It’s the third day of the summer training camp for our little Karasuno Team. This is their last chance to improve before the school tournament. It’s also been three weeks since Hinata and Kageyama’s argument and they haven’t spoke to each other yet. So, will their efforts finally pay off ? ฅʕ•̫͡•ʔฅ
★ ✩ ✮ ✯ ✰ ☆
According to Kyoko, their whole training bore fruits. Even if they are still loosing almost all their games and doing more penalties then any other team they are making fewer mistakes and narrowing the point gap in every game. But Hinata and Kageyama still haven’t find the perfect combination or way to do their new quick attack. When Hinata spike is blocked by Lev, our favorite ginger volley ball player begins to think that he’s the only one that hasn’t change. Well, we all now that this isn’t true but it must be really frustrating for Hinata to not see the result of his hard training yet ʕ； •`ᴥ•´ʔ
So they try the new quick another time but it fails again. However, Hinata seems to remark that something was different with Kageyama’s last toss. So, because that’s obviously the best to sort things out, he starts shouting at Kageyama asking why he hold back. Nobody seems to understand what Hinata is talking about, not even Kageyama who took the advantage of the opportunity to bring up his scary sociopath face. According to Hinata, Kageyama changed his way to toss the ball so that Hinata could hit the ball more easily. Unconsciously Kageyama was worried that Hinata could have been frustrated by all their previous failures, because he wasn’t able to hit the ball of when his spikes were blocked by the other team.
After the day-matches, Kageyama decides to continue his training on his own, saying that for now on there is no point in practicing with Hinata. Strangely, Hintata understand that and because he wants be able to fight the block in mid air all by himself, runs asking the captains from Fukurodani and Nekoma who have been practicing with Asshima during the last two episodes, to train with him. They accept and because they are six they start doing a 3 vs 3 match: Owls versus Cats. Unfortunately they don’t really have the time to do much training because it’s already Dinner time. As much as they love Volley Ball, Dinner time is sacred, One does not simply forget about Dinner time.
The next day, Kageyama still has some troubles tossing the ball exactly where he wants to. Coach Ukai, who happened to watch him while he was training (not in a creepy way) gives him an advice. Kageyama should try to visualize the spiker. This technique seems to work and Kageyama is now able to do perfect tosses where he wants.
As for Hinata, he continues to train with Tsukishima and the captains. But he also asks Kuroo why his he helping both him and and Tsukishima to get better. Kuroo explains that he’s been helping them because he wants the Karasuno’s players to get stronger. He wishes to make the “garbage battle” a reality and to fight against strong opponents. I really relate to that, it’s nice to fight against strong players, that brings a little more challenge to the game. If you only fight against people knowing that you’re going to win, they’re no tension and you may not enjoy it as much as you wished to. So, during his training with the Team Captains (and Vice-captain, I’m not forgetting you Akaashi, I promise), Hinata discovers the “rebound technique”. Bokuto, the captain of Fukudorani intentionally hit the the block with the ball to make it rebounds on it so that the ball stays in his camp and is easier to toss again. Hinata is impressed by this new technique that could help him a lot given the fact that he’s having troubles at passing the block when he spikes. Therefore, he tries to pass the block another time and succeed by aiming at Lev’s fingers. Everybody is kind of impressed by Hinata’s action, even himself and he can’t wait to show that to his team.
The next day, the games continue but Karasuno is still losing. However, Fukurodani team’s members mention that the Karasuno team is quite hard to play against because they are unpredictable. YES! THAT’S RIGHT ! FEAR THEM! SOON THEY’RE GOING TO KICK ALL UR PRETTY ASSES!
Also, Kageyama and Hinata finally explain themselves. Kageyama was actually worried about Hinata and wanted him to hit the best toss possible. Apparently Hinata was the only one that truly understood Kageyama’s feelings. God dammit, Tsunderes are the hardest to deal with. Hinata believed that Kageyama is able to realize the perfect toss for him and that’s why he doesn’t want him to hold back and why he shouted at him.
Fun thing: After the games the coaches were planning to treat them with a barbecue. When they hear this news, they get all excited and start to dance. It’s funny how Kageyama seems to not be able to dance in sync with the others. He was so awkward ʕ￫ᴥ￩ʔ
The episode ends with a nice little review on how the different players improved, I thought this idea was really well done and kind of useful. Since we don’t really see Nishinoya or Asahi practicing as much as we saw Tsukishima or Hinata, it’s easy to forget what they’ve been working on. Or it might just be me, I have a really short memory, sorry.
I have to say, I really like Karasuno’s team progress. Rather than being over-powerful since the beginning, the players have a lot of potential and their main objective is to use this potential in the most effective way. Every player is important and every one of them has something to bring to the team. The main characters aren’t the only one that are powerful with amazing special abilities while the rest of the team stays in the dark, like erased by their lights. That’s the pattern that I used to see most of the time in Sports Anime, but Haikyuu!! is an exception and that’s why I like it so much ◟ʕ´∀`ʔ◞
In the next episode Karasuno will dispute a match against Fukurodani in which they all seem to put in application what they learnt during the past training camp days. Finally, I really want them kicking some balls now !
★ ✩ ✮ ✯ ✰ ☆
I’ll use my “Hottie Alert” for Akaashi this week, he’s a keeper ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧
