This manga has my soul. Everything about it is perfect (´༎ຶོ—༎ຶོ`)
It’s not just a manga about volleyball, it’s a manga about friendship, hardships, life, and dreams. The storytelling is amazing, the art fantastic, the characters unforgettable, and the emotions it brings you more real than ever. You will laugh, you will well up, you will cheer in delight, all in all you will feel alive.
There are no words to describe this masterpiece ♡

This is a phenomenal, remarkable, realistic sports manga. Without any need for villains, superpowers, or so many other story crutches, Haikyu!! is instead about lifelong rivalry, growth, and turning your hobby into a profession.

The mangaka is a master at using perspective and clever placement of panels and SFX to convey action. And they somehow managed to create a truly humungous cast full of characters with distinct appearances and personalities, without ever resorting to overt tropes or caricatures. And the story is filled to the brim with subtle callbacks to earlier chapters, which makes the conclusions to story and character arcs incredibly satisfying.

Remarkable.

The only thing to be aware of, lest false expectations lower your enjoyment of this masterpiece, is: There's a time skip. It's expertly executed, but if that bothers you anyway, here are the details:



... Last updated on July 18th, 2022, 3:00pm

If you still haven't read it yet you should start now, it's so great that you will feel all kinds of emotion and excitement... when reading this I I'm always holding my breath and then "whew" because of the pressure and tension i feel, and in my opinion that's more than 100% reason enough why this is one of the "Greatest Sports Manga" cause not all sports manga will make you feel the tension and excitement you get from sports...

i hope that the other upcoming sports manga will be as great or even half as great as this... I thank the author for the enjoyment he gave to the readers..

Short review: Haikyuu!! is an engaging story about the fallen-champions men’s volleyball team of Karasuno high school. Despite not being big on sports manga or not knowing anything about volleyball, giving this a try is absolutely worth it. Without realizing it, you’ll be immediately hooked and rooting for the boys all the way. The story and the characters’ development is told brilliantly through the volleyball matches, and no play is useless in the entirety of the story - everything is connected.

Full review:

Warning: review contains spoilers

I’ve been meaning to start this for a while now, but I only decided to start reading Haikyuu!! because when the manga finished it was all I saw on my feed. A bit sad that I got on the hype train a bit late, but it was also nice to get into it with zero knowledge. We begin with Hinata, of course, being beaten by Kageyama in middle school really badly then ending up teammates with him. This does sound like the beginning of a whole bunch of Shounen Jump titles, but Hinata is such a support-worthy MC that you just keep on going.

Plot-wise, I’m not sure how it compares to other sports manga, because I haven’t read any others. However, to me, the simple plot of [the year that changed the team’s lives] going on to [a glimpse of how everyone is doing in the future] is great. I think some people feel like Hinata/Kageyama’s second year and third year stories should be told, but I think we already saw everything that we needed to see with Karasuno’s lineup that made them fly again. We find out anyway that they did make names for themselves, and the MSBY/Adlers game really feels more fulfilling because we see all the powerhouses still playing. After that short arc, we get even more timeskips and see our heroes succeeding - playing in the same team AND as rivals, which is exactly what we’d expect them to keep pursuing.

For the characters… where do I even begin? I am an absolute sucker for ensemble casts where you just fall in love with everyone. First of all, Hinata Shouyou is just a ray of sunshine that I immediately wanted to root for. He’s just got spirit and is such a sweetheart, he really affected so many people around him. Watching him grow out of the shadow of the Little Giant and coming into his own as Ninja Shouyou and an olympic player really made me proud. Kageyama as the darker rival archetype is the usual except that he’s only a volleyball genius and a dumbass in everything else and that makes him so endearing!! The other Karasuno members are so lovable as well, with how supportive they all are of each other and how they become catalysts for each team member to grow. I was especially happy with seeing the growth of the other first years - Tsukki during the Shiratorizawa match, Yachi no longer just a side character, and Yamaguchi becoming a great pinch server. The stable senpais are also so great - how they bring up the first years is just so heartwarming to see - especially Sugawara who doesn’t play in the starting lineup still teaching Kageyama. Coach and Sensei of course are also such great pillars for the team, without them, none of this would have happened.

