Review of 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team

This review will contain some spoilers so if you haven't watched the anime or read the novel and don't want to be spoiled then ignore this. I really wanted to love this anime. I love watching volleyball (irl and in shows) and love the sports anime genre in general. But this was just not it for me. I understand that this isn't really a full on sports anime per se, more on the drama end (completely fine with, I'm really not too picky with genres. Some I like more than others, but at the end of the day the genre doesn'treally matter to me.).

In all honesty, there were some episodes that I really liked, others I hated, but as a whole the series was a 6 at best for me personally, but I'm really leaning towards more of a 4 here.

A lot of the time the dialogue just seemed dry and there was so much conflict being tossed around. One moment there's some big fight here but oh it's resolved within the episode. More conflict, yeah we were actually faking that the whole time so glasses would join the team or something. To me it was the equivalent of "and it was all just a dream" kinda thing. Could this kinda thing be executed well? Of course, but it just didn't here.

Then there's the issue with Hajima's backstory. Initially I thought it was going to be a big issue that he could really learn from and better himself. I was rooting for some character development regarding this incident, but then it turns out that the whole situation with Hajima pushing his friend to the end was all fake and that his friend just wanted an excuse to quit volleyball? This could have really been handled better. It was just so off-putting that the thing that seemed to be the main conflict that the show was centered around for the like, first half of the series was just a bunch of rumors.

I will admit that I did enjoy the last couple episodes since they did stray away from throwing in unseasoned and just, bad conflict. It showed the real desperation of players on each team doing everything in their power to win. The last couple of episodes seemed more realistic to me than most of the conflict between characters earlier on.

I also really do love the art style, especially the eyes. It seems so average for anime, but it was also something that just looked different to the average anime style. It's hard to explain, but really just know that I liked the art (animation was great too).

Overall it was a drag for me to continue this anime after all the weird conflict. It was boring at times and I put off watching the last half for so long because of it. With that being said please know that these are my personal opinions and I get why some people loved it and others hated it.