Final Thoughts – HANEBADO!

A very attractive mess.

There’s no mincing words here – HANEBADO! looks gorgeous in motion. It is perhaps the best-looking show of the season outside of Attack on Titan or Revue Starlight, and while it can look a little wonky in the still shots, the matches are directed impeccably, with very ambitious camera placements forcing the quality animation to keep up, and it absolutely does.

But the story is all over the place, with characters going in very strange directions in the second half, and our protagonist going from a childish prodigy to a sociopath. The in-universe explanation makes sense – she gets it from her mom, who abandoned her for years in order to focus on the sport – but it makes it very, very difficult to root for her and pretty much causes the hero position to shift back to Aragaki by the final match, with Hanesaki’s team trying to snap her out of it and her cruelly brushing them off.

So character-wise, we have an unfortunate mixed bag that makes for a really strange show. The production team certainly tried hard and succeeded greatly, but the changes from the manga caused the story to become questionable, almost nonsensical, with a very inconclusive ending showcasing little growth on the part of the characters.

So, yeah, I’ll give it a 7/10 if only for the visual spectacle, but having few decent characters, I wouldn’t recommend it as much as Harukana Receive or Major 2nd.