Haikyuu!! To the Top Part 2

“Al—right!” One word. Just one, single word. Yet, Haikyuu!! manages to encapsulate thousands of indescribable feelings, emotions into it. There’s no need to fabricate it, choosing right inspirational terms, at all. When each and every player inside Karasuno hear that shout amidst the chaos, and look up to the ceiling that is almost blinding, eyeing the floating ball—they know, they don’t need a miracle. Haikyuu!! has always been the embodiment of unyielding friendship, unbreakable team-work, positive rivalry and adrenaline gushing down the veins of the players, and the non-players. But, ‘To the Top ‘arc changed that. Maybe it’s considered boring, monotone at first, but it has captivatinglyachieved a turning point for the main characters, where they learned and discovered something more than themselves that changed their perspective forever. In regards to that, there are tons of changes and new insights, new characters to root for, but the one that amazed me is—which I’m going to strongly highlight here—Ryuunosuke Tanaka, the baldy. Depicted as the average, energetic member, he’s done more than his best; breaking out of the frame of not only his diffident but also his determination that proves he’s not just a great player, but a team player. Adding this with Hinata’s overwhelming abilities that he discovered as a water boy, and Kageyama’s willingness to wear his cape and pour his real feelings out, it’s almost a crime not to get excited over their match. The heart-thumping music that elevates the ambience of tension inside the match, the art—which to be frank here, outsourcing to save budge is understandable but is a downright terrible choice given the company that was chosen—is decent, the animation is great and fluid. You can dart your eyes around the screen and still catch a glimpse of where the ball is, where the motion starts and ends, and even feel the weight of each ball as it hits the ground. The climax itself, that last ball, that last serve, that last spike, and that last block are all on point. Enough for one to shed a bit tears at the journey they’ve come far to. Overall, ‘Haikyuu!!: To the Top’ arc ends here not with a perfect conclusion, but more to a satisfying one; it depends on which side you’re one, nevertheless. But after all is said, I dare to say that this part of the season highlights some characters and development that might seem insignificant, but it’s going to impact everything in the long run. And, it does, carve a wide smile on my face. So, cheers to Haikyuu!!. May it continues to reach to the top, and beyond; the anime, that is.

Overall: 6/10 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 of2 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.

"Give me the next one too!" TL;DR: If you felt like not watching the season because of some bad reviews or the art style or whatever, you are wrong and WATCH IT. It does not disappoint IMO. I couldn't wait for this season since the last one was more than half filled with the training arc. However, If you look at the 4th season as a 25 episode season, You'll see why I gave it a 8 overall. (idk if I'll have spoilers in this, probably not tho, but beware) P.S.: This is my first review on my newly created MAL account, but I have been using MALfor a while. I always give Haikyuu the "Haikyuu bias" as I call it. Where essentially anything that can be rated in the show is usually bumped a point or two higher simply because it is just such a great show that I LOVE! This season revolved around the Inarizaki vs Karasuno match, with a little segment for Nekoma. Coming into the season, with the couple outsourced episodes, and the clearly different art style, people felt a little off. For good reason too. But, Haikyuu delivers what Haikyuu does, and that is emotional character development with hype matches. To name a few parts that stick with the main Haikyuu philosophy, we have: Tanaka's cross shot arc Tsukishima's arc against Suna Rintaro Nishinoya and Kinoshita's arc Hinata's recieving arc (THE BEST IMO) Kageyama's messed up one-handed set thing (idk what to call it) arc This season does not deviate much from the feeling that Haikyuu usually delivers, and I don't see a way you can say otherwise. The art style may have changed (definitely for the worse 100%), but if Haikyuu started with this art and continued on, I still believe it would have been a brilliant show. Much like it is right now. I'm gonna keep the sound, character, etc. rating short. Story: 9/10: Great match, showed both sides as well, Nekoma even got in. Happy days. Art: 6/10: Haikyuu bias, probably should be 4-5 compared to previous seasons, but I DONT CARE. Sound: 9/10: The haikyuu soundtrack is great, although some people didn't like the sped up version at the end of the match, I think it was great that they didn't fully repeat the song exactly, and it also matched the message of "speed can be bad" or whatever. Character: 10/10: Just great development all around, as I mentioned with the arc stuff earlier. Enjoyment: 9/10: MAN ITS HAIKYUU, JUST SO GOOD Overall: 8/10: Compared to previous seasons, maybe just a little worse, I'd say mainly cuz of the art, outsourcing, and a little bit cuz of the random Nekoma insertion (still enjoyed the Nekoma episodes tho)

Haikyuu!! To the Top 2nd Season If anyone has seen my other reviews, they know I like Haikyuu. This anime had everything for me to be entertaining and engaging. But this all started to crumble after the third season came out and now it's over. Watching this season was honestly a disappointment and a painful one at that. The relatively fast pacing died, the scenes just didn't have any dynamics anymore, except for the last 5 minutes. And to make it worse, the animations went down the tubes. More than half of the faces this season looked like they were drawn by an amateur who hadjust been thrown into the studio. Episode 9 in particular... uhh ohh. The actual game itself wasn't any better, it was boring and very sluggish. Even though the 2 twins as opponents weren't that bad. I thought they were very authentic siblings with very real relationships. But this was the only highlight of this season. The flow of this game was protagonists get depressed, Hinata cheers them up, they get depressed, and Hinata cheers them up. And so on and so forth. And precisely because this happened so often, Hinata's last and final motivation became meaningless in the end. Had the other moments been removed or changed, Hinata's final ball acceptance would have had a real impact. Unfortunately, this was ruined by the overdose of this approach. [Conclusion.] Haikyu is nonetheless a very interesting anime, for people who just want to watch something "likable", without any great plot or rivalry. However, I hope that the upcoming seasons will improve. [Enjoyment 4]

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