Without a doubt Haikyuu remains as one of the biggest shows to come out last decade and for some reason it escaped me for quite a while. It began airing right when i started watching anime and throughout 2014 I didnt pick up a single new anime to watch weekly for some reason. I only started doing that in 2016 so I had to catch up on a lot of stuff that I really should have watched when it came out. So Haikyuu came out in my first year of high school and I didnt end up watching it until my first year of university. Damn. Volleyball was always a sport that I enjoyed playing in gym class and is honestly one of the coolest sports to watch competitively. Enjoying sports anime really depends on how much you enjoy the sport and volleyball is one of the best sports to make an anime about. The matches are fast paced the dynamic between team members is great and the high level of skill is immense. This is why Haikyuu works so well. Despite the matches usually lasting many episodes it never feels like a regular battle shounen. Theres rarely any down time during them and theres always something cool happening. Every technique the characters use is realistically flashy. It looks cool in the anime and is still completely possible in the real world. The players feel like they could exist in real life. The only thing thats unrealistic is the insane level of skill these highschool students have but that doesnt really matter considering it makes the matches always intense. Now to the core reason to this shows success: the characters. A recent trend among battle shounen is how the rival characters usually are more friends than foe. Naruto basically perfected the antagonist main rival character so to see it flipped in such a creative way in Haikyuu was refreshing even after six years of watching anime. Having Hinata and Kageyama on the same team forced to work together was such a nice way to handle their rivalry. The main thing I was worried about was that it would take too long for them to really become friends but to my surprise it actually happened very quickly. It would have become repetitive if it took too long so Im glad the story opted to develop it efficiently. The rest of the team are also really great. The third and second year team members all have memorable designs and personality traits especially Nishinoya and Sugawara. Tanaka is probably the most enjoyable character to watch apart from the main duo and its cool that hes such a valuable team member as well. They might all be cliched but theyre done so well that it doesnt matter. There are three other team members that dont do anything and they seemed pretty useless. Its not much of an issue since Ive already seen most of S2 at this point so I know theyre actually somewhat important. Especially Ennoshita who seems like hes gonna play an important role later in the series. The teams Karasuno faces in this season are all really entertaining and unique as well. Nekoma is a great friendlyrival team that makes me pumped to see an official faceoff later down the line. Date Tech is a little less interesting but still has some cool characters and a good gimmick to overcome. Where this show really shines is Seijohs team led by one of my new favorite characters: Oikawa Toru. Prodigy characters in this type of show can usually go down the path of being rather boring antagonists but Oikawa Toru is one of the greatest examples Ive seen. Hes a great volleyball player and always fun to watch along with his smartass personality and constant insults towards Kageyama. His random bursts into English during some scenes are always really funny as well. Entertaining villains is something anime goes 50/50 on whether they get it right and Haikyuu always nails it. Oikawa Toru being this shows crowning achievement so far in this department. Haikyuu is a show that knows how to create naturally hype situations. The fantastic character dynamics amazing soundtrack and hypeasfk animation blend together to create battles that are hard to look away from. Its no small feat to create a sports battle shounen that works as well as Haikyuu and I think this show should be commended for that. Its a great first season for a show that will get continually better and better. Haikyuu deserves its hype and deserves your time if like me late last year you somehow havent seen it yet.