Haikyū!! Season 2 Anime Review

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

On September 17, 2020, I started Haikyū!!’s second season on Netflix and finished on September 28, 2020. For those who don’t know this about me, I’m not a sports fan in the slightest and have little to no knowledge of the real-life sports world. The only sports knowledge I would ideally have would be from All American (Football), One Tree Hill (basketball), and now volleyball from reading Haikyū!! manga and watching this anime.

Synopsis: The story—written and drawn by Haruichi Furudate—follows Shōyō Hinata, a first-year high school student who wishes to become the best volleyball player ever despite his short height. He attends Karasuno High School, where his idol “The Little Giant” went. After the “The Little Giant” era though, Karasuno lost its fierce volleyball reputation. Together with his first real teammates, Hinata works hard to restore Karasuno High’s reputation by making it to the Nationals.

After finishing the manga’s 402 chapters during August 2020 and the anime’s first season—25 episodes—during the first half of September, I found myself loving this series more than ever. Watching season two was slow in the first half, due to the set-up with a new Karasuno manager being introduced, final exams coming for the players, and training camps to help the characters get stronger for the upcoming Spring High Preliminaries. While these were important aspects for the show, the pace suffered a bit.

Then the actual tournament began. Everything ramped up from the sports action, the dialogue, and the animation. The volleyball animation sequences had vastly improved from the first season. For example, Oikawa and new Aoba Johsai player Mad Dog’s horror expressions were cranked over 1-80 when they were getting serious against Karasuno toward the season finale. Mad Dog’s incredible spike action sequence had me screaming the entire time—he was gorgeous throughout the entire volleyball match.

The anime’s fourth OP—Fly High!! by BURNOUT SYDROMES—was an amazing song, helping me feel the hype and to continue watching the rest of the season. Watching the OP reminded me why I fell in love with this series—to see these boys playing on the court for as long as possible. Honestly, one of the few times I didn’t hit “skip intro” when watching something on Netflix.

I listen to the OP all the time now—and I play it for my D&D players before our weekly sessions to get hyped and because two out of three watch the anime. It’s hype!

Aside from Hinata and Kageyama—the two main protagonists—every character on the team had a moment to shine on the court. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima had the greatest character development out of the team, with them getting more moments to shine than Hinata and Kageyama during the first half of the season. Yamaguchi’s growth from his uncertainty to his full-blown confidence was beautiful to see.

How the second season ended was an effective cliffhanger and a good set-up for season 3. Since Netflix doesn’t have season 3 on their streaming platform—only the first two seasons—I will have to use Crunchyroll for those 10 episodes. I highly recommend watching Haikyuu!!—it’s an amazing anime series!

Thanks for reading this season 2 review, everyone! I really do appreciate y’all taking the time to read these reviews! I’ll see you all on the volleyball court for season 3 and 4 someday! Believe it!