Review of Haikyu!! Movie: The Dumpster Battle

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love Haikyuu. In a vacuum, would I recommend this to sports anime fans? Of course. But, this is yet another reminder of a lame and inevitable trend we're seeing of studios cashing in quickly on a film, rather than adapting the source material into a fully fledged season. The end result is that many of the scenes feel a little more rushed than necessary, the overall urgency and drama is reduced, and moments that are meant to be emotional and impactful just breeze by. Worse still, some awesome plays from the manga are even cut completely (Nishinoya backheel save?) YukiHayashi and Asami Tachibana once again kill it with the OST, and it's the characters we all know and love - but it could have been so much more.

I hope part 2 has a different result, but I doubt it.

Plot: 8
Characters: 9
Animation: 7.5
Soundtrack: 9
Enjoyment: 6