Haikyuu!! To the Top

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.

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”

This kind of... doesn't feel like Haikyuu.

I started watching this season when 10 episodes were out already, and I also started watching it directly after watching the first 3 seasons. Almost everything about this 4th season feels foreign to the other 3.

The art style change does doesn't look good. In the first 3 seasons I could easily distinguish characters by their eyes alone, and now it seems many characters have the same face/expression. Also it just looks weird IMO. The animation is also a big step down, moments which would have fluid animation in the other seasons are now choppy and lack character, ... just feel like you're watching the average seasonal show. It has moments where it is decent but not near the first 3 seasons. Good animation is extremely important to me and plays a big part on whether I like a show or not.

Another thing that feels foreign are the characters themselves, I feel like they don't act like they usually do. During all the training scenes, Hinata is damn near incompetent, it's almost like he's back to season 1. Kageyama is a lot more indifferent than he usually is, (He was often sarcastic or making jokes in the other three seasons, but now he's kinda just stagnant.).

The pacing is also off, I feel like the show was generally more fast paced in the other seasons. The characters were always poking fun at each other, someone always had something to say, as well as background characters often doing stuff in the side of the frame, or talking as well, which seems to not be happening in this season. I've also noticed Sugawara making goofs a lot more than previous seasons, or maybe it just stands out more now that no one else is doing it too.

It's not all bad though. During episode 11 there was kind of a return to form, the animation was higher quality, the characters play off each other well, and the pacing of the episode was great. It felt more like the old Haikyuu.

In general it feels like a complete downgrade in every aspect and I'm pretty disappointed. It's still Haikyuu so I love the story and the characters themselves, but this season just doesn't feel the same.

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”.

(Never wrote a review before but hey why not, right?)

Haikyuu!!: To The Top continues to be my favorite sports anime. It has everything one could ask for, drama, comedy, superb action and a well rounded cast of characters.

Story: The story is still going strong. While this current arc is not being well received, I believe the show is consistent with what they have delivered so far. A well mix of drama, comedy, and action. Season 3 was an entire match (people seem to forget it was nonstop action), season 4 has slowed the pace to show the impact the conclusion of last season. Haikyuu!!: ... To The Top is addressing a certain story-line brought up in the previous season, Hinata's will to grow and improve.

Art: The art for Haikyuu is consistent throughout every season. It has been top notch since season one and has been polished with every season. The one thing I love about this show is that they show all the mechanics of players. Very rarely are there still frame shots of players scoring. An example of an anime that has poor animation during action sequences is Aihiru no Sora. Sora is like watching a PowerPoint presentation of a game.

Sound: Sound is great per usual. From the sounds of players killing the ball to the sound of their sneakers skidding across the gym floor, all around great. Why did I give it an 8? Not a fan of the opening. :P

Character: Hinata is easily one of my favorite protagonists. There have been way too many moments where I have teared up from watching his growth, failures, and triumphs. All the supporting characters are entertaining can easily have a spin off series (completely opinion).

Enjoyment: I am sure you can tell by what I've written that I love this season. While I do not think it is for everyone who was expecting non-stop games, I am believe that if you love the Haikyuu story then you can look past this season being a slower pace to flesh characters out.

Overall: There isn't much wrong with Haikyuu!!: To The Top besides the fact that it is only a whopping 13 episodes after a few years of waiting. At the end of the day, there are plenty of shows to watch in the meantime.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

ALRIGHT! CHANCE BALL! NICE KILL!

Now that Kageyama is back from his running career, the new season of the highly anticipated sport anime is here.

Although, matching the hype that was season 3 is going to be hard.

One thing that is right away noticeable is the art design change, not that drastic but the softer and bulkier design doesn't seem quite right. Especially when they are playing. The slender and longer designs of the previous seasons complemented the sharp and smooth animation. The new designs do not as much. This might be seem like a minor detail but it is noticeable in motion. Maybe the animators ... will prove my dumbass wrong, who knows.

Being that this is a part one of two, this is most likely going to a training arc so the character development with the two mains better make up for the lack of hype matches. It looks to be promising but director Mitsunaka is out so I am unsure. Not to put dirt on the new director who's work on episodes of Haikyuu before, directing changes most of the time are unwelcoming and dogshit. Otherwise, the episodes have been fairly good coming from someone who hates training arcs.

The sound is great but there are times where the lack of music makes a scene feel awkward. Might be relying too much on music to mask silence of scenes. OSTs should be used to be enhance the story not to feel up space.
(alot of shows do this too)

I know I've been sort of taking a shit on the show but I do infact enjoy the series, it is one of the better show and the few sports animes that I like. I just hope it lives up to the hype and gets better as the season goes on.




Also, underrated ED song?

