Haikyu!! Second Season

Episode 5

Not having ever played team sports, I can't say that I ever really appreciated the way a sports team has to work together, how choreographed a sport like volleyball can be. This episode of Haikyu!! definitely made me reconsider that, even as I heard Standard Movie Sports Coach in my head screaming, “There is no 'I' in 'team'!” at Hinata. But in this episode, Hinata is much more focused on himself than on the rest of the group, something spurred by two players being able to block his special quick attack, one from last season, and now Lev, the new guy at Nekoma. Not only is Lev incredibly tall, he's also ludicrously talented, especially for a newcomer to the game, but he's also not shy about having it out for Hinata. While this appears to be a combination of his own ego and relatively friendly trash-talking rivalry, Lev's confidence and prowess cut Hinata's own confidence like an ax to the knees. Lev was never for a moment daunted by Hinata and Kageyama's killer combo, and that shakes Hinata to the core.

Unfortunately for the team, Hinata's reaction is to become obsessive and brash. He gets like my dog when there's a ball under the couch – he cannot focus on anything beyond the ball, not people telling him to stop, not the cat clawing his tail, nothing. And as it does with the dog, this gets Hinata into trouble. While there are small moments that signal this, the major one is when Asahi has called the ball and is mid-air getting ready to hit it...only to notice Hinata flying up from beside him on a collision course, apparently oblivious to the fact that the ball has been called and that he's about to royally screw things up for everyone. Nekoma's coach thinks that Hinata is trying to evolve, and likens it to a baby crow trying to leave the nest. For the rest of the team, however, Hinata is throwing off their groove and acting like a serious threat to their cohesion and victories.

It really was only a matter of time before Hinata went off the rails in search of playing perfection – we've known since pretty much the first episode of season one that he is relentless in pursuit of his goals, and after the sting of defeat that ended that previous season, he is basically primed for an extreme reaction to any setback. With his doggedness also comes his relative immaturity, which overwhelms his reason as to the rules of the game and pushes him to think that the impossible can be mastered in no time at all...which leads to Kageyama getting frustrated and reacting with his usual calm and grace. (Read: none at all.) That the two boys can set each other off not only makes for great doujinshi fodder – it also threatens the very core of the newly powerful team, to say nothing of Hinata's sense of security. As he explains to Yachi, he saw Kageyama as a partner in the game, and now that they're back on bad terms, it's clear that he feels abandoned and not a little lost. Hinata's so caught up in his own improvement that he can't see that he's acting like his own version of the King Kageyama was in middle school. For his part, Kageyama is probably smarting over their falling out as well, as we can see in his body language as he waits at the street crossing at the end – stiff with resolve, but with head hanging down, like he's worried he's cutting his nose to spite his face despite feeling absolutely in the right. There's got to be a compromise reached somehow, and Yachi may be the person to help broker it, with her very different investment in the boys as a new manager and her friendlier relationship with Hinata. (Despite his goofing around with his teammates, it's never really felt like they had an off-team friendship to me, unlike his friendship with Yachi.)

Something is going to have to give as the story moves forward, and I daresay that it will take mutual efforts on the parts of everyone. This is really the strength of Haikyu!!'s appeal – that it can mix sports action with emotional investment, creating characters you care about beyond how they perform on the court. Hinata's got a lot to work through in the coming weeks, and it will be just as, if not more, rewarding to see him grow as a person as well as a player.

Rating: A-

Haikyu!! Second Season is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.