The other teams are great as well - I ended up rooting for so many characters lol. Some stand out characters are Oikawa - not a genius, but ended up competing against the Japan team? Damn. Bokuto - how could you not like this guy, really. Ushiwaka - when we see him more outside of just being a strong player its amazing. Of course we have the Miyas, too… Nekomata’s members (all of them 🙁(() and I could go on and on, but basically the cast of characters is really memorable and easily, you will find a favorite… or seven.

Lastly, we have the art. Again, I can’t compare this to other sports manga, but I can say that the art is nice and clean. The art style had subtle changes too from the beginning to the end, but that’s how it usually works with series that go on for over five years. Still, as someone who doesn’t play volleyball, I was still able to grasp what was happening on the court. The constant reminders of the current rotation, the explanations of the plays, and the the drawings of the ball’s trajectory really helped me follow what was going on. It wasn’t overwhelming at any point.

Overall, I’d recommend this to… anyone. Even though I might have initially been disinterested in following a story about some high school boys playing volleyball, by the end of it I was so attached to the characters and so proud of the tremendous growth they made. It’s definitely not difficult to get into, and the message of the whole thing - how everything is connected - and how Furudate showed this from the beginning to the end really felt like a beautiful set into a wonderful play. I hope more people would give Haikyuu!! a shot.

Plot 9/10

Art 8/10

Characters 10/10

Overall 10/10

It’s such a good story and watching them grow into such inspiring and powerful characters is honestly amazing!
There’s basically a huge timeskip but that’s okay, since we still get to see them in all their glory. The characters are very loveable and the art style is amazing in depicting all the movement, it makes you unable to put down the manga until you find out what comes next.
Honestly, just read it and become addicted like I did.

This. Is. So fucking great.
The relationships, the characters, their depth, their struggles, their personalities! They all are differet and diverse!!!! And their growth!!!
OMG!!!!!m

Hilarious, dramatic, and exciting interactions among the characters
Linear and well-paced plot line
Subtle, climactic music
Appropriate art that enhances beauty/intensity of the sport as well as the characters themselves

I honestly can't remember what else qualifies as an important theme in this manga because I truly got lost in the flow of the games and opponents. I am so thankful I found this manga and I look forward to the new episode every week. In my opinion, this story goes beyond all expectations in the Shounen/Sports category and is even on par with some of the best action/adventure shounen mangas, including Hunter X Hunter, One Piece, FMAB, and other popular works.

Over the last year or so, this manga/anime has become my favorite series.

I keep re-reading the manga, I love it so much! The characters and their relationships are so cute (especially between Hinata and Kageyama, or Kageyama and Aikawa's rivalry).

The reason why I like this manga so much, is because it's a more realistic take on the sport. It shows hardships and gives them a reason to grow stronger, their improvement and how talent is a big deciding factor, how height in volleyball can really make the game more different and the opponents more tougher, etc etc.

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Concerning Betmen's comment:

First of all, I am not discrediting your opinion by any means (that you find it just good). However, I am discrediting (a little) the facts that you gave for your opinion - FACTS. I apologize if this offends you somehow, but your comment lit a certain fire in me that I just felt the need to add my own 2 cents.

Of course there's going to be a lot of repetitive movements in sports - not just volleyball. This isn't some random action manga where characters can use their body freely to either kick, punch, elbow, slash, or even use magic to destroy/hit objects or people. There's a certain way people play volleyball and that's either to: pass the ball, set the ball, and spike the ball. However, volleyball is also flexible enough where a person can use any part of their body to do all of that (spike, pass, set, etc.), as long as they don't use an open hand below a certain level of their body.