To put it simply, this season has been a huge let down for me. At first I thought I just put my expectations too high due to my extreme enjoyment of the previous 3 seasons. But this genuinely just does not feel like the Haikyu of old. What blows my mind is how highly rated the show still is though. It feels as if I'm one of the only people that feels this was a huge downgrade, so I figured I'd write this review in case there were any others looking for someone who felt that way.

Most of my complaints likely stem from the fact ... that the series now has a new director. I noticed it in the recent OVAs with the Tokyo qualifiers, but all of the character interactions and action scenes feel choppy now. The series' flow used to be one of its claims to fame for me. Every shot always had some kind of movement going on, or if not, maybe an inner monologue conveying the unseen thought processes on the court. But it all feels disjointed now. We get still shots for multiple seconds in a match where the setter is just waiting for the ball silently. Dialogue will pause uncomfortably long so that a character can make a somewhat poorly animated "funny" face. I'm not getting dragged into the characters' heads and overall world as I once did.

Characters' personalities also feel very odd to me. Asahi for example (6 episodes in) feels completely soulless to me. Nishinoya's "rolling thunder" felt oddly empty as he called it out. Sugawara feels like he's taken on a strange goofball role. I could go on and on and it's hard to explain, but it just generally feels like we're only getting the surface of the characters now as well as some just feeling like they've had a total personality makeover.

Animation is the last gripe I have. Style I don't particularly have a problem with. It's different, but that's fine - I could get used to it. But it's the quality of movement-based scenes that I noticed is really sub-par. Look back at the scene of Mad-Dog rushing the net in season 2 just after being brought in. It's beautifully smooth and stylistic. Compare it to Hoshiumi (little giant from All-Japan camp) in his run-up to a massive spike. It's like his body turns into a gelatinous alien whose face was drawn by a 5-year-old. It's uncomfortably bad.

All of this has genuinely made me want to stop watching the show and just switch to the manga to see if it's better because at this rate, it's just tarnishing the incredible respect I had for the series as a whole. As I said, the staffing change(s) seem to me the most likely culprit, but given how good most reviews are for this season, I regrettably do not think there will be a reform of any kind for the second half of season 4, or any time soon after that.

P.S. Why did Asahi inexplicably abandon the hair band and go back to the bun. The lack of acknowledgment or explanation is irrationally frustrating for me.

To start off this review, I'd like to say that I've seen quite a few people complaining about this season. The main complaints seem to be about the animation and the lack of action.

I normally never write reviews, but, because of what I stated above, I'll try to express my opinion this time.

While I don't think starting with the animation is that relevant, I'd like to address the complaints here. The animation is absolutely gorgeous, it's the art style (yes, it's not the same thing) that has people complaining. I believe people just don't like changes, and, when something is indeed changing, they immediately react ... in a bad way without taking the time to think about it. To me, the animation is great.

Furthermore, the art change was made to stay true to the manga, so I think that's a good thing.

It does take a while (like 5 minutes) to adapt, but if you try to enjoy it, you'll see the animation and art style is pretty damn great. I personally like this art even more than the older season. It resembles the manga more, and seems more "modern". It is simpler, mostly because the animators weren't the same I believe. But it's still beautiful and satisfying to me.
Adapting to a different art style and seeing animation evolving shouldn't be such an important topic of complaints when it's done greatly! It's anime, OF COURSE the animation or art style is gonna evolve.

Secondly, the lack of action. I don't understand this statement either? Do people believe a good series is only matches with no character progression in between? This is what makes Haikyuu! so great : how we see the characters grow. Complaining about this is understandable if no big matches were played for some time, but this season follows the biggest match we've seen till now. Not to mention we still did get a quick match at this end, and we know the second cour is gonna be all about action.

Furthermore, if there weren't these moments where we see characters evolving, the show would become repetitive and boring, so I personally enjoyed it. Of course there's gonna be some training arcs, but if well made, they're interesting!

The focus on the first half is divided between Kageyama and Hinata, and it's incredibly interesting. I personally didn't see time passing when I watched each episode. I was engrossed in each of them!

To conclude, apart from some small pacing problems and some things being resolved too fast, it was still very good. I don't think this season is worse than the others. The characters are still lovable, the story leading to nationals is interesting, and the evolution of everyone's play (particularly Hinata) is great.

If you've loved the first 3 seasons of Haikuu and don't fixate on the art style just because it has changed, you're gonna love this season as well.

Another good series destroyed.

Watch everything before To The Top and then switch to the manga, cause the animation on this series is so irredeemably bad it really can't be excused. I'm amazed how you can go from Haikyu!! 3rd Season to this stinking pile of crap Production I.G just gave us as a sad substitute for the 4th season this amazing series deserved.

