Gaming🎮 Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle made me a believer in sports anime

[Royal_Lizard]

You know, in all my years of watching anime, the one sub-genre I've never really gotten into is sports anime. To be honest, that most likely comes from the fact I just don't care for real world sports all that much - everything takes too long and the drama of it all can feel a bit too forced for my liking. But there is one series that I've been meaning to check out for a long while, and have consistently said to myself that I'll watch it eventually, because everyone I know that's watched it loves it more than anything: Haikyu.

This isn't about me watching Haikyu, I'm sorry to say. Or, well, it is, just not the series. As silly as it might sound, I'm here today to tell you about Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle, and yes, I recognise that I'm kind of starting at the end of the series, but hey ho, what better way to decide whether you want to check something out than via a breezy, roughly 90 minute long movie? There is of course the question of whether it's even enjoyable for someone that knows nothing about Haikyu, one of the main reasons I actually wanted to check it out, but we'll get back to that.

Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle follows on right after the fourth season, with Shoyo Hinata and the rest of Karasuno High's volleyball team facing off against their rivals Nekoma at the Spring Nationals tournament. It's the first official match between the two schools, despite them having played against each other before, so the stakes are raised slightly on this occasion, for obvious reasons (and as a note, the whole film is just one match, so don't expect all that much downtime). Right off the bat, as someone that again, literally knew next-to-nothing about the series, the biggest surprise is who the main focus of the film actually is.

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