HighWire: [First Impression] Haikyuu!!

I knew I was going to like Haikyuu the moment I watched the first couple minutes of Episode 1, because that's when I realized that this may a little different than what I expecting. We start with our hero: Shouyou Hinata, and his first/last game of volleyball in middle school. See, ever since a chance encounter, Hinata has been extremely passionate about volleyball, but unfortunately, since his middle school had no male team, he was forced to practice by himself or force one of his reluctant friends to toss a volleyball in the air for him to spike. But as the first episode begins, Hinata is ready to change all of that. With a rag-tag team of classmates and friends, Hinata somehow entered them into a regional tournament, and is over the moon to be playing his first game of volleyball... ever. Though it doesn't go as well as he hoped.
Turns out said first game is against one of the best teams in the area, one that sports the talent of Tobio "The King" Kageyama, a superstar player who ends up completely annihilating Hinata's team of rookies in the first round. ...However, that was some time ago. Hinata now has applied to the Karasuno High School volleyball club, ready for a fresh start in highschool, but it turns out his past is going to be more hard to escape than he previously thought, because as it turns