I have no knowledge as to why the animation is this bad, maybe read elsewhere for an answer.

For context I rated Season 2 & 3 both as 10s.

4/10, very bad. As fans of the series you should be offended.

Coming from the incredible Karasuno vs Shiratorizawa season, I expected much more for this one.

·Story: 6

Many people consider training as a way of learning but, when it comes to this anime (where most of the eps are related to that), this season is focusing too much on it.

Because of the few character development so far, no emotion or hype to see what happens next and many other things, I have concluded that these first 5 eps are some of the worst in whole anime history of Haikyuu.

·Art: 8

Art hasn't changed that much from other seasons. Something that I could notice ... is that the scenes have become smoother and lighter, which doesn't give that sense of intensity that other seasons had.

·Sound: 7

Effects and background music have got worse in my opinion or maybe hasn't appeared a chance to introduce better ones. Anyways the OP and ED are good and I hope the music will give me more hype in the next eps.

·Character: 6

As I said before the personalities of the mcs haven't changed at all. Maybe they have more ideas for their play style, but that's all.

The plot isn't helping them to develop and I think that they are stuck because of this.

·Enjoyment: 7

Not a big fan of volley but I'm still eating the eps, which is something strange for me because I usually leave apart series that are boring.

Nevertheless, this section is much more subjective than the others and it depends on you :D

·Overall: 7

So far I can say it's good. If it continues in this line I will grade it with a 6, but I hope it gets better and we can enjoy some hype from this anime.

Thanks for reading :D

Yo. So far I’ve written reviews for every season of Haikyuu! and figured I’d keep it going. Most of the times I have been critical, but it’s been hard for me to figure out why I haven’t liked Haikyuu without saying “I just think it’s overrated”. I think this time I actually know why: It tries way too hard.

The plot progresses in unnatural and extremely structured ways that doesn’t flow naturally, the new characters are introduced with such strong personalities that they don’t feel real, and the conversations between characters are either so unbelievably stereotypical that it makes me cringe or so inspirational that ... it makes me cringe. The humor is also wayyyyy too slapstick. I feel like they should add 1960s Loony Tunes BOING and WAHOO sound effects to all the epic goofy moments that Hinata and the other silly boys go through. It’s just way too over the top and makes me enjoy the show less.

So now to the latest season of Haikyuu!. Hinata sneaks into a freshman training camp and does his ball boy job so well that he starts to actually pay attention to what’s going on around him. I know they had to find some way to force his game to develop but I felt they could have done a way better job, this is just such a dumb plot point. People naturally learn to pay attention to their surroundings as they get better at their role in a sport. Once Hinata had played like 4 games he should have started this process. I was watching these episodes completely uninterested just wondering when we were gonna move on and Hinata finally stops being useless.

Then the Kageyama portion of these initial episodes where he goes to the select training camp. I thought it would initially be cool to see a display of some of the other good players in Japan and that it would be a great opportunity to showcase stuff that ACTUALLY takes place in sports, like detailing routines, work ethic, raw talent, and passion of top players in the country, and instead they use it as an excuse to introduce more quirky and non-relatable, uninteresting characters that I do not care about. They had an opportunity to have a great animation showcase in the scrimmage they had but even that was wasted because there was no fluidity at all in the animation and the entire thing played out in the minds of Kageyama and the other setter.

Then we get into the preparation for the tournament. These episodes were pretty good. You have to have some balance between character interaction, training, and intense games, so this middle transitionary period was completely fine for me. Just the usual issues of wacky humor that tries way too hard, too often and doesn’t land.

Then they actually start traveling for nationals. Literally the dumbest episode of the entire series so far was when their team manager had to go get Hinata’s bag and they turned it into a character development opportunity with her doing hurdles in track. This episode was dumb. They tried so hard to get us invested in this character that is so uninteresting by dumping an entire life’s worth of backstory in 10 minutes, and Hinata losing his bag was such a contrived, unnatural plot turn that just came off as forced and served no purpose other than to develop this character. And her backstory wasn’t even interesting, it was kind of pointless and I still didn’t care about her after hearing everything.

Onto the tournament itself. I know they are just gearing up for part 2 of this season so I can’t comment much on it because we have only seen one game so far. The depth perception thing was ridiculously stupid though, I’ve played volleyball tournaments in arenas with even higher ceilings and no stands, just 60 courts in a big cement rectangle. There is absolutely no difference in depth perception that 3 minutes of warming up won’t fix. You would be right to say “That’s such a minor issue, why are you even talking about it?” That’s because it was the subject of an ENTIRE EPISODE FOR NO REASON. If it had been mentioned in passing I wouldn’t even have to mention it.

