(Image: Haikyuu!!)
“An anime about volleyball is one of the best things out there right now”. For a long time, I’ve heard this kind of saying circulating around the internet and I wasn’t really sure it was true. I had heard of Haruichi Furudate’s Shonen sports manga/anime, Haikyuu!!, before. It’s basically a series about a young high schooler, Shoyo Hinata, and his team working hard to reach their dreams of being the top volleyball players in all of Japan and maybe even the world. On paper, this sounds like your typical Shonen series just with volleyball being added in it. I knew who the characters were, what the plot was about, and the large fanbase surrounding it. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I respected it for what it was. I actually was interested in checking Haikyuu!! out for a long time, but I never really had time to do so due to life and me focusing on My Hero Academia as my main Shonen series. But, my interest peaked when part 2 of Haikyuu!!’s fourth season premiered, and the show and the characters trended on social media every week. I thought that maybe I should finally check this show out when I have time on my hands. Then I finally got a chance to check the series out at the tail end of December. Needless to say, I’m honestly kicking myself for not getting into this series sooner.
First off, the animation is amazing. Haykuu!!’s animation studio, Production IG, makes sure that there’s cool volleyball games that go on for at least half of the seasons and the animation/art truly justify them. You are immersed in every episode, every match, and every win and loss is felt as if you were there with the characters themselves. You can feel the impact every time a volleyball is hit to the point where you’re shocked at what you just witnessed. This is greatly helped by Production IG’s animation and sound design. Whenever an amazing spike or jump serve happens on the court, the animators make sure to make that hit as epic as possible with dark lines and smooth animation across the board. Sometimes they’ll show the volleyball vibrate on the player’s hand or on the floor to visualize just how the insane power behind these plays. Sometimes they'll show wind blowing through the players to show how fast the ball was going. The sound of the ball hitting someone’s hands and/or the ground just builds on the impact, and the players and the audience around them. You really do feel like you’re watching a battle equivalent to what you see in more supernatural/action sort of anime like Full Metal Alchamist, Naruto, or My Hero Academia.
I’ve also heard that this series has actually helped motivate people to exercise more; to be more active in their lives and find that drive for something. I’ll admit that it’s had that effect on me too! I’m not sure about working out on a daily basis, but I do want to go out and try playing volleyball when we’re able to again. I’m not even kidding. This series is really good at teaching their audience the basic rules of volleyball like what a Libero is (the player who focuses primarly on defense and normally wears a different uniform than the rest of the team), what a quick serve is, what a receive is, what a float serve is, what a jump serve is etc. I’m no expert on the sport, but the fact that I learned all that and more from this series when I didn’t know jack about it before is amazing.
(Image: Tobio Kageyama and Shoyo Hinata)
Though it educates its audience about volleyball, Haikyuu!! is a series that lives and dies with its characters first and foremost. It’s the characters that drive the story more than anything else. Which is a good thing because the characters help make the games they play that cooler to witness and even more rewarding to see them grow into the people they’re meant to be. Similar to My Hero Academia, Haikyuu!! has a lot of characters; really great characters. Some get more focus than others (Hinata being the prime example since he is the main protagonist), but each one gets some sort of development throughout the series. Actually, let’s examine a few characters for a bit! Shoyo Hinata, dreams of becoming the next “Little Giant”. This is a title given to sports players who are short in stature compared to the average height of the people in their sport, but are incredible players nonetheless. Throughout the series, we see Hinata’s growth to try to earn that title. He is short for a volleyball player, only being around 5’4”. Despite that, he is naturally, athletically gifted with quick speed and a very high jump. Hinata’s jump is high enough for him to see over the net when he does a quick serve or a block (so maybe half his height if I’m calculating right). This alone is insane and proves how much Hinata deserves to be on the court. But, that isn’t enough. Hinata is still a rookie at the beginning and needs to learn the basics of volleyball such as working together with his team. Hinata starts to grow as a result, thinking of new strategies and new moves that help his team immensely during their matches. One of Hinata's arcs is learning how to become more of an allrounder as a volleyball athlete. In the beginning, one of Hinata’s biggest weaknesses was that he was bad at receiving, which is one of the most important parts of volleyball. He would receive sometimes, but most of the time it was his face doing the work and not his arms like they’re supposed to (leading to some very funny moments which I’ll get to later). During season 4 of the anime, Hinata starts to observe other players receive and he tries to learn from them. After lots of practice from what he learned, Hinata eventually does successfully receive for the first time, creating one of the most rewarding moments of the series. And he does it again, and amazes everyone again. It’s so simple on paper, but anyone who has followed Hinata’s story should feel some sort of pride for watching him grow over the course of 4 seasons/200+ chapters. And he only keeps growing from there.
