I’m going to give this the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my transgressions with this show because the animation, story and majority of the characters are all definitely stand out. The entire show and the series are all stand out in their own way and hold out in many different forms - this is an anime for the ages, and will remain popular for quite a long time, even now, almost ten years after its anime debut. I will not deny that or the major amount of enjoyment that comes with this show.
However, my enjoyment of the show, is stunted for sure this season. The only factors in that are three of the characters - Hinata, Tanaka, and Nishinoya.
In the first few seasons, things were not as obvious, past the odd joke that felt weird or “comedic” scene that was just strange - namely, Nishinoya and Tanaka’s perviness. Their crush on Shimizu leads to them doing mildly gross things, such as purposely going out their way to make her say “spank” and similar, but some of the scenes in this season were downright stomach turning. There was no reason to include them at all, and if they had to be included, play them up for comedy. It was just mildly unnecessary - the show has countless comedic routes that work well, and it was not something that would ruin the show being cut out. It’s exhausting after watching so much content back to back that it has actively ruined my view of the show at this point.
In fact, I much prefer the OVAs that focus on entirely different teams, this far into the show.
Hinata’s behavior at the start of this season - sneaking into a training camp - also has just… made me devout of any emotion for him other than I cannot stand the dude. Sneaking into the camp went well (because, of course, it’s an anime, it would) but,he risked a lot for his team. He risked having Tsukishima removed from that rendition of the camp, having his team blacklisted from training camps for being a trouble risk, and many other things. He is a team player, but he is also a selfish, self-centered brat when things are not going the way he believes they should for himself.
And it is exhausting to sit through.
This series and show as a whole would honestly have been 30% better if they had Hinata as a secondary character, or any other main character. The rest of the characters are all amazing, enjoyable, and have amazing traits to them. There are other characters who are selfish and less of a team player, who do not risk their entire team’s reputation and chances. It is just… tiring to go through constantly when there are so many flawed characters that work better.
As for the animation, soundtrack, voice acting and everything else is all perfect. I loved it, and if it wasn’t for the handful of things above sucking so much enjoyment out of the show for me, I’d have gladly given this show a 8.7-10 rating. Instead, there was not enough to pull me back out of the “oh here we bloody go” slump for the rest of the show to bring me higher than a 6.5-7.2. It sucks, because I did really want to enjoy myself, after enjoying so much of the content and the series before but. Hey. You can’t win all of them, I suppose.