Ok now for the actual production and quality of the show itself. It is very underwhelming. The music and animation has not improved since season 1 (which was made 6 years ago). For a show that staggers it’s seasons every other year to maintain production quality, you expect some sort of improvement. There are 3 second sequences that are breathtaking, of course, but 99% of the show is a slideshow with moving mouths and recycled hitting, setting, and passing animations that appear every episode. I’m just not impressed with the sakuga animation because it’s short and predictable and they try so hard to make it “epic” that it ends up being predictable and not as shocking of a visual experience.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts on this season, extending a little bit to the series as a whole. If you disagree, I’d encourage you to message me on my profile, I’d love to discuss it more. Thank you for reading!

Haikyuu is still as amazing as ever.

I was a bit skeptical about this season, mainly because of the change in artstyle, also because the director changed, but looking back I don't really know why.

It's Haikyuu. Haikyuu can't be bad.

This season retained the Haikyuu spirit. The OST is incredible and not only that, but it is always used at the perfect moment, making the viewer feel hyped or emotional. The character development is exceptional as well, the Karasuno team especially, but others as well are constantly growing and improving, both as players and as people.

The sakuga moments are still there and in the 2nd cour of ... this season, the animation will probably be even better because the staff will be more accustomed to the new artstyle, which bothered me for an episode or two, but now I can't really say I prefer the old one, the new one is great as well.

Also, I wanted to address one point - a lot of people liked this season less than the previous ones, mostly because this season focused on training, setup for the matches and character development, but most of these people are just "adrenaline junkies", who only appreciate Haikyuu for its matches. However, without the setup and development, the matches wouldn't matter as much and wouldn't have a big impact on the viewer. But in Haikyuu these setup episodes are very well executed and extremely enjoyable, that's why Haikyuu is the best.

Haikyuu is the most enjoyable show I've ever seen because every aspect is carried out exceptionally. I love it.

10/10

OKAY.... this season was amazingggg!!!! As a haikyuu fan that only watches the anime and not the manga, i was very excited to watch this season when it fully finished airing. Honestly, with the previous seasons i always thought that Hinata wasn't as good as I wanted him to be. He may have fast reflexes and at moments he may surprise you but his basic skills were not there. In this season, it mainly focuses on the character development of Hinata. There weren't many volleyball matches( there is a continuation of season 4 that will have nationals though c:), but I truly loved seeing him ... improve and solving his problems by himself. Kageyama also improved, and all the other characters as well. We also get introduced to new characters that we haven't seen before, which was very exciting to see.
One thing I often saw was people complaining about the art. And honestly, in the beginning, i was unsure too, seeing many differences in the art style that i loved. But, i quickly got used to it and it was not bad, also this new animation is cleaner in some ways and the personality of the characters still matched their expressions. Although the art was pretty good at some points it was poorly animated in my opinion, but it did not cause me to ever complain about it.
in conclusion, this season was Really good as we get to see more character development and the haikyuu energy we needed :))))) I truly enjoyed this season and y'all should watch it too

Hot damn, it's back, baby! I gotta say, I found myself staying up-to-date with the manga, so I can't really talk much in this review about the story content because, well, I already knew what it would be; that being said, I'm still really excited to review this season of Haikyuu!! now that it's finally been animated.

On that note, let's talk about the art. This is the first season of any anime I've watched in which I already knew the plot because of the manga (I know, I'm probably a bit weird in that regard). That meant that I was paying extra attention to ... the new character designs and environments I knew we would see this season, along with the animation of the scenes I had already read. I gotta say, y'all, I wasn't disappointed at all. The art style is one thing-- something we all already know and love from previous seasons (though it does feel updated now)-- but the coloring laid down on some of these new characters and environments absolutely blew me away. The animation, as well, was gorgeous as always. Haikyuu!! is exceptional at animating the motion of the athletes, and the updated art of this season (since it has been a hot minute since the last season) only made it better. I haven't necessarily seen a whole lot of sports anime pull the animation off perfectly in a movement-heavy sport like I have in Haikyuu!!, though Diamond no Ace does phenomenal with it too. Haikyuu!! does have an amazing soundtrack as well, and the OSTs this season were still bringing the fire, though I didn't really pay as much attention to it as I did the art this season.

After this, I'm not really sure how to review Haikyuu!!: To the Top. I could mention the character development or the story elements, but since I first appreciated them in the manga, I feel like I can't talk about them in the anime (though the anime did great with both of those things). Instead, I'm gonna talk for a minute about the structure of the season. Honestly, I didn't really know what they were going to do with the thirteen episodes this season given the manga material-- if they would stretch out the training camps, jump to nationals, etc. For the most part, I was satisfied with the outcome. I felt like the story that was touched upon this season was picked out perfectly, and the pacing done very well. Of course, given where the third season ended and where this one was set to pick up, this season felt a lot like the setup season it was rather than a progression of the story, which normally isn't something I'm crazy about, but Haikyuu!! always keeps the in-between bits interesting as well, so it didn't bother me as much as it has in other sports anime. There were a couple scenes in the manga I felt probably would've been better left out as it did upset the flow of the season a bit, but overall, I think the material they showcased from the manga was very well done.

