Review of 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team

This anime was unfortunate, but the opening was a bop and a half. Right, so, if you're thinking, "Wow, how convenient that a volleyball anime came out just as the Haikyuu!! manga ended," don't be fooled. Because there's a lot about this anime that's just copy and paste from the Haikyuu!! plot and character work. I mean, obviously, I'm not implying any type of plagiarism, but what I am saying is that this anime had the opportunity to do something different with volleyball, and it didn't. Also, the animation was kind of not great, but I don't like saying that since I know it takes alot of work to put together an anime. Let's talk positives first.

So, I did actually think the friendship between the two main characters was cute. It wasn't developed realistically, but the fact that they had an intimate friendship with one another was nice since intimacy within a friendship isn't something that gets touched on a lot in media. Also, despite the crappy way the story was laid out, it's still ultimately satisfying to watch a sports anime where the team gets better as you watch. It wasn't as good as it could've been, but it was almost involuntarily satisfying at the most important moments.

The beginning of this anime was sort of wack, but it was kind of nice because I thought, "Ah, this anime is going to take a sport we've seen done in a really intense way with Haikyuu!! and turn it into a more mundane, school club based thing." That thought was exciting because I enjoyed Ahiru no Sora after watching Kuroko no Basket. However, that's not really what happened. We start with Seiin having basically no volleyball team and, in twelve episodes, somehow end up with a team that looks like it's been playing together for years. The pacing was absolutely terrible. The development was nowhere to be found. The episodes would jump through three different, huge events in one 24 minute period without making the audience feel like any progression was happening. It was like the anime was saying that they suck in episode 3, but by episode 5, you've got to believe they're awesome.

None of the characters had any real development within the sport, though one did have character development outside of volleyball. It wasn't like you had a character say they wanted to get good at some aspect of volleyball, and then you proceeded to watch them do that; no, they just got generally better as a part of the team. That aspect of this anime was really annoying because I couldn't enjoy the progression of Seiin at all. Everything was hella rushed, and by the end, it felt like I had watched the prequel to whatever the real thing was supposed to be. I mean, maybe that's what this is; I haven't read the manga. However, if that's the case, it still did a poor job of it.

I don't know; this anime was fine. It wasn't hard to watch, by any means. There were still emotional parts or intense parts that were interesting, and the parts that didn't have to do with volleyball were often pretty good. I think, had the story stepped away from "we want to go to nationals" and focusing on how these characters could bond through the game, it would've been a really touching story. As it was, it fell flat in a lot of ways. I won't come back to it, but I'm not going to say you shouldn't watch it. If you don't care about meticulous development or just want to watch a sports anime at any cost, then this anime will do the trick for you. It just wasn't for me.