Haikyuu!! To the Top (Haikyu!! To the Top)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Haikyuu!! (2020), Haikyuu!! Fourth Season, Haikyuu!! 4th Season

Japanese: ハイキュー!! TO THE TOP

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jan 11, 2020 to Apr 4, 2020

Premiered: Winter 2020

Broadcast: Saturdays at 01:25 (JST)

Producers: Dentsu, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Movic, Sony Music Entertainment, TOHO animation, Shueisha

Licensors: Sentai Filmworks

Studios: Production I.G

Source: Manga

Genre: Sports

Themes: School, Team Sports

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 8.36¹ (scored by 535,768 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #204²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #179

Members: 872,761

Favorites: 5,029

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@animehaikyu_com

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Crunchyroll

8.36

Ranked #204Popularity #179Members 872,761

Winter 2020TVProduction I.G

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Episodes: /13

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Synopsis

After their triumphant victory over Shiratorizawa Academy, the Karasuno High School volleyball team has earned their long-awaited ticket to nationals. As preparations begin, genius setter Tobio Kageyama is invited to the All-Japan Youth Training Camp to play alongside fellow nationally recognized players. Meanwhile, Kei Tsukishima is invited to a special rookie training camp for first-years within the Miyagi Prefecture. Not receiving any invitations himself, the enthusiastic Shouyou Hinata feels left behind.

However, Hinata does not back down. Transforming his frustration into self-motivation, he boldly decides to sneak himself into the same rookie training camp as Tsukishima. Even though Hinata only lands himself a job as the ball boy, he comes to see this as a golden opportunity. He begins to not only reflect on his skills as a volleyball player but also analyze the plethora of information available on the court and how he can apply it.

As the much-anticipated national tournament approaches, the members of Karasuno's volleyball team attempt to overcome their weak points and refine their skills, all while aiming for the top!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Haikyuu!!
Prequel:	Haikyuu!! Riku vs. Kuu
Sequel:	Haikyuu!! To the Top Part 2

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Hinata, Shouyou

Main

Murase, Ayumu
Japanese

Kageyama, Tobio

Main

Ishikawa, Kaito
Japanese

Nishinoya, Yuu

Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko
Japanese

Kozume, Kenma

Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki
Japanese

Tsukishima, Kei

Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki
Japanese

Bokuto, Koutarou

Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei
Japanese

Kuroo, Tetsurou

Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi
Japanese

Sugawara, Koushi

Supporting

Irino, Miyu
Japanese

Akaashi, Keiji

Supporting

Oosaka, Ryouta
Japanese

Tanaka, Ryuunosuke

Supporting

Hayashi, Yuu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Morihiro, Fumi

Producer

Maeda, Toshihiro

Producer

Matsushita, Keiko

Producer

Kurashima, Mayumi

Producer

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Opening Theme

"PHOENIX" by BURNOUT SYNDROMES

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Ending Theme

"Kessen Spirit (決戦スピリット)" by CHiCO with HoneyWorks

More reviews

Reviews

Apr 3, 2020

abystoma2

Not Recommended

Four seasons in and I still have no idea what the appeal of this show is supposed to be. And it’s getting worse.

You see, to make a sports appealing, one of two choices needs to be taken most of the time. Either let the human drama be the focus and use the sport as the way to channel the conflict, or go over the top with the sport to make it blood-boiling exciting. Haikyuu has neither of those. It just a bunch of high school guys playing volleyball. Neither the characters and their interaction nor the game itself is interesting. You might even say ... that it’s too realistic for it’s own good, as it really feels just like sitting on a bench in high school watching some randos play a match because you have nothing better to do.

And here comes this season’s special: training. Yep, most of the fourth season is training. Now I know some training is important as the most popular alternative to training is just straight out ass-pulls, but is most of the season really necessary? Watching the whole “Hinata accidentallies himself into the big boi training grounds” pretext is just painfully boring. I know the result will be “He got somewhat better at playing”, you know it, we all know it yet we’re all forced to watch a bunch of episodes to get the much predicted result. Nothing of interest happens during this part, though to be honest I couldn’t name you a single interesting scene in the whole season. I mean, stuff like “slice of life fans be like - bro the grocery store arc hit different” jokes become reality here as we get an episode that’s mostly about a dude forgetting his bag in a gym. This whole season could be condensed into 3 or 4 episodes and nothing of value would be lost.

The cast is pretty much basic action shounen cast just taken from battle and put into sport genre. Most of their personalities are “being really passionate about the game” and “causing 'humorous' scenes that will make the background simplified and everyone make a 'funny' face”. Some of them also possess the unique trait of shouting really loud. I’ve noticed that since this season offers nothing of interest anyway, the character designs were tweaked a bit so now almost everyone looks like the same person, just with a different haircut. Interesting artistic choice, but fitting.