Well, that's it. At this point, a lot of what I have to say about Haikyuu!! is going to be said in my review of the manga once it ends, so my reviews on the anime will mostly be about structure, but I don't mind that. I'm enjoying watching a story I've fallen in love with on paper being put to sound and voice and motion and color. I'm not entirely sure how the seasons will be divvied up going forward since the end of the manga presents a few issues with the future episode or season counts, but I'm confident the wonderful people working on the project will do this story proud. I'm so overwhelmingly happy to have this in anime form, and I'm looking forward to everything that's yet to come.

Because of how good the third season was, my expectations for the 4th season may be higher than has it be. SPOILERS!!





So far, this anime has been okay so far. The story has introduced some really interesting characters and has found a unique way to evolve the characters.

Minor:

... -It is very noticeable that the art is significantly different. In my opinion, it makes the characters a little less appealing and bland.
-Sugawara in the previous seasons has been caring and uplifting character throughout the series, but for some reason, he changes his personality completely for no reason at all.

Major:

- Kageyama reverts back into the "King" for no reason at all. Previously, it was a learning process that he works and communicates well with others, but then he loses it out of nowhere.
- Haikyuu's soundtracks are one of the most inspirational music in anime. It is played once out of 8 episodes. What is even more underwhelming is that it is played in probably in the most unimportant segment.


Haikyuu is still a good anime to watch. However, it didn't meet my expectations as it did with the previous seasons. So far, this season doesn't have the magic that it had in the past.

Preface: the review will likely be long and have a lot of grammar mistakes. Proofreading is too boring, so forgive me for that. Anyway, onto the review.

Haikyuu!! was always that 'volleyball sports anime' for me and literally nothing more. It was just like every other sports anime with the exception of it being about volleyball. It hit the same notes as the rest, it had the same story beats, it had the same character arcs, and it had the same over-the-top animation that the rest of them do. Even still, it was extremely high in quality and consistent in its execution which is why I ... always thought of it as one of the better example of sports anime. This season, however, was awful. Absolutely, unapologetically awful. Even if my overall score doesn't reflect that sentiment, I will die by it. In vacuum, without previous seasons, this is likely by far the worst season of sports anime ever produced.

Not only did its high-quality animation drop considerably, every other aspect of sports anime was thrown into the gutters and kicked until it died. The show became the poster-boy for precisely what is wrong with the entire genre and it postered itself with pride.

Story beats are recycled to the point I wanna kill myself. How many times do I have to watch half a season of training sessions? Training is boring. It's boring when I do it and it's certainly boring when others do it. I swallowed it during the second season since it was the first major one, but at this point we're too deep in to be giving literal 8-9 episodes of a 13-episode long 'half-season' to Hinata learning the literal basics of volleyball. Have a time skip -- spend 10 seconds to show that he trained and that he's now better. I promise you, nobody would call you out on it.

Because of this, the pace of the story is garbage. I found myself skipping scene after scene after scene after scene in this desperate attempt to locate anything worthwhile. But there was nothing. Even the single match we got in this season was borderline unwatchable. Worse than the first practice match of the first season. Nothing hype about it, nothing exceptional, just... bleh.

One aspect I've always hated about Haikyuu!! - and generally every sports anime for the most part -- is the dreadful onslaught of flashbacks for the irrelevant, minor characters. I don't care about their struggles -- if you wanted me to care, you would have made them the main characters. It seems to me that the writers of sports anime/manga want to be all-inclusive with their nonsense and repeatedly recycle teams that the main characters have floored in this horrid attempt to keep it 'realistic'. Here's a flash for you: we're not here for realism. If we were, everyone would have dropped this nonsense at 2-3rd episode. We're here for a colorful cast of one-note characters doing sportsy things that no actual high-schooler short of a freak like LeBron James could pull off. What's the point of Tobio being a genius and one-of-a-kind setter if you keep introducing morons that are better than him? What's the point of hitting every single sports cliche in existence rather than just keeping it fast and fresh?

This season, too, drowns us in pointless flashbacks and pointless onslaught of side-side-side characters to the point that I just don't give a shit anymore. I genuinely couldn't care less even if I physically tried. To make matters worse, they suddenly invent some childhood friend for the baldy, and... what? I'm supposed to suddenly give a shit about his love life? Goddamn, that was awful. Absolutely awful.

