“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”
