The art style in Haikyuu!! is so special. I haven't read much manga, but even I can tell that the way Haikyuu!! was drawn and presented was unique. The sense of movement I felt from every panel during volleyball games was insane. When I go back and think about those scenes, I don't think about panels, I think about them as though I saw them in the anime. More than that, the style of art itself was just gorgeous. The detail work in the big panels, the character designs, the neat sketchiness of it all-- it all blew me away.
The characters just popped off the page, didn't they? Every character-- and I do mean, every character-- had a purpose and a story. No matter what game it was that I was reading, each pinnacle character had at least a chapter of development. It really allowed for the cast of characters to bloom and become something full and fun to read about. I noticed this, mostly, in the epilogue. There were characters mentioned in the epilogue that I wasn't even aware I cared about in terms of how they ended up x-amount of years later, but I did care because the story did so well developing them when they were presented initially.
We can't talk about characters without specifically talking about Kageyama and Hinata, though, can we? Those two, both individually and as a pair, felt so unique and precious in the world of sports manga and anime. They were both written so wholly and so wonderfully that they became figureheads for what good sports manga/anime characters should be. The care that was taken for both of them to realize their own desires and potential as well as the attention paid to their development as a cohesive team was just phenomenal.
Which brings me to the story. Now, I don't want to spoil anything for somebody who has just seen the headlines talking about the last chapter of Haikyuu!! and wish to start reading it all now, but damn was it special. Even when it felt like the games drug on forever, every chapter-- in-game or during training periods-- offered something extraordinary to the situation. Every chapter made me wonder how it could get better, and then it did. More specifically, the back-and-forth of the pacing was so well done, and every game really felt like it could go either way because of that. The way in which the story was written allowed for so much possibility and opportunity that, reading it, I really felt like anything could happen. The training sessions or camps in between the big tournaments were used very well, too, as it broke up the intensity of the games. In that vein, the character backstories were also placed perfectly to allow for a downswing in the momentum. And the stock this mangaka put into the epilogue was astonishing. It really made the story feel like it was worth it to see where these characters ended up two, five, eight years down the line.
I can't really pick apart Haikyuu!! in a meaningful way because it's just good. Brilliant, really. It's definitely something that's going to stick with me from now on as an example for how good stories can get, across any and every medium. Knowing how the story ends is always a joy, but I am simultaneously so sad that it is over. Haikyuu!! is always going to fill a place in my heart that no other story can fill. Thank you, Furudate sensei, for such an amazing journey.
ありがと.