Then, as though we haven't had enough cliches as it is, it was time to introduce a new Hinata -- but this one has gray hair and is basically what Hinata wishes he was. I... I just wanna ask... why? What's even the point? You just literally told me it would have been a billion times more fun if that guy was the main character instead of Hinata. You just told me I've wasted however-many-hours on watching the subpar version of someone else. 'It helps with Hinata's growth' -- no, it helps because it's an easy story beat to execute. It helps because it requires literally 0 brain cells to write. You know what would have been more fun? If this guy didn't exist.

Every single story beat in this season screams 'I don't care anymore I just wanna write cliche garbage so I can rake in all that sweet manga cash till my carpal tunnel goes whammy'. And, to be fair, I respect that. I really do. Doesn't mean I can't bitch and moan about it, though.

Every sports anime seems to misunderstand what the point of the sports anime is which is why they all tend to stumble and fall over time. Major fucked up, Diamond no Ace fucked up, Kuruko fucked up, heck, even Eyeshield fucked up. They promise us one thing, but then they flip us a middle finger and say 'nope'. Again, we are not here for realism -- specifically because there is none of it in literally any sports anime out there. We are here for fancy nonsense that defies the law of physics -- which is exactly why the first season of Haikyuu!! was so appealing. What about it is appealing now? Nothing. Just like in every other sports anime -- well, except Kuruko. That thing kept amping shit up until the end and I respect 'em for it.

Furthermore, one thing that always kept the boring and asenine story beats in check, the high-quality animation, is gone. The most impactful scene in the entire season was one random guy who got like 2 minutes of screen time yeeting the fucking ball into the sky as a serve. Even the ending scene, the one scene that should hype you up for the next season, with the main character elevating what supposedly made him special to begin with, is just... meh. Good. You can jump. Get at it.

Characters, similarly to the story, recycle their beast and we're at it again. Hinata is doing great. Oh, no, he's really insecure now. Tobio is no longer insecure about being called a 'King'. Oh, no, wait, he actually is--nevermind, let's get going!

The main problem with sports anime, from what I've gathered, is that they are hellbent on recycling the opponents. They've floored the 'blocking team' (because that's how teams are composited, of course) sometime in the first season, yet, here we are, in the fourth fucking season with that team still supposedly giving them a challenge. Come on dude, I don't care. This just makes it seem as though nobody from the main cast progressed at all, or minimally at best. It kills the pace of the story and we are left with... well... this.

Furthermore, I have a feeling that literally the entire point of Tobio going to that All-Japan or whatever national camp is just so we can introduce another metric-ton of 'rivals' for the future. And, I gotta be honest, I don't give a shit for any one of them. They're just recycled versions of the people we've already seen, and I absolutely cannot wait for when they face these recycled rejects so we can get another 50 flashbacks about how much they care for volleyball and winning and whatever.

The story is written in such a way that it is clear that the author doesn't want it to end. Which is precisely why it's so goddamn confusing to me why they're hellbent on keeping the pace so bizarrely slow. We're at, what, 50ish episodes now? My god, 50 episodes and not even a whole year had passed. Do people realize just how insanely slow that pace is? If you cut out all of the unnecessary flashbacks, all of the entirely boring and irrelevant 'training arcs', heart-to-heart, this show would be like 20 episodes tops -- and, you know what? It would have been a mile better off for it. And with 30 extra episodes, we could have had far more of what is actually fun -- matches. Matches against the increasingly better teams. Heck, our main cast could have even lost at the Nationals, and we could have had that emotional 'bye bye third-years' or whatever and could have injected some fresh blood into the show through organic means -- new first-years. But noooo, instead, let's have yet another training session in which Hinata realizes for 69th time that just jumping really high isn't really a volleyball skill.

Anyway, I ranted too much. I'm out of words and out of desire to sit on this any longer. This is usually the point where I drop the sports anime -- once they start recycling story beats, bringing back the already defeated opponents in some vain attempt to appear as though they aren't writing fantasy, and when they dumb down all characters for the sake of hollow comedy. To add insult to injury, this show went even a step further and introduced a character that's basically a carbon copy of our main character... except that he's like a billion times better. Yikes. Talk about wasted investment.

Anyway, I'm all of the potential defenders of the show to swarm me or whatever the expression is, and if you can enjoy the show despite its endless flaws -- all the power to you. I'm in no way trying to discourage other people from enjoying this, just venting my personal frustrations. Well... that's it. Review done. Bye bye.

If you're really invested in following the storyline, and watching more training, then the fourth season is a watch, I suppose. However, I'm completely unable to sit through more than a handful of episodes, and I honestly think I got through 2 and had to stop. They changed the animation and the character design and I'm no longer invested in these "new looking" characters.

