Hanebado! follows the pressure-cooker world of competitive high school badminton, where a single defeat can shake an entire team. After Nagisa Aragaki is crushed 21-0 at the National Junior Badminton Tournament, her love for the sport begins to twist into frustration and obsession. Unable to handle the shame of losing, she starts terrorizing the members of her high school badminton club, pushing them through grueling drills that bring some to tears and drive others to quit outright. As the club loses members and new prospects grow too afraid to join, Kitakomachi High School's badminton team seems destined to collapse.
Everything changes when Kentarou Tachibana arrives as the new head coach. He is an Olympic-level player, and he brings with him a secret weapon: Ayano Hanesaki, the girl who defeated Nagisa six months earlier. But Ayano is not the rival Nagisa remembers. Instead, she is a girl torn by conflicted feelings and eager to distance herself from badminton altogether. With the future of the team and their place in the sport on the line, Nagisa must confront her own sense of inadequacy, reach across to a troubled rival, and fight to bring victory back to Kitakomachi High School.