Let me just point out, this is all with their BODY. They can't just magic a sword in the midst of a game and wave it around, hoping to catch their opponents off-guard or strike the ball. There's also a certain set of rules to the game that limits the players and removes a few options they can do, i.e. open-hand passes, illegal screening, touching the ball twice (not including serve receives first passes), etc.

So yes, sports will have a lot of repetitive movements. Despite this, it's still exciting to watch/read or participate in. You should try a sport, if you haven't.

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Plagiarism: the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. [Making Haikyu not a plagiarized version of slamdunk, seeing as they both have a different set of characters, schools, dialogue, etc.]

Let me tell you one thing: there will never be an original character, idea, or book aside from the very first work of art/literature/movie, etc. that it's been seen in. This includes both Slamdunk and Haikyu. In the past, there has probably been many characters that are similiar to Nishinoya or Miyagi. There has also been many relationships that are similar to the rivalry between Aikawa and Kageyama - way too many, in fact. So, I don't see why you think this is plagiarism. They might be similar, but there's a clear difference between volleyball and basketball.

Once again, I apologize if this offended you, but it just bothered me.

TLDR; There will be repetitive movements in SPORTS - try watching a sports game. This isn't plagiarism, there's just only A FEW similarities between a few characters/relationships, other then that, the dialogue, setting, etc etc is totally different.

... Last updated on November 7th, 2015, 4:40pm

the reason i rate this only good because Volleyball is kinda boring in manga. too many repetitive movements, is forgivacle in solo sport like tennis or ping-pong but in team sport when all the players do the same repetitive move is just too much.

the second reason is plagiarism, this manga copy a lot from Slamdunk. the relationship between karasuno-aobajosa-shiratorizawai is like shohoku-ryonan-kainan, aoba jousai had hidden ace just like ryonan had hidden ace in fukuuda, Nishinoya from karasuno charcter and past kinda reminding me of shohoku's miyagi also dont you think relationship between kageyama-aikawa reminding us of rukawa-sendoh rivalry. thre're too much similariity between the two mangas that i can't just ignore.

After reading and watching a lot of sport manga/ anime, I finally came to this. At first, I'm not really interested in a volleyball series (after all those popular basketball, soccer, baseball MA out there), but then I watch the anime, then I turn to read the manga at the instance.

There is no word that can describe my grateful feeling in discovering Haikyuu. At that time I was stuck at Kuroko no Basket, it's a good manga, but not a good sport one, because of the supernatural thingy. Haikyuu is much different, even different from many old and legendary sport manga out there (like Slamdunk, Prince of Tennis and stuff), because it is too... normal.

No special super human skill with fancy name, no monster protagonist posses superpower, no annoying villian that want to destroy the main characters because he or she feel like it. Not really. No. They are just normal high schooler playing for the sport club. They DO really good at playing that particular sport, but their mind and thoughts are pretty much teenagers, playing sport, wanna have fun, aim for victory, no killin' or threatening and stuff. I love that sense of reality (and innocent).

And it doesn't mean it's not good. I watch the anime for like 3 times until now, and finish the manga up to the latest chapter (around 150) in 3 days, still crawling for more. The art may not be favor by most people, but as time goes by, you will understand it contribute a lot to the humor and the action of the story. Character development is awesome, even the smallest characters have some scene, you can't really hate anyone. The emotion, I can burst into tear for any lost of anyteam, because I can easily putting myself into their position.

Another one thing I love, is how the mangaka potrays the sport, not only around the protagonists, but tell the story about high school kids, their student life, about win and lose, about their love with volleyball. And he mention about the girl volleyball team, too, but not too much due to the storyline. But still good, nobody ever done that, and I love it!

You don't have to know about volleyball (sport in general) to start reading this manga (or any other sport manga). Read it, and you may eventually fall in love with the sport.

The anime is good, too.

... Last updated on April 10th, 2015, 12:00pm