Yawara!
Japanese title: YAWARA!
Alternative titles: Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl
Type: TV
Source: Manga
Episodes: 124
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Oct 16, 1989 to Sep 21, 1992
Broadcast: Mondays at 07:30 (JST)
Duration: 25 min per ep
Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Studios: Madhouse
Producers: Kitty Films
Licensors: AnimEigo
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Sports
Themes: Combat Sports
Demographics: Seinen

High school student Yawara Inokuma lives a completely happy and ordinary life. She aspires to an average lifestyle as a delicate young lady with a handsome boyfriend in the near future.

Unfortunately for Yawara, she has an undesirable prodigious talent in Judo, a modern martial art that is neither feminine nor fashionable. Moreover, Yawara is the only granddaughter of the seventh dan Judo master Jigorou Inokuma, who expects her to become a Japanese Judoka superstar of the '90s.

Yawara cautiously hides her strength from everyone to maintain a normal reputation but is often pushed to situations when she must exercise her Judo skills. Observing Yawara's immense potential from the shadows, Kousaku Matsuda, a sports reporter from a substandard paper, is willing to do everything he can to bring her into the limelight.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yawara! competed against Ranma ½ on Japanese television and achieved higher ratings, although Ranma ½ was more popular internationally. Yawara! had remained quite unknown outside Japan and only got licensed for North American distribution in August 2006, over a decade after its airing period.