this aforementioned demon, is tragically a lost child, not that different from the young girl who kept wanting to play badminton even when her mother got tired and wanted to stop, seeking attention and ultimately love from another person. The gothic literature reference is not a joke in the slightest, as this kind of character whose fear of being isolated has added a toxic side to her personality, is a figure that has yet ended up in badminton, where it does make sense and not feel out of place. The character is likely controversial to fans of the manga this way - a depressed and emotionally broken one now - but as an outsider, her characterisation even if over-egged at times in the creepy faces is inspired.

Whilst badminton is still front and centre, there is a lot of drama alongside the doldrums of the activity. Here, when people loss they have to hold back tears. That there are members soon the graduate, with only one last chance to play the central narrative's tournament, comes to mind, alongside there still being practice and that, whilst the focus is on the female players, their club does have two male members who have to compete and ask whether they would want to keep on playing the game to a greater skill. There is one character who does stick out like a sore thumb, though I do like her, just because the figure of Kaoruko, with bright long pink hair and the demeanour of a cartoonish villain as Ayano's childhood rival, does suggest a figure from a more light hearted show (again) plonked into a more serious badminton show. Particularly as, alongside this show likely to enrage real sports players with a lot of the bad sportsmanship on play, the drama is central, so this figure who gets a little bit of time onscreen in the centre is a curiously flamboyant figure to even cross in real life if she ever was to exist.

Production wise, it is slick. A high bar has been reached in anime for me arguably, where unless you witness something really stumble, (cough, My Sister the Writer (2018)), there is not a chance of anything particularly dreadful appearing for the most part in the streaming era. It does mean that, if there is one potential issue for Hanebado entirely out of its hand, it is that, unlike Maasaki Yuasa's Ping Pong The Animation (2014), also a drama from the lens of male ping pong players but also wildly idiosyncratic in aesthetic, it does have to compete against other shows with similar character designs and high quality production even outside the sports genre, an annoyance as this does a lot of good things. I do have to admire the work Liden Films put into this project as an animation studio, and as they have only existed since 2012, they have a lot of potential in the future. I have to admire in particular the work they put into the actual scenes of badminton as, thankfully, there are no egregious attempts to work around movements, just a lot of hard work which was clearly put in. Those opening and ending animations are actually sumptuous too, the opening especially, more so as I have not really seen a lot of shows in my fandom where they have been really elaborate, a case of where even by itself as a mere music video, it looked like it had to be extensively constructed. It also works even in terms of drama, especially as even for all its lightness it does play to the psychodrama. I mean, with Ayano facing a figure on the other side of the net who is fragments of various characters' faces, including her own, before it turns into Nagisa, the badminton show is already getting in psychological metaphors 101 before it even started.

 Beyond this, the show baring Kaoruko's pink hair is fully grounded in naturalism, certainly staying to its drama and the excitement of the games contrasting each other. The only real aesthetic risk takes place in the last episode, when Nagisa and Ayano are playing each other finally over a three episode game, suddenly switching everything in terms of how the show has been presented as. Barring the requisite if absurd scenes of the cast at the sides, watching, explaining each person' special badminton techniques like fighting styles, the finale does escalate with their strain and anguish, going for everything and at their breaking points in the match, before suddenly everything shifts. Flashes of etched animation on white instead appear onscreen, the soundtrack entirely replaced by their breathing instead until the resolution abruptly happens. It is exceptional artistry pulled off fully, and it became the show's high point as a result.

[Major Plot Spoilers]

Those issues with the rushing of the plot do not help, but they could have been worse, and knowing this show actually took the risk to rewrite the source material, I suspect half of the issue is them having to adapt a long form manga, and also having to work with new ideas over only thirteen episodes, which for me is still not that many depending on the show. It is nice that, whilst she is still cocky at the end of the show, Ayano has her demons exorcised by losing the final game and is not just a bad person, just one needing a healthier environment, whilst Nagisa gets to prove herself with the drama around an injured knee meaning she has also had to overcome real adversity. Nagisa and Ayano softening can be seen for some as a cop-out happy ending, but it is established Ayano is a gentle figure, frankly a shy and damaged girl, the demonic personality only stemming when badminton became no longer a game but a psychological prison, both fed on a sense of superiority but mingled with fears of abandonment.

Her mother is the plot thread which could have done with more time - I can see where people are mortified when Ayano effectively forgives here, though it is not really forgiveness, just Ayano declining going out of Japan with her mother to stay with her team, arguably a subtle and more psychologically healthy form of distancing herself from her mother as she now has friends there for her. Her mother is also explicitly single, the father never seen, Ayano raised presumably by the grandparents, and admitting her failure, done to try to help Ayano become a better player but felt as a misguided action from an imperfect figure. She can still be seen as the most matter of fact of worst parents possible, a villain whose motivation is merely really bad parenting, but it is leading to the attempt by Hanebado to be psychologically complex. The commonts on Crunchyroll wishing Aynao had symbolically (or literally) slain her "evil" mother, enraged by the plotting, would have been childish and not fulfilling. Whilst I feel the show needed more time, it at least tried complexity and succeed for the most part. More so because the studio behind this show decided to write off the page, which was a bold risk and made the more darker, psychological melodrama actually more rewarding for me learning of it.

[Major Plot Spoilers Ended]

There could have been more episodes, to extrapolate and fill in potential narrative gaps especially for all the psychological wounds exposed. Hanebado as an anime was adapted considerably different from the source material which does actually bring a new question mind to how it could have extended the series without compromising its virtues. All this enticing drama is, by all accounts, not in the manga, so an extra episode or two from a source originally a sixteen volume manga could have scuppered the best aspects of the show. It also does the inspired decision of making Nagisa eventually the true protagonist and the most likable person once she grows, despite her appearance and demeanour a noble figure having to struggle through an existential crisis to becoming a better person and player. If Ayano was a more optimistic poster girl and a bigger central character in the manga, that could have lost me as a fan the way the show does make Nagisa earn that true protagonist moniker with a great final episode. So, I can live with what we got. What I got thankfully was a great introduction to the sports genre. Even next to giant robots, with all the sports (including made up ones) you could depict, this is a genre now that has a lot of common plotting tropes clearly visible, but a lot of ways you can tell them which is going to excite me, especially when one like this can improvise with its material and take a few risks. It has taken some knocks of derision, but those risks I have to admire.