SPOILERS!!! Haikyu!! First Season Recap/Review Genre: Sports, Comedy, Drama Haikyu!! (or Haikyuu!!) follows the lives of the Karasuno High School volleyball team in their hopes of making it to Nationals, theres one problem though, the teams reputation has declined over the years (I know, cliche). Through out the series they must face other rival schools with superior skills in order to augment their own and make it to Regionals and advance to Nationals. After making it to Regionals and beating two teams who were of considerable strength and skill, their dreams of advancing were cut short when they faced against Aoba Johsai. Now the team looks forward to winning the Spring Tournament. Let me start by saying this, WOW! I came into this anime with the same mindset as I would with every other underdog story anime, I expected the same twists and turns, but I was wrong. All the characters are extremely likable. I always find myself hating one character for one reason or another, in EVERY SINGLE anime I watch, but the character development is so well thought out its very hard to hate anyone, even from rival schools! The story is very compelling and the characters really do drive it forward, we see them starting at a point of disarray all the way until they become one single working machine. Every episode was interesting enough to keep you coming back for more, I remember holding my screams at one point because the volleyball matches were just THAT good! The animation was very impressive as well, the drops of sweat and facial expressions, for example, are some of the examples of the prime animation. Many anime cannot create much expression without having to distort the features on a character, but Haikyu!! has found that balance and they know how far to push it. The voice-acting is also something thats nothing short of stellar, conveying the mood of a scene, something I highly appreciated. Finally, Haikyu!! has mastered the art of navigating between two genres that are sometimes better left separated, comedy and drama. The comedy in the show is great and an excellent ease of tension and shines perfectly on its own, and the drama is what drives forward this story, but they never cut into each other in a way thats bothersome. You know what I mean? Like the moment you start to feel something, or someone is about to reveal their true feelings something comedic happens and you are left feeling frustrated, one because how dare they interfere, and two because thats a very cheap and poor way of keeping the story from moving along and creating tension/drama. Both comedy and drama walk hand in hand in Haikyu!! like the happiest marriage ever, again, something that most anime has not been able to figure out. Overall Haikyu!! delivered in every way possible and more. I really do hope they give them a second season, I really cannot wait to see whats coming ahead. But until then we have the manga to look forward to! Currently it is being published in Weekly Shonen Jump, so usually we get new chapters every one to two weeks, depending on the hosting site and the translators. You can find all 25 episodes of the first season on Crunchyroll, and I would highly recommend binge watching if not today, then next weekend. 10/10
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:23:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015