In my honest opinion, sports genre in anime, especially shounen related, has gone way too stale over the past few years. They're all driving the same formula, and, while it is fun and games, it's also extremely predictable and at times flat out boring and unwatchable. Unfortunately, Haikyuu!! suffers from same problems most of these sports anime do - it takes every play in the book and drives it home without stopping. The one spin, though, is that the initial "rivals" become teammates, but that's about it. You'll probably see me comparing this anime to a few others during this review, but I think that it's best to do that since they're so similar.
The story of Haikyuu!! follows Hinata and Tobio as they battle their way through the pains of high school volleyball. If this anime fails anywhere, it's probably here - as I said, it's a complete and all-through textbook drive of cliches and predictability. Think KnB, think DnA, think Eyeshield - it's exactly that. A group of people gathers with one unified goal, they have some kind of a special talent(s), but they quickly learn those talents aren't enough so they have to keep training harder to beat their "rivals". You'd think that's a spoiler, but it seems that it's pretty much given in today's sport genre in anime. The story follows the code and it never lets it go, drilling it to max until the very end. Short version? Extremely disappointing. The lack of progress is not as obvious, since there are quite a few matches through the game, but you quickly learn that the story is nothing special. By the time you reach episode 10, you'll know how this anime will end and lead off into the second season. I'll give credit that matches are exciting, but that's far less of a credit to the story than it is to the animation. Other than that, nothing really to talk about.
Production department, as with any anime, had its ups and downs. Outside of volleyball part, animation is just terrible. Stiff movement, or rather no movement at all, is just painful to watch after some really exciting sequences during the matches. Speaking of matches, for the most part they're animated quite well. "Special moves" have their punch, action is fast and fluid, and ... well, as I said, it is really like volleyball version of KnB. Literally - albeit a tad bit more realistic. I did like the color pallet since it was quite bright, and facial expressions, may it be comedy or something else, were done rather well. On the sound department, there are a few noticeable songs that will be repeated to hell throughout the anime, but they're quite well done so you won't mind them as much. There will be some voices that will annoy you, but even that for the most part is good.
Characters are the best part of this anime - but, to be honest, they always are. In order for a sport anime to succeed, it needs to have good characters - and Haikyuu!! delivers there. Fun and outgoing, over-thinker and loner, kind giant, loud-mouth kid-looking guy, cute girl manager, surface-calm, beneath-demon kind of a guy ... you get it. Outside of maybe our two MC's, characters, for the most part, remain exactly the same, but they're fun to watch. They deliver some flat out funny moments, and with them on-board it doesn't feel like much of a pain to sit through this anime. Honestly, though, you've seen these characters all before. The only saving grace is that they are executed well and that's it. Nothing original or outside the norm.
As much as I've complained about Haikyuu!!, I did enjoy the anime. It has exciting matches, funny characters and fluid animation. It succeeds where any popular sports anime succeeds and fails where any popular sports anime succeeds. For instance, matches are more exciting than Diamond no Ace's, special moves are not as exciting as in KnB or Eyeshield, animation is more fluid than in Eyeshield, characters are better than in KnB, etc., so they kind of balance themselves out.
Overall - I do recommend it, even if you're not a sports fan. It's an easy watch and, unless you watched either one of the anime I've mentioned before and flat-out hated it, I don't see a reason why you won't enjoy this anime as well.
