Judo. It’s a Japanese word known the world over, regardless of boundary, language or nationality, which conjures its own images much like hearing sushi or sayonara. In the world of sports, it is Japan’s earliest contribution to world athletics. What started in the late nineteenth century as safer form for practicing Japanese “unarmed” martial arts became a a sporting event within Japan and quickly around the world thanks to a handful of individuals. What better metaphor is there for the turbulent emotions of a young lady in high school who wants to shop, date and learn the makings of a good housewife and her grandfather’s aspirations of her claiming Olympic and national victories on the mat than the very pushing and pulling required for executing the majority of Judo’s throws? Cross-generational, cross-gender and cross-mat goals charge head-to-head in Yawara!: A Fashionable Judo Girl.

The story finds itself in then-contemporary (late 1980s) Japan and in the first episode we’re introduced to the first slew of characters who will become the primary protagonists amongst an ever-growing cast. The first-among-peers of these characters is the titular character, Inokuma Yawara. Yawara is a fairly average high school girl. She does well academically, she has a close circle of friends and she’s beginning to enter the “jiken jigoku” (exam hell) phase of high school, trying to get into college. She lives with her grandfather, Inokuma Jigoro, due to an as-of-yet unexplained absence of her parents. What makes her different is her grandfather, a former national Judo champion, Judo teacher and attempting to return to the direct Judo spotlight vicariously through his granddaughter. Yawara, however, wants none of it. She’d study to enter into college, find a man, get married and settle down. Alternatively, we are introduced to Matsuda Kousaku, a struggling journalist for a weekly newspaper Every Sports and his photographer side-kick, Kamoda. In a chance happening, Matsuda and Kamoda are witness to a purse-snatching; the would-be thief, trying to escape, accidentally runs into Yawara, who instinctively reacts by throwing him with a text-book perfect Tomoenage. Kamoda’s talent, it is revealed, is to capture the perfect shot. Matsuda is convinced that this young girl is the Judo world’s next star and the cure for his career slump.

Remember that bit where Yawara doesn’t want to be the next star of the Judo world? Well, that’s all true; however, living with your national champion grandfather means you wind up on the mat anyway. Yawara’s reluctance comes from being seen as unfeminine, which can be a deathblow to marriage prospects. She is; however, a classically trained judoka, or Judo player. Her capability to be a star compounds her grandfather’s frustration that she should be the udo world’s star. As Matsuda and Kamoda search for the girl with the perfect Tomoenage another chance meeting begins steering Yawara on the track to Judo fame: her grandfather and her are invited the (one) of the home(s) of Hon’ami Sayaka. Sayaka is a fabulously outrageously wealthy athelete who has conquered numerous sports at world class levels and she sees Judo as a barbarian’s game and best left to those that serve her. Like Matsuda, she is rather discontent with her current postion in life but after some exhibitions of the Inokuma’s Judo abilities, her passion is once again lit to conquor the world of women’s Judo and, most importantly, crush Yawara.

While the drama revolves around Judo, there are common, personal touches that accent the story, including the almost-required love triangle, and people trying to reach personal goals and having to make sacrifices for the ones they care about. The action does come to a head on the mat as many later episodes feature the shounen-esque tournament sequences and different players, including Yawara and Sayaka trying to best each other. The animation, from renowned studio Madhouse and production by 80s powerhouse KITTY productions, gets very detailed and uses many close camera shots to get the viewer into the action and the drama that unfolds.

In many ways, Yawara! emulates “real” life. The original comic was published in Big Comic Spirits and was written and illustrated by Urasawa Naoki. Urasawa, who is probably most famous in North America for Monster, writes his characters and plots in a very realistic and down to earth fashion, even though there is constant bantering about Olympic Gold and the National Award of Merit. Care for this is taken greatly in the anime, from the pop music opening and ending themes to the pastel colorations reflecting the popular clothing styles of the time. Even though the television series began in 1989, it planned for its plotline culmination - involving the Barcelona Summer Olympics of 1992 - by not only having a countdown at the end of each episode to when the games would begin but also ending a mere days before the games opening. While the 1992 Olympics were convenient for not having to work around historical fact but also for the fact that Women’s Judo would be competing at the ‘92 Games as a full-fledged event, as Women’s Judo had been a demonstration event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. But Yawara did not just imitate real life, it invaded it. The series became very popular when it aired (and retains a bit of nostalgic value according to Japanese polls) but it had invaded pop culture to such an extent, when Tamura Ryoko (now Tani) won the Silver Medal in Barcelona, her appearance and similar weight-class led the press to dub her ‘Yawara-chan’ after the character; as best as I can tell, she is still referenced as such.

I first discovered the series when watching a TV Asahi program called Japan’s Top 100: Anime in 2002. The show was a listing of a nation-wide poll of what Japanese thought the top anime were and assorted clips were thrown in to match many popular listings as the countdown went from 100-1. Commentary by talent of the day and trio of hosts filled out the two hour block. On a personal note, it was through this same program that I discovered quite a few other anime and really got me looking for sports anime. (As an aside, there was a shit-storm amongst English-speaking anime fans after AnimeNewsNetwork published an English translation of the final list because the classic cat and mouse duo, Tom And Jerry, made the list at #37.)

It wasn’t too long there after that I found the first (well, digital, anyway) fansubs of Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl and I began lapping it up. A couple of years ago, a little company named AnimEigo announced that they had licensed Yawara! and released the first 40 episodes on DVD late this year. There are plans, with no official dates yet posted, to completely release the 124 episode television series. In addition, also owing to Yawara!’s popularity in Japan, there was a theatrical film released in August of 1992 as the TV series was ending (perhaps a composition film to catch people up or remind fans of past events) for the series finale and a television special aired as a sequel in 1996 featuring Yawara traveling to the Atlanta Olympics of that same year (coincidentally, Tamura “Yawara-chan” Ryoko from before won another silver at those same games). No plans of the film or special’s release in North America and Japanese video copies seem hard to come by.

Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl has all the trappings of a generic, long running anime series. There’s seemingly endless tournaments. There’s training to better one-self. There is also the suspension of disbelief required to think that someone so antagonistic towards the sport, yet to naturally talented, can go to some of through some of the most trying competitions of said sport. But it’s not all Dragonball Z or Naruto. Yawara’s girly tendancies and melodramatic, shoujo-esque love triangles are not so over-the-top that it still appeals to men aged 20-25 (or, at least, can understand or relate) who typically read Big Comic Spirits and the anime’s mainstream appeal in Japan showed it was pulling in male and female audiences. In spite of the genre tropes that Yawara! is caught up in, its strong characterization and involving narrative don’t make it the run of the mill, long, drawn-out epic. Instead, it demonstrates one of the strengths of the sports genre that the typical shounen adventure series does not: Japanese animation can be engaging and relatable to the viewer, even in some unlikely circumstances.

Drew Sutton is a long-time Japanese animation fan, operator of Akihabara Renditions: Anime of the Bubble Economy and host of its component podcast.