I was wrong. I don’t enjoy this dead-eye expression of Ayano at all. It feels as though we’re watching a completely different Ayano characters compared to the first few episodes. That just means in no way I’m identified with this anti-hero version of Ayano. Again, I understand the intention. Ayano has that unhealthy obsession of winning since she believes beating the opponents is the way to get her Mom attention back. But isn’t showing her expressioness face a tad bit too obvious the presentation? I could’ve understood if she meets the Mom and that causes her brutal emotional state, but Hanebado frames that all this was just heartless Ayano being heartless Ayano.
One of the issues this episode have is to flesh out the perspective of Kaoruko by introducing her teammates who we don’t know or care an inch for. Heck, I don’t pretty care for Kaoruku to begin with, but it’s nice we know more about her vulnerable side. As for her teammates, we have all the usual archetypes: the jealous teammates, the losing senpai and the supportive underclassman. It’s a good touch of Hanebado that we get into her perspective during the match, but again this match is never meant to be thrilling. I say that because I can’t see other reason to explain why Hanebado skipped the entire second set and showed the match point instead. For a player who was hyped up as Ayano’s rival, we don’t see any sense of rivalry at all. Just the resentments from each other.
As for the big picture, I’m slightly disappointed that Hanebado focuses too much on Ayano and not enough on the other members. At least show me some of other members’ matches. Nagisa is again delegated into background characters (oh she’ll play against Frederica Girls’ captain next week? Would be a good match), as does the coach Tachibana as he leaves next to no impact to his students so far. As it stands, Hanebado has many potentially compelling drama and some good characters, but it struggles to put any of its assets to full potential, resulting in a show that can be brilliant at one point but jumping around with no purpose at the next.