The animation is still good, but not as good as the previous seasons. Considering the high quality animation was what made Haikyuu stand out and combined with the subpar plot of this season (even for Haikyuu standards) this easily makes it the worst season so far. One pet peeve I have about the animation through the whole franchise is the decision to make a hole in the volleyball net every time a character is standing behind it. Yeah, I get it, it’s so we can see the characters face, but really, would few lines of net hurt so much? Now it breaks any bit of immersion that could have been had every time it’s done.

The list ditch effort and simultaneously almost a sure-kill way to make a scene exciting is to throw in an epic soundtrack. You can make eating potato chips epic with the right choice of sound accompaniment. Yet, there’s no choosing from out of nothing and cool soundtrack didn’t really get an opportunity to show its qualities this round. Better luck next time.

Overall, this is just another dose of generic episodes of “fujoshi bait characters passionately slap sweaty balls, moaning about having to get better at it”.

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Apr 3, 2020

SingleH

Recommended

Perhaps this is selfish, as I don’t interact with the community enough to know if this opinion is shared, but to me, the enduring appeal of seasons one through three of Haikyuu!!—putting aside, for now, its outstandingly high quality production—was in the fact it was the first and only shounen anime which did not feel like it was meant to go on forever. All shounen manga as serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump are literally, in-the-text, meant to go on forever. By design of the publication, volume sales and product sales are of secondary importance to by-vote audience reception, which would honestly be kind of cool ... from a creative market perspective if said piece of art wasn’t placed on such a ridiculously tight schedule as such which effectively forces all products produced under its purview to be trite, shallow, flavor-of-the-week time killers, and few works of its brand escape this fate. To me, Haikyuu!! was the only one of those exceptions which was worthwhile.

Its characters have always been archetypical, its theming has always been modest, and its narrative has always been standard, but to regurgitate what I’ve been saying for years now, Haikyuu!! knows the good tropes and executes them flawlessly. Haikyuu!! doesn’t take one-note characters and make them deep, it just makes them the most consistently well-written and empathetic one-note characters you can find. It doesn’t take power of friendship, hard work vs talent storytelling and make it any more complex, it just delivers it with such hype and humanistic catharsis your heart can’t help but be affected. It doesn’t take the highschool sports inter-high plot structure and make it any more unique or interesting, it just executes the stock mold with such expert pacing and pointed purpose you still feel every step of the way is a culmination. And the cherry on top of it all is exactly where I started this gushing rant to being with, its ability to do what none other in its genre can do: not feel like a waste of my time.

I’m not old, but if you asked your average anime fan, they’d think I’m old. Frankly, I find it extremely and progressively difficult to give a care about highschool anime. Unless you have a crazy high-concept and a million things going on at once like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or incomparably genius writing and direction like Hyouka, I’ll probably drop you within five minutes. Haikyuu!! has an immediate advantage with me being a Production IG show, because it gets to be drop dead gorgeous, but I still just couldn’t help being anchored down by how good it made me feel. However, this was not nearly enough in the long run, and I figured I would just power through the first season and then respectfully refrain from continuing, but with the betrayal of expectations the first season ended with, the point became clear and I became invested. From that point on, season two delivered the most psychologically relieving and emotionally elating ensemble character arcs in any sports anime ever made, and season three delivered ten straight episodes of bracing sakuga and physically electrifying payoff after payoff.

And this is exactly why I thought it was the perfect time—to stop. I’m not about to sit here and spout pandering buzzwords and generalizations at you, like how long running series are destined to go downhill or any of that nonsense, because as I mentioned, I don’t interact with the community, I and don’t care about the trappings of their public consciousness. I just personally feel as if the concept is starting to exhaust itself. To no deep fault, mind you, but to exhaustion nonetheless. Season one felt aimless only in so far as it smartly played its cards close to the chest, but the moment it showed its hand, the series gained an alien sense of—not maturity, per se, but—reality, and seeing as I then instantly noticed the story hidden in the details which I had failed to appreciate, I was able to continue on in the correct mindset and consume it as the modest masterwork it was and always had been, plus the incredible animation and sharp design work it initially charmed me with. This season was the complete layered cake I described, only without that imperative cherry on top.

Simply put, it stayed as solidly constructed and consistently written as it ever was, but lost the subtle spark and fulfilling momentum which it had always enchanted me with. The characters have to regress to develop because they were so perfectly completed, the new principle antagonists feel random because those who came before them spent fifty to sixty episodes being built up, and the plot has to meander to progress because it was so perfectly concluded. Said regression fit said characters’ established mental hang-ups, and said meandering fit said plot’s logical stagnation following the tournament which season three ended with, but whether it makes sense or not and whether it’s competently made or not, the fact of the matter is it’s not nearly as gratifying as it has been historically, and that is a problem, no matter how picky. After all, just as a bad show can only change for the better, a good show can only change for the worse, especially if that good show is of the same nature Haikyuu!! is, that of an anime based on a manga pumped out weekly and with no time to improvise once the proverbial conceptual well ran dry.

