Haikyu!! Review

The tactical clarity is the whole trick. Most sports series resolve a match with willpower; this one wins them with a synchronised attack, a read on a setter's hands or a serve aimed at the weakest receiver, and the direction takes the time to show why each of those works. A rally can therefore run half an episode without the tension going slack. The character economy is remarkable at this length. Opponents are introduced, given a full interior life across two or three episodes and then beaten, and the writing keeps finding reasons for them to matter afterwards.

Hinata and Kageyama are a functioning partnership rather than a rivalry, which is rarer than it sounds. Production I.G escalates the animation across four seasons and eighty-five episodes, and the third season match is close to a technical demonstration. The formula does repeat, since every opponent arrives with a backstory on the same schedule, and the fourth season sags under a single enormous match. As a machine for making people care about volleyball it has no equal anywhere.