It's a shame that I found the final three episodes in this anime to be by far the weakest. It made me wonder if I should bring my initial score down, but on further thought 3 mediocre episodes to 22 rather good ones is very little.
This episode in particular made me realize a complaint that 'thatanimesnob' has for sports anime, and that is the melodrama. At least in the past when the kids in this show would overreact to events, it would show some distance and have it in a somewhat dweeby and comedic way. Of course they feel these intense emotions, and I can't criticize an anime for being melodramatic when it's from the melodramatic teen characters perspectives, but I can say I didn't like it too much. Especially when in the past we had exactly how I would prefer it. Recall when Kageyama was angry about Oikawa and he angrily slammed down a juice box: Or recall the early heated argument between Hinata and Kageyama over whether a spiker or a setter is the 'cooler' position, literally spelling out to the audience that even though these kids are serious, they're absolutely geeks. This episode didn't do that and the melodrama fog of seeing kids unable to deal with a loss when there aren't even stakes on the line, and they can try again in the spring and next year, as well as seeing the 3rd years emotionally decide they'll damn their future to play more volleyball was too much. To be completely fair the scene where the two ran around screaming was the most distanced scene in this respect and it was charming.
Speaking on that, I sincerely hope that the idea of choosing what you love in the moment over a better future is better explored. Maybe the 3rd years will come to practice less, or maybe one may even decide to skip out on the spring tournament. Right now, it seems the stakes of the 3rd years last tournament have been removed completely, some of the only real risk that mattered, and they'll decide to stay without further questioning. Having them lose was a risky and unexpected decision when it was the third years last tournament, now I understand why, because it wasn't and this time they'll do way better. Yay, not. Overall disappointed by how simple this theme was portrayed this episode, even if ending on the message of 'sacrifice for what you love' isn't a bad one. It seems like it started and finished in this one episode. Hopefully in season 2 one of the 3rd years decides it's too much and they actually drop out and give someone like Yamaguchi a full time position... That would salvage this a bit.
I don't want to only speak about my nitpicks and complaints. Haikyuu was amazingly simple and efficient. I've wrote about all my thoughts in detail, so I'll made it shorter here.
Every single episode until near the end was purposeful and advanced the characters as individuals and developed their relationships. Kageyama and Hinata are the prime example of characters who naturally, but extremely changed throughout the series. They were all simple, but they were all memorable and fun and had some depth, all of which were paired with another one on the team to keep them unforgettable. If you remember Tsukki, you remember Yamaguchi. If you remember Noya, you remember Asahi.
Further, the art and music and overall directing was quite fantastic! It looked and sounded beautiful all the time, and that helped to notice the slightly on the nose but charming symbolic directing like Kageyama standing beside Hinata to show they have developed to the point of fighting for/with each other, or Hinata landing after spiking with the 'fly' sign behind him to show that he will be the one to make Karasuno fly with his jumps. The directing was also great in small details, characters expressions told us all we needed to know, and we had amazing little shots like where you could tell everything about how well these two knew each other, and what their expressions meant.
That said, it came as a problem at times too, because as easy to understand as this was, it spoon-fed us about everything it possibly could. This seriously took the impact away like in the scene where Yui broke down, her teammate spoke practically to the audience to let them know why she's crying in case someone didn't get it, or in the Dateko game where everything had been set up for us to know that Hinata was going to shine bright enough as a decoy to make Asahi come in completely unexpected, it even had cool imagery to evoke our memory of this like with Hinata shining and Asahi being out of the shot but slowly coming in from the back, but it felt the need to tell us directly.
Everything in Haikyuu is made to be simple and efficient, meaning for us to understand and appreciate everything on the base level, yet as if this isn't enough, it also verbally expresses it in some of the most unneeded places ultimately lessening the impact. That and the melodrama that I mentioned above, a notable earlier episode that has this problem being winners and losers, are my biggest problems with Haikyuu. I understand this is literally made for 12 year olds and up so criticizing that it spells itself out too much may be unfair, but it's something that certainly detracted from the experience for me. I wish they struck a balance and kept the most impactful moments that were lessened pure.
The matches were great up until the Seijoh match, that was because they were constant lessons of improvement and character development, where often the in game struggles corresponded to out of game personal struggles, both of which constantly progressed. The opponents were human and likable for the most part as well, being characterized and- perhaps not memorable, but better than average definitely. I found the last Seijoh episodes to be about hype jockeying and montages rather than this stuff, which was a downgrade from normal, but not something awful by any means.
As much as these last episodes felt like a 6/10, mostly everything before it was good. It's a great experience for someone who wants to sit down and enjoy something for what it is, a time waster, or for some cheesy inspiration.
7/10 |