And yet, what’s really the biggest hit to my own personal enjoyment is the downgraded directing and animation. The production values are just as kinetic and ambitious for the genre, but nowhere near as polished, consistent, and technically perfect as the prior seasons. You know it’s a dark day when Production IG themselves have to split-cour a production, whether it’s being done better by their B-Team than any other fullcore studio could ever do with their best or not. Haikyuu!! To the Top is by no means the “top” of what this series has to offer nor what this series has offered in the past, but it is still miles, miles, miles above the bottom, and any fan of the series will find themselves greatly pleased by its return. However, if you’re a crotchety old bitch like me or a sakuga nerd chasing that prepossessingly glorious shooting star of crafted brilliance, Production IG, you may find yourself somewhat disheartened, no matter how delightfully your favorite characters on screen can turn that frown upside down.

Thank you for reading.

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Apr 3, 2020

lt_wassile

Recommended

Welcome to a new chapter of “I could never have imagined a volleyball anime could be this good”

“Haikyuu!!: To the Top” picks up more or less at the spot where we were left when S3 ended, meaning that Karasuno has just defeated Shiratorizawa to qualify for nationals. Even if it was an unavoidable event for the story to keep progressing, that along with other circumstances such as the sidelining of Hinata for much part of the Shiratorizawa match might have made the third season the weakest -though it was kind of useful to demonstrate that Karasuno wasn’t a 2-man army-. Still, it set the stage ... for a huge future narrative event in the nationals championships, and it seemed clear that Shoujo was going to play a more important role these following seasons.

Up until now, Haikyuu!!’s formula had always been the same: Train hard, improve, play some friendly matches here and there and enter the competition of the Miyagi Prefecture, where Karasuno’s team would fight their way through the league chart against some already known rivals to reach the long-desired status of National qualifiers.
However, this season marks a turning point in the franchise path; our beloved crows have a new goal in sight, win the nationals, and in consequence, new and harder challenges to deal with.
The indicated set-up gives the creators the chance to make two phenomenons possible: Dig deeper into the development of this volleyball universe -showing us new players and teams to keep in sight as well as more aspects of the game- and displaying a different perspective of the series -more character-driven than the past 3 seasons- as it strongly focuses on the development and evolution of the main cast, preparing and hyping us for the enormous challenge that our friends from Karasuno High School are just about to face.

And this brings us up to Hinata’s situation. His only power is ambition. Sooner or later, the ability range of Hinata had to expand and this season called for it. His character had always walked across the thin line separating greatness and powerlessness due to its short range of abilities, but he had managed to survive in spite of that.
Therefore, and far from making it as your typical shounen evolution where characters improve their abilities out of nowhere or learn a skill after practicing once, Haikyuu to the Top shows us a main character who finds himself forced to envision volleyball from a different point of view to what he’s used to; this gives Hinata the chance to analyse and scrutinize other great volleyball players game, making it easier for him to realise what was dragging him down, and how could he put a stop to it. This results -for the delight of us, Haikyuu fans- in a considerable bust to his volleyball potential.

So, as we all know, one of the elements that make this franchise stand out is its realism and characterization of the players. This has not changed a bit; every single character feels special in its on way, as we still see how both our main cast and their subsequent rivals evolve as players and as human beings throughout games and hardships, forced to change their approach to the game and to life due to the adversities they encounter along the way.
However, due to the lack of games -or, at least, meaningful ones- during this season, the intensity and anxiety that matches provoked on the viewer and that had become the seal of identity of this anime this past 3 seasons, has somewhat been obscured, making this course a little more boring than the last ones. Maybe this framework is not the most enjoyable, but guess what? All good stories require a good foundation, and without this one, Haikyuu!! might not have been able to move forward.

Leaving all this behind, this fourth season is the first to see significant changes in staff –we have both a new director and animation director.
Nevertheless, animation quality has not dropped at all -or at least, not that much as people thought it would-; Satou has achieved to safeguard the spirit of the last 3 seasons, though slightly redesigning some of the characters in order to make them closer to the manga which, in fact, was one of the objectives they had at the beginning of the process.
When it comes to Haikyuu!, the depictions of movement is probably unparalleled. This series has always been masterful at illustrating the human form in motion –muscle definition, facial expressions, joy, fatigue– making good use of vivid colors and fine structures, and it looks like none of that seems to have changed.

Last but not least, sound. Besides counting again with a great sound director such as Hiromi Kikuta, which has been able to create absolute magic throughout the whole series -this season was no different from the previous ones-, and with the same voice cast we’ve been enjoying lately (rest in peace Tanaka-san),we also could enjoy ourselves with the absolute banger which BURNOUT SYNDROMES delivered.

I.G production knows that a lot of responsibility is placed in their hands -you know, they produce one of the most acclaimed sports animation shows- and, as it was expected, “Haikyuu!!:To the Top” did not let us down.

“With sweat, blood and tears - those shining wings will take you wherever you please”

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