Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the most mediocre and disappointing season in a stunning anime's history; let's take a look at what happened to our beloved Haikyuu.
Much of Haikyuu's success this season is riding on the glory of its past 3 seasons. While Haikyuu did have it's peak moments this year, they often didn't stand out enough to compensate for inconsistencies riddling the entire season.
From pacing and animation to storyboarding, Haikyuu took a really hard hit compared to the last 3 seasons: even S4 Part 1, in retrospect, was wayyyyyy better than this one.
Ultimately, you'll take this season in one of 2 ways:
1. You'll love it for it's 'hype'
2. You won't love it because it didn't live up to its potential as being one of the best seasons to date.
Trigger warning below if you can't handle another's opinion; who would've guessed a REVIEW is an opinion and people can have different opinions? Shocking isn't it?
Story: 6/10
Storyboarding and pacing were major issues for Haikyuu this season. In the past, you could get heavily invested in each episode. I remember watching the first 3 seasons, even Part 1 of the 4th season, and not once did I ever think "Gee, nothing's really happening in this episode" or "Can we get to the good stuff already". Every moment in every episode was enjoyable and felt truly meaningful.
This season? A lot of the time spent was hella residentsleeper. Sure, there were bright spots like Tanaka getting development, Hinata's receive and taking it easy, etc. But there were plenty of sleeper moments created due to weird pacing/storyboarding, as well as wonky animation (more on that later).
Outside of the first 2 episodes (which were consistently bad imo), it felt like a fucking roller coaster honestly. Every other episode we'd get teased with greatness and blue balled the next episode with shit.
But I think my biggest pet peeve was not having other hype moments delivered. The Miya twins copying the freak quick for the first time (at least their last one was done pretty well), Kageyama's godly 2 serves in a row, Nishinoya getting targeted by Miya, they felt rushed at times and it would seem like you weren't fully able to absorb what had happened: they didn't feel like game-defining, standout moments and more like an impressive but somewhat expected/ordinary play.
Art: 4/10
Speaking of hype moments not getting delivered properly, let's talk art.
Maybe I'm reminiscing over the old art style, but man those roughly sketched lines for power serves and spikes were something I could blow my load over. And that was what I expected for key moments this season.
What do we get instead? Cookie-cutter figures with a bunch of random piss and shit palette oriented colors streaking by in the background as Asahi/Kageyama/Atsumu and others wind up for serves and spikes. Seriously. It doesn't deliver on the hype at all.
Then there are times, especially in early episodes, where the entire Inarizaki team just looks so weird behind the net. Then there was that horrible outsourced episode. God forbid we talk about that. Also, did anyone else find the last rally/point, with the Inarizaki libero and hitter running to the ball look SO WEIRD? Guys looked like fucking titans running from AOT man.
I know, I know, they're mid animation and whatnot, but that shit stood out way too much to be excusable, especially since there were other times where the animation was totally fine and quite acceptable.
Ultimately, the animation was just as inconsistent as the pacing and storyboarding. However, when the animation was bad, it was really fucking bad.
On the bright side, I hope most of this can be chalked up to the whole COVID situation and whatnot. Because if this shit continues in the future, Haikyuu is gonna suck a lot.
Sound: 7/10
OP and ED were whatever, not really my type, but music, voice acting, and everything else was pretty good throughout the season. Not much to speak on here.
Character: 8/10
I think universally everyone can agree that character development was very good this season (although that's mostly just from copying Furudate sensei's good work in the manga). From Tanaka and Nishinoya to Hinata and Kenma, we got to see real development for some of the fan favorites. Could this stuff have been fleshed out a bit better? Probably, but when you remove the poor storyboarding and animation, character development did its work carrying the enjoyment level of the season.
Enjoyment: 6/10
Haikyuu's still an anime I can enjoy watching, but I definitely don't feel the same hype or appeal I had for past seasons. Especially with the super inconsistent animation. If you want a viewer to be able to watch something without getting distracted by flaws, you gotta be consistent. Shame I wasn't able to enjoy the work of art that is Haikyuu compared to past seasons but it is what it is; not the worst thing I've ever watched but it definitely didn't meet my expectations.
Was my disappointment immeasurable? Maybe. But was my day ruined? I'd say no. <- Haikyuu Season 4, Part 2 in a nutshell.