The other main protagonist of the story is Tobio Kageyama. Kageyama is Hinata’s rival, teammate, Kurosano’s main setter, and volleyball prodigy. He’s only a first-year in high school (like Hinata), but he already has the skills to go pro if he worked hard enough (he literally plays 4-D volleyball on the court at one point; this kid's spacial awareness is insane). The thing about Kageyama is that he’s aggressive. Not stoic or extroverted, but has this balance between being calm and angry especially on the court. He knows exactly what to do when on the court playing a game and will try to keep his composure as much as he can. But when his teammates don’t corporate with his plans or they do something they weren’t supposed to, he will get angry at them and start berating them (Hinata being the prime target, but he doesn’t mind most of the time (bless him)). It’s actually this attitude that starts his arc. Kageyama was a tyrant on the court prior to high school. As I said before, he would be demanding and critical of his teammates to the point where they abandoned him entirely. They even gave him a nickname to mock him, “The King of The Court”. It wasn’t a name given to him because he was an amazing player; it was given to him because he acted like a king who thought he could rule everything and everyone around him. This literally traumatized Kageyama to the point where he had trouble trusting anyone on his team in fear that they would abandon him again. So, throughout the series, he had to build on that and learn to not just trust his teammates, but have his teammates trust him as well. If he couldn’t do this, then he wouldn’t have been able to play volleyball to begin with. He would also have to learn how to find a middle ground between being a tyrant to his teammates and being a "goody-two-shoes" who does what his spikers want. They're tough lessons for someone like Kageyama to learn, but once he does, he truly becomes the King of The Court.
(Image: Kurosano Crows)
I can go on with the characters, honestly. There are so many who get very good amounts of development like Kurosano’s Libero, Yu Nishinoya, their main blocker, Kei Tsukishima, the second setter, Koushi Sugawara, the team’s manager, Kiyoko Shimizu, and many more. Even the characters who don’t get as much time as other characters do get plenty of development regardless. Some get full episodes dedicated to them, their backstory, and their growth. It’s refreshing to see that not every one of Kurosano’s Crows are put on the back-burner. Even the rivals are fleshed out character! There really are no “villains” in Haikyuu!!. I wouldn’t even truly call them antagonists. Everyone is a rival to each other in the best way possible. They’re all strong players in their own right as the series shows off their own special skills and personalities. Some are have insane spikes, some are great at blocking, some are great at receiving. Some players are quiet, but incredibly intelligent; some are energetic and help bring the team together; some are crazy and constantly keep their opponents on their toes. And each one is incredibly likeable. You can show me a list of all these rivals and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint one that I actively dislike. Even the characters who are petty and have bad attitudes are respectable because of how hard they worked to get to where they are (you know exactly who I’m talking about if you know the series). And each main rival of the series gets fleshed out in their own way yet similarly to our protagonists. We understand their plight and why they’re on the court. We understand them and almost want them to win the match too. It’s hard enough to flesh out one character. Fleshing out over 20 characters is an accomplishment in its own right and I have to commend Furudate-sensei for that.
Now to the comedy. Though the series is primarily about volleyball, this is honestly one of the funniest series I’ve seen in a long time. There are genuine LOL moments that completely catch you off guard, but they make sense for the characters. Kageyama’s and Hinata’s dynamic is entertaining to watch as they constantly bicker with each other; Hinata constantly getting hit in the head with the volleyball is a great running gag (not sure how he’s still alive at this point…); Koushi Sugawara and Daichi Samawara are basically the “mom” and “dad” of the team, so seeing them take on said roles is amusing to watch as they watch their little fledglings grow (which leads to funny moments of keeping the team under control); Ryu Tanaka and Yu Nishinoya are pure and utter chaos, I can go on. Point is, there’s a lot of great comedically funny moments in this series. One of my favorites is it’s revealed that despite being a genius on the court, Kageyama is an idiot off it. Not even kidding, he’s is actually academically dumb. He literally stops breathing for a bit after realizing that he needs to pass final exams if he’s going to the training camp. Kageyama’s awkwardness with other people is played to great comedic effect too as we see this poor boy try to make normal conversation with other people. For such a serious guy, Kageyama has a lot of funny moment sin the series.
Going off on the comedy, Haikyuu!! has become one of the most feel-good series I’ve experienced in a while. A lot of anime/manga focus on more dark themes for their stories that have to do with things like “Good vs. Evil”, the supernatural, and the like. But, Haikyuu!! just doesn’t go that dark into things. It doesn’t force its characters into war-like scenarios nor does it make them fight the Big Bad to save the world. None of the characters die and the stakes are as low as “we could lose the tournament and go back home”. There are parts of it where it’s sad and kind of tragic, but the story is ultimately a positive one about chasing your dreams and following your passions no matter what obstacles come your way. Each character, even the more brooding and antagonistic ones, help express that through their own funny/heartwarming moments that give Haikyuu!! the much-needed breathers it needs to take sometimes. All that positivity is one of the things that keeps me coming back to this series, especially during a bad day.
(Image: Season 3 OST Cover (The music is fantastic too btw; same composer as series like My Hero Academia, Yuki Hayashi))
I could go on with my spiel of Haikyuu!! for a while, but to avoid spoilers for people who only watch the anime, I won’t. I think I’ve said as much as I could. Just know that whenever we do get that final game of the series in the anime (and you know it’s coming), it’s going to be absolutely insane. After finishing season 4, I skimmed through some of the last chapters and it was amazing. Furudate knew how to end their series. Regardless, like everyone else, I’m hyped for this show. I’m ready to see our Kurosano boys in action again whenever season 5 comes out. I'm ready to beg Production IG for a beach volleyball OVA episode like everyone else. I’m prepared to go through the fandom side of Haikyuu!! to see what I’ve been missing out on for so long. I heard it’s really nice compared to a lot of series. I've got 8 and a half years to catch up on. I need some Haikyuu!! in my system now that I’ve gotten a taste of it. Guess you can say that I’ve finally found a huger for Haikyuu!!.
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