Asahi, for example, I wish I could explain what exactly happened there. His hairline was, for some reason, redone in a way that makes him look completely separate from the character we saw in the first 3 seasons. This new one ... could be an older brother or an uncle. It may align more with what is the original art in the manga but since I haven't read it, I'm not so sure. Perhaps I am biased as he is my favorite character but, the other characters seemed to lose part of their appearance as well.

Most of the aesthetic appeal of the first 3 seasons is lost on this one which I found disappointing. Art style is so important for these sorts of shows and I'm upset that it was changed. Again, I'm not sure if the intent was to align more with the manga's artwork which I know some shows do as the seasons progress; but, Haikyuu!! was always an immersive visual experience and it no longer feels that way.

The depth of the characters also feels wrong. They are all slowly losing their individuality and losing their spark as individuals on a team or who are training to improve.

Overall, there does come a time where a story has to end and I do think that Haikyuu!! definitely has a few more seasons worth of storytelling and advancement to showcase. This new art style and new animation is going to unfortunately pull audiences away. I would have loved to see the original art style and animation continued throughout the end of the story so that I could see the resolution, even though I know how it all concludes, but, it's not the same characters honestly. The appearance is different. The personalities are different.

If none of that is a bother, then please take a watch. But, if those sort of changes bug you, then steer clear and allow season 3 to be the "end" of Haikyuu!! for you.

Haikyuu is my favorite sports anime. [haven’t watched hajime no ippo yet]
The show makes you the part of their teams [karasuno]. it makes you feels like we know the members like a friend or teammate. It is one of the consistent shows airing now

Haikyuu s4 had some problems but overall it is still really good.
There were some changes like in art. The art style is now more inclined to the manga. Most of the viewers doesn’t seem to like the new art style. I can agree with this, I also liked the old art style.
But if this is more similar to the manga, then I ... can’t complain more, usually every good show have art style similar to manga. So I was able to bear this.
Animation was also weak compared to previous seasons. This season was more like a training arc before the tournament so I hope they will improve the animation quality more in the second part.

[THE RATING SEEMS TO BE LOW FOM LAST SEASON, I THINK ITS MAINLY BECAUSE OF THE NEW ARTSTYLE, and animation was a little lesser in quality]

• Story 9 awesome
Story is very good. We feel the the pressure in the match even it’s a story. That makes it incredible.

• Art and animation 8 Pretty good. [THE REASON FOR RATING DECREASE]
Not a fan of the new art style, but is adapting to it slowly. I hope animation improves in second part.
I MISS THE OLD MID INTERVAL SCENES.

• Matches 9 awesome
We had one training match, which was really good. We also got the first stage matches of the tournament. They end this season in kind of a cliffhanger which keeps you hype for July.

• Sound 10 Outstanding
The osts are really good like always. The opening was awesome. Some new osts were really good.

• Character 9 awesome
Characters are one of the good things in Haikyuu. The series takes time to let us know the characters in the team really well. This season we got some major Hinata focus and developments.
We got more focus on Kiyoko, Tanaka, etc. more. We got introduced to some characters who can be major threats in the tournaments.

• Enjoyment 9 AWESOME
I enjoyed very season of Haikyuu. It is really consistent.
The change in art style in a thing I have to adapt to, especially when it is more similar to manga. Animation was weaker but not bad compared to many shows which have bad animations.

• Overall 9
A pretty solid season, ¾ was training arcs and the rest was the beginning part of tournament.
The training arcs are as good like always.


In short, apart from art style change and some animation laziness, this season of Haikyuu was also really good.

Ah, Haikyuu. Remember when everyone dismissed this anime because it was boys volleyball? Look at all of them now. I'll admit I was one of them but it wasn't necessarily the boys volleyball aspect but more as just the sports genre of anime. Sports has been a tough act to follow in terms of anime and there is this unwritten bias that most sports anime's aren't very good. Haikyuu follows this trend and above all boys volleyball is a sport most people turn away from when hearing about it. So you understand the 10 foot hole Haikyuu had to get out of before it was ... even considered a watchable anime. But now that I threw the reviews about sports anime away and my lack of interest in boys volleyball in the garbage.... This is a pretty decent anime.

