Anime Review: Yawara! a fashionable Judo Girl

Review Yawara! A Fashionable Judo GirlWritten by WarpshadowRating very good

Yawara is a good show if you have broad tastes in anime. It’s an old show that deserves remembering.

Yawara Inokuma is a teenage girl who would love nothing more than to be an ordinary girl living an ordinary teenage girl’s life. However Yawara’s grandfather has other plans; namely he thinks she has enough talent in Judo to win the Olympic gold medal and makes sure she realizes this talent by having her train every day. Yawara is able to keep something of a handle on things until one day Matsuda; a reporter for a local newspaper discovers Yawara’s talent. How will she deal with the inevitable media storm that is sure to follow?

Yawara is a show that I find a bit hard to classify in terms of genre as it resembles sports anime on a superficial level but manages to almost work as a bit of a parody of it at the same time. A lot of what makes this show different is that Yawara is a rather different character than most female sports protagonists and yet at the same time is a character that feels very natural. I found this to be an overall good series with a couple of problems, most notably that this show takes a while before most viewers will latch on to it. I am reviewing the Animeigo release of this show and I have found their decision to release it as a box set to offset that flaw was a good idea. The inclusion of a rather extensive cultural notes booklet is another nice touch, especially to those that enjoy learning from a show. Overall I believe that this show isn’t going to make a huge splash but for what it’s worth Yawara is solid and Unique entertainment.