Haikyu!! Seasons 1-3

Anime Review

Some people have already heard me RAVE about this anime, and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this show and how it has changed my view of sports anime forever. Haikyu is a show centered around volleyball and the premise is pretty simple - a high school team wants to make it to nationals, and they will go through some pretty dramatic wins and losses in their journey to achieve that goal. Anime is such a great medium for these kinds of stories because in each 25 minute episode, they can completely dramatize and slow down a game. And in each game, I’m choking in anticipation trying to figure out if they’re going to win or lose. I was fully addicted by midway through Season 1, and I’m still recovering emotionally from it!

Season 1

Season 1 was a great kick-off and intro season. Hinata Shoyo is presented as the main character, an aspiring volleyball character who has an extra obstacle of being short in a sport that typically favors height. But his talent and energy quickly will win viewers over and give us an “underdog” main character to root for. Season 1 also intros all of the characters on the Karasuno high school volleyball team and gathers them on their road to discovering their team identity and becoming stronger. Almost like a slice-of-life genre, this first season makes you fall in love with each character’s backstory and introduce the sport of volleyball + terminology that will be used for the rest of the show. By the end, you’re a diehard fan of this team and cheering them on in each match.

Season 2

Season 2 was probably my favorite season because it is a mix of both team bonding/growth and intense volleyball matches. The first half of the season is essentially like a big training montage where the Karasuno team is trying to become even stronger to get a shot at making it to the Spring Nationals. Usually people might not find the training montages as fun as the actual battle, but this anime makes it really exciting! My favorite episode of Season 2 was episode 6, titled “Tempo,” because it gave me chills for how inspirational it was. And then the latter half of Season 2 is focused on a particular match that was a major emotional ride.

Season 3

Season 3 is a dedicated 10 episodes to a match between Karasuno and a rival school. It is extremely intense and dramatic to watch, but at the same time, shows a mountain-load of character development with each episode. One of the highlights of the season was watching Tsukishima Kei become an actually lovable character, because he was previously always portrayed as stand-off-ish. Essentially, this season feels like you’re watching a major sporting match and you’re on the edge of your seat hoping that your team wins. Don’t be surprised when tears start rolling down your cheeks (but tbh I cried at some point for all three seasons LMAO).

In conclusion…

Overall, Haikyu is such a fun and wildly addicting show to watch because you’re cheering so hard for the main characters to achieve their goals. That’s basically the magic of anime for me…and the genre of sports captures that sentiment beautifully. In a way, it’s a bit like this show can rely on the hype of volleyball be so good, because the sport is already something that people tend to naturally enjoy watching and cheering for. Throw in endearing characters, laugh-out-loud humor, and minute-by-minute breakdowns of each play, and you’ve got yourself a hit for sure. As of now, I’m going to restlessly wait for the rest of season 4 to come out in 2020 :).