Story: 7
The story of Haikyuu is pretty generic comparing to other sports anime's and I mean there really is only a few paths you can take when advancing the story in sports anime. Hinata, a short orange haired kid aspires to live up to the Tiny Giant, a short but powerful player on the court that gets the job done regardless of his size. Comparing the 2's height, Hinata was obviously in love with the Tiny Giant and wanted to live up to take that title for himself. So he trains and trains and trains and trains and trains and trains and trains x24 (If you think i'm exaggerating the just watch the anime, 3/4 of it is training arcs). So blah blah he joins Karasuno blah blah meets up with the team blah blah they win a couple matches with team spirit and willpower blah blah and they work their way up To The Top at nationals where I thought this season was gonna take place. The story gets to a standstill multiple times because of my last comment and the amount of training arcs they do. They will play a couple matches for like 3-4 episodes then have a 13 episode training arc to smooth out and be realistic with how they improve. I like that they do training arcs, but I mean, it is a little much. This season in particular is hinted at being a huge training arc with a I believe a big match at the very end. I must say, for the people waiting 4 years for Season 4 to come out, a training arc instead of nationals is a huge slap in the face.

Art: 8
Smooth and clean and crisp and thats the way I like it. They do repeat some frames which is hard to go unnoticed but other than that solid animation.

Sound: 8
Again nothing to complain or gripe about. Clean sounds that match and line up with the actions on the screen.

Characters: 7
As much as I like the Karasuno team and how the interract, they are pretty cliche. You got the idiot MC who just jumps into things without a plan (Literally every shonen protag ever). You got the cold and compelled but short tempered badass thats a rival. You got the bald ecstatic loud one. You have the leader who rials all of them together. If I am being honest there isn't anything particularly unique about the characters but I still love how they interact. If anything the people from other teams like Shiratorizawa and Date Tech have way more compelling and interesting characters than Karasuno but never the less they are still a fantastic team to be around. And hello Kiyoko ;).

Enjoyment: 6
Maybe its just me not a fan of sports anime's or it really is true but Haikyuu tends to get really repetitive. It got to the point where at the Shiratorizawa vs Karasuno match I was able to predict successfully who was going to get the point and when they were going to stop the ball and score again. Once again sports anime's are very limited in what they can do because they actually have to follow in real life boundaries and not go full on "anime". And there is nothing compelling about blow-outs so they have to follow the close game scenario. Both teams are neck and neck scoring one point after another switching off. Then one team pulls away by 2-3 points and then then they have some powerful flashback about how hard they have trained and then turn the tides and win. That was basically every match Karasuno has played since Season 2. It gets repetitive really quickly and I think that is what ruined my hype for S3's match. I want to love Haikyuu so badly but it just has to come up with something more unique because the style they were using for the matches has run dry for me. I hope they can spice it up when they play in the Nationals.

Overall: 7

I think most of what I needed to say has already been. I want to love Haikyuu very badly but right now it sits at an average 7 for me. Really hope they bounce back with the Nationals :)

So here's my honest opinion - even if it might be a bit biased since this one of my best anime series ever.

[Minor spoilers till ep 6 ahead]

Story : 9
It's a slower pace from season 3, but that's to be expected. They're training. And you can't expect every training to be with top class schools like in season 2. What they've done this time is select a handful of these kids for training camps and they focused more on them. Some might feel like they focused too long on this and yeah I agree, but only partially. Hinata and Kageyama are the main characters and ... so I think after the fast pace of matches which were literally a few days long, they deserve some time off the court to really improve themselves all round.

Characters: 9
Like already said, they're focused on the mains, mostly Hinata even (this boy is becoming a receive KING or maybe an expert ball boy haha), but really you can see the development happening on the side lines! Tsukki's seeking help indirectly with Hinata for block practice, Yamaguchi feeling the pressure of the 2nd year's development at floaters, Asahi and Tanaka improving their jump serves, Kageyama thinking deeply about his role as a setter, Kindaichi obviously thinking back and maybe even regretting how things ended with Kageyama, even Hyakuzawa feeling down and being encouraged, then getting better in that little match! For me Haikyuu has always been about the little things like this, it makes me fall in love with it even more. This is truly one of the few animes I can watch weekly without feeling like I wasted my time because if you really open your mind, you receive a fair amount each episode.

Art and Sound: 8
There is an obvious change of art styles but I kinda got used to it, it's not too bad in my opinion. They're bulkier so if anything it favors Hinata and now he truly looks like a seasoned high school volleyball dude. The animation seems to have fallen down in standards a bit but nothing too bad, I still find it reasonably smooth, just not as smooth as earlier seasons maybe. I haven't paid much attention to the OST but so far i have no problems with it. The OP and ED are wonderful as always, the ED especially left a good impression on me. It's so fitting for Haikyuu's vibe!

Enjoyment and Overall: 9
I am absolutely loving it! I don't wanna conclude and give it a 10 because I want to see the entire season but so far I am in no way disappointed. Watching this after the long wait since 2018 has definitely been everything to me, I missed these kids so much. I can't wait for Nationals and I'm gonna be cheering my boys on. I'll admit that part of why i enjoy it so much is seeing where they have come from. I just had to make this review because i feel like the number of average impressions on here is disproportionate to how enjoyable it really is.