Haikyu!! Land vs. Air

To clarify right at the start, I find real life sports boring and I think watching real life sports is one of the least entertaining things people do for entertainment. However, anime has ways to convert this boredom and to hype it up to the levels that make your blood boil with excitement. Sadly, not every attempt at this is succesfull. Watching this Haikyuu OVA felt like watching a regular sports match. Though I get that it's not that easy to make valleyball exciting, as it's already not interesting even for sports standards. Sure, some might find the realistic feel attractive, but when the original lackspoints of interests, emulating this lack of interestingness may not be the best idea. Haikyuu fans will very likely enjoy this side story, but for me it felt like wandering into a gym by accident and being forced to watch a match between people I don't care about with stakes that I am completely indifferent towards to. The ill-timed attempts at humor that start off with a poo joke aren't exactly helping the case too. The exception was the last 5 or so minutes of the 2nd episode that had some actually interesting-ish interraction between the characters. Overal, the few scenes with the sisters were unironically the most entertaining part. And the animation is, of course, still well above the average. Unless you're a fan of Haikyuu or real life sports of just a completionits, you might as well just skip this OVA. You won't be missing much except for the opportunity to waste 40 minutes of your life.

Alright, listen, I understand that I can't expect a perfect ten out of a couple of episodes, but if I left it at that, what would there be to review? So, I'm gonna go over why these OVA episodes could've done a bit better regardless of the fact that they were still awesome. With Haikyuu!! I'm used to experiencing amazing scores of music because that's what the standard has been so far. During these episodes, though, I don't know that I necessarily felt that. The music didn't hit me like it has in the past, which is unfortunate. Similarly, the voice acting wasn't quite asfamiliar as I thought it would be. There wasn't much by way of shouting during the games like they normally do. There were still some awesome musical moments, too, when there was a chance. Art-wise, Haikyuu!! has one of the best styles in all of anime. I did feel like the movement of the characters during serves or jumps were a bit choppy for some reason, which struck me as weird since Haikyuu!! is usually really good at that, but it didn't bother me that much. There isn't much to say about the story. It's very much an in-and-out type set of episodes. There isn't any extra information given because these episodes are really only here to serve the purpose of showing us the outcome so that we know what's going on heading into the fourth season. That isn't a bad thing at all, though I do wish these episodes were able to provoke a bit more emotion than they ended up doing. Since these OVA episodes had to cram a whole lot of manga material into two episodes, it makes sense that it felt a bit rushed. Another thing Haikyuu!! is typically good with is immersing the audience in the game that's on screen, but since so much happened in these two episodes, they weren't able to do that. Does it really matter? No. Like I said, the outcome is more or less all that matters in these episodes, but I was still hoping these matches would've been represented a little differently. Whatever, I'm just pumped to be back in this story. I'll see you at the end of next season!

Story Don't pass by them ! You should watch them before beginning the S4 ! Yes it's not Karasuno, and it's not the main characters, and that's why it's interesting. It's basically the story of two Nekoma team matches , on their way to the nationals. So, the major part of the OVA is playtime. But that's not all, the true goal of these episodes is to develop the characters from Nekoma, their personal side, but also their relationship with the other members of the team, and also with their enemies like Fukurodani. We also meet a new team, the Nohebi team. It's not the mostinteresting team in the manga, and personally I didin't really like their game methods, but the match was still interesting and we learn a lot about them in the two episodes. Art Haikyuu is still a beautiful anime for me. There is no change with the anime, and like in it, we have some beautiful moments, during certain actions like spike or blocks for the example. Sound Not a lot to say about it here, it's basically the same sound as in the anime. I would like to have maybe more original music during the matches for the OVA. Character I think it's the most interesting part of these two OVA. We can learn a lot about the Nekoma's player, and the Nohebi team, and their relationship. That's why I think that these two OVA are musn't be avoided : they allow us to understand better the motivations of the characters to win, and to go more and more beyonds their limits, why they are fighting. But they also involve certain characters questionning about their way of playing, and how they can improve it, ourselves, and with their other teammates. Enjoyment It's true that it's a little bit less interesting than the main plot, but these two OVA are still a good entertainment, and for me, could have been in the actual anime.