A film, directed by (AKA Haikyuu!! Movie: Gomisuteba no Kessen)

Continuing the trend that I started with last year’s smash anime hit, The First Slam Dunk, I went into a screening of Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle without seeing much more than a few episodes of the show the night before. I have been aware of Haikyuu!! for a number of years, but a mix of reluctance to watch anything “popular” (I don’t usually like big Shonan shows) or long-running (I don’t have tons of free time) kept me away from it. Considering how much my son and I loved the aforementioned Slank Dunk film, I figured Haikyuu!! would be a great experiment on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, and now I am glad we did it. Despite this being a recap of one half of the last story arc of the manga this anime property is based on (one more movie incoming), it was engaging, understandable, and fun.

“Karasuno High School and Nekoma High School face each other in an official match for the first time ever, in the third round of the Spring Nationals. It means Karasuno and Nekoma’s long-standing dream, The Dumpster Battle, a battle between the crows and the wildcats, is about to begin. After numerous practice matches in the past year, Shoyo Hinata and Kenma Kozume finally get the chance to play against each other in a match that ends immediately if losing and cannot be replayed.”

Due to the aforementioned circumstances surrounding me seeing this, I obviously can’t do any sort of comparison to the manga, talk about overall character development, or point out anything regarding this film versus the TV episodes. This review is a rare occurrence of a random man seeing a movie entirely out of his element, and hoping that it at least makes sense. Thankfully, I can report, this movie stands alone fairly well, probably not as well as in Slam Dunk, which I will keep comparing this to, but it’s not like the time I watched the fourth Rebuild of Evangelion film, and the guy behind me was frantically trying to clue his buddy into decades of lore for a series that was notoriously obtuse for casual viewers, much less somebody seeing it blind.

I was amazed that the entire film was largely a full volleyball game, played nearly in real time instead of a game interspliced with flashbacks or something (there are a few asides). Despite this, everything was engaging and easy to follow. The film ran the gamut of pretty much every emotion one could imagine, and I never got bored or tired with what was happening. Keep in mind that in conjunction with not really knowing this property, I also don’t really know much about volleyball. I mean, sure, I’ve played volleyball in gym class or at a church function in the past, but thats about it. Anything more specific would have been over my head.

It was somewhat refreshing that the rivalry between the two teams in this film, Karasuno and Nekoma High Schools, was simply a friendly rivalry between two teams that had met once before in a practice match due to their head coaches being friends and rivals. By not having an “evil” team to go against, such as one that blatantly cheated or some such, I felt that there was a lot of character development, especially for members of Nekoma High School. By the way, I had to look up why exactly this film was called “The Dumpster Battle”, and it all boils down to the team names. “Kara-su” from “Karasuno” translates to “crow” and “neko” from “Nekoma” means “cat”. Both of these animals are seen in Japan as being synonymous with animals that eat trash, I guess it would be like raccoons and opossums here in the West.

While the main character of Haikyuu!! is undoubtedly the pint-sized and seemingly unlikely volleyball spiker Shoyo Hinata, this film somewhat focuses on his rival, Nekoma’s Kenma Kozume. Kenma is VERY smart, he appears to be both a good athlete and an ingenious strategist, playing this game as a military battle in many ways. This is not elaborated on very much in the film, but I assume this can be chalked up to him usually spending his free time paying fantasy-based role-playing games (let me know how wrong I am in the comments), and since his mind is usually there, he largely does not really like Volleyball or have fun playing it. He only really plays as a way to be with his close friend, Tetsuro.

His apathy clashes spectacularly with the infectious optimism and relentless “go-get-him” attitude of his rival Shoyo. Shoyo simply wants Kenma to have fun, and seems somewhat upset that he’s not really playing the game because the likes it. By playing the way these two teams do, almost equally matched, and somewhat complimentary of each other, the stresses and raw emotion in the game finally makes Kenma feel something and appreciate the game. I won’t spoil what happens for those that haven’t read the manga or seen it, but the ending is equal parts wholesome and fun.

On a technical level, one can clearly see that this film is more expensive and looks better than your typical 22-minute episode of a TV show from 8-10 years ago, however I wouldn’t go as far to say this was a cinematic masterpiece in terms of visuals. There was, however, one very impressive scene towards the end of the film that presented the final big push in a first person POV that I absolutely loved. It was really well done and went to show just how stressful something like a championship game can be. Whenever the next film comes out, I can’t wait to see if they do something similar.

Speaking of that, this is basically one half of a two-film finale for this series, and that second film, which is teased with a post-credits scene, is still TBA. With this film releasing this past February in Japan, I can’t see part two coming anytime this year, but with any luck my son and I will be able to sit down sometime next year and finish this up, I might even try to watch some more of the show since I enjoyed this quite a bit!

Overall, considering I had only seen a few episodes of Haikyuu!! and know next to nothing about volleyball, this was a recipe for disaster in terms of my enjoyment of this film. But just as what happened last year with Slam Dunk, I came out of the theater absolutely loving the film and commending it for being accessible for even the most unprepared theater goer. I have come to really like how sports shonen anime are constructed and paced, even if I am at the understanding that they are just as derivative of the fighting anime that I have grown to be somewhat averse to, they currently make me happy.

It looks like Crunchyroll will also be releasing a film called Blue Lock here soon that is a soccer property, and I’m sure we’ll watch it as well, no matter how little I know about the anime or manga beforehand. Sure, I could take the time to get caught up, but I’d imagine folks enjoy my “41 year old dad watching a popular show in reverse order with no context” reviews!!