Haikyuu!!: To the Top ep.11 – Fine Tuned

I’m not sure who reads my Haikyuu reviews. Those of you who do will find them pretty repetitive I bet. I just go OMG great episode I loved it every single week. I don’t want a bad episode, and considering there’s only one left…who stops a season after the first match of a tournament when you’re team doesn’t get eliminated??? That seems evil… Wait oh yeah, there’s only one episode left in the season and if it’ more or less on par with the rest, this will have been a just about perfect season for me.

Perfect in the sense that I thoroughly enjoyed every single episode just as much as the rest and some moments a lot more. I don’t know guys, this was a well written season. I wonder if the manga is this good? It might be worth a read and obsessive collection…

 I’ve mentioned it before but I keep having to remind myself that within the universe of the series, it’s only been a few months since season 1 started. Like 7 months maybe 8. The third years haven’t even started studying for their exams yet. I mention it here because once again a rival player got interested in Hinata and had no clue who he was. I was wondering how that could be. Hinata’s such a loud personality, plus he’s unusually small in this setting, and has bright spiky orange hair. Point is, he stands out a lot. it seems amazing that anyone who is directly involved in the same circles as he is, would not know him yet.

But then I remeber, it’s really not been that long. Fact is, a lot of people still haven’t even seen Karasuno play. This is really still just the beginning of their story. Isn’t that amazing? It’s amazing to me. I want to keep watching and maybe reading it!

There’s not much I can say about the actual events of the episode itself. It was the conclusion of last week’s match and a second in it’s entirely, both of which Karasuno won. As you can imagine, there really wasn’t that much time for anything else. But it’s not about what’s happening, it’s about how it’s told.

Of course production was top notch and they had some great animation moment’s again, particularly with Hinata making the body receives. It was also nice to see him apply what he learned in the first episodes so organically. The series didn’t even put in a flashback to remind us. I like that. They trusted us a little!

And Nishi was all proud because in a way that’s what he usually does for the team and Shoyo was picking up on it. The entire scene was sweet but it was the least of it. In one episode, we an entire match and a half crammed in, Haikyuu manage to give the spot light to a dozen character on both teams, complete with full emotional context and impact. Witchcraft you guys!

There are a couple of things that tend to be magic in Sports! animes. One of them is speeches. Forget practice, natural talent, performance enhancing drugs.. As long as your captain, coach, main character… makes an inspiring speech at the right time, you’re going to score a whole lot of points right after. I’m not entirely sure what the physics behind it are but it’s a rule. Too bad Ukai isn’t that great at speeches. None of them are. Can you imagine Kageyama trying to be inspiring? Is there a way for your points to go down in volleyball?

The opposite team choose a coach who obviously has this skill down and has a calm fatherly demeanour at that. They really had the upper hand on that front.

The second thing that’s magic is the “new guy”. Especially if he’s meek, unassuming or easy to underestimate. After all, that’s exactly what Hinata was in season 1. And once again, the opposite team had this one in the bag. Their new guy was so beautiful nervous I actually got nervous watching him. And he looks like a little lost lamb. I knew Karasuno would be in trouble the second he walked on the court. Well the second time at least. Couple that with the fact that Karasuno had to loose the second match in order to have a third tie breaker game. That’s sports anime tradition as well. And I was pretty prepared to watch my team loose. It was a little sad with their senpais watching and all but the rival team seemed like good guys too so it was all good. They could just win next week.

I mean you can’t really fight against the magical powers of an inspiring speech AND a new guy. That’s pulling out all the stops. I’m not even sure why the refs allowed it. Actually I didn’t really see any refs. I may not have been paying enough attention. I’m sure there were some. This is nationals!

But I had forgotten something.

I like Suga. I like him a lot. He’s the closest thing Haikyuu has to an actual troll and I love those. Plus he’s a pretty good character foil for just about anybody. But he hasn’t been on the court in forever. I’m not sire we’ve seen him play this season at all. And I can’t guarantee we saw him play last season either. He’s really not used much as a player to the point that I regularly forget that he’s vice captain or what his position is.

In fact, he’s used so little this match was almost like a comeback. And a comeback kid might as well be a new guy. But a new guy with wisdom and experience. That’s the power up. It’s next level. It’s the only thing that could possibly beat an inspiring speech and new guy combination.

Don’t you think?