Haikyuu 2!! Episode 4: Center Ace

Last week we left off with an intense cliffhanger: Did all of the boys pass their exams? NO! Unfortunately, Hinata and Kageyama failed one exam each, while Tanaka and Noya barely (and I mean barely) passed their exams. So Hinata and Kageyama have to go to school on Saturday to take their supplementary exam, and after that Tanaka guarantees they’ll make it in time to Tokyo with their savior. And who is their savior?

The woman with a fantastic laugh, Tanaka’s older sister to the rescue. Saeko takes the boys to Tokyo after they finished their one exam in the morning. She gets to know Hinata for a bit and she mentions that she actually went to school with the Little Giant after knowing he was Hinata’s inspiration for starting volleyball. She talks about how he had been switched out during one of his matches and had a bit of a tantrum. And looking at the Little Giant, he’s a little combo of Hinata and Kageyama: short stature and messy hair from Hinata, black hair and anger issues from Kageyama. Amazing. After some more talking, Saeko continues to break the speed limit and probably kills some people and arrives at Nekoma High School.

While they were driving, Karasuno had been playing some matches with the schools that were there. Nekoma, of course, with a new spiker. The school with powerful servers, Ubugawa High School. The school with amazing combos, Shinzen High School. And one of the most powerful schools with a powerful ace, Fukurodani High School. Here in these games, the schools will rotate after one set so they’ll be able to play with each other each time. The losing team has to do diving drills, and without their two powerful players, Karasuno had been losing every single game they played in so they did drills every time. Losing like this in front of the teams they’ve never faced before, that’s a really bad first impression. This is one thing that Karasuno really needs to work on. They need to work on everyone’s skills and different formations. They can’t rely on Kageyama and Hinata all the time with their super quick attack. Like this time, those two weren’t around, so without them they’re just a mediocre team. If they don’t have Plan A, they need to have a Plan B team ready to play and be just as strong. Or else they’re never going to get anywhere. And it wasn’t until Kageyama and Hinata arrived that Karasuno was finally able to win one game after 8 straight losses.

I guess this is something that I really like about Haikyuu. Of all the sports anime I’ve seen so far (and I haven’t seen much), this one is the most realistic. Karasuno is mediocre. They’re not that amazing if it wasn’t for our first-year duo. This show doesn’t have kids with weird powers, they’re just really talented. But they need to know how to use their talent. Repeatedly this episode they mentioned how Hinata’s quick attack won’t work forever. Hinata saw that in his one match, that they were able to keep up somewhat. Nekoma’s coach wondered if they were satisfied with the power they had now, as it’s the same power they had when they lost in the Inter-High. They haven’t changed all that much since then, so it begs the question just what are they going to do next? The quick attack is going to lose steam sooner or later and they’re going to have to come up with something better, more trump cards. Of course, they’re going to have to practice more. Karasuno stills needs to grow. With Haikyuu, just because we got main characters with crazy attacks doesn’t mean they’re going to win all the time and rise up and be the best team just like that. They need to practice and questions themselves, what else can we do to evolve? What more can we do, how else can we get stronger? That’s one thing I love about this series, and I just wonder how they will get stronger and that keeps me glued in.

Now! As for the new character. Talking with Kenma and the other guy from Nekoma, Kenma talks about the new player, Lev. And he’s SUUUUUUPER TALL. He has long arms and legs and he looks to be another opponent to look out for. He’s half Russian, half Japanese (I know too many half Russian/Japanese characters, so is this a thing in anime now?) and he’s a pretty honest guy. Hinata met Lev by the bathroom and introduced each other, talked about what an ace is, rivalry stuff going on the usual, but Kenma was right Lev is honest, but he’s actually a pretty nice guy. Not condescending or cocky like other characters. So it should be interesting to see him play against Karasuno.

A real volleyball match next week! Hopefully Karasuno can learn something about themselves and come up with new strategies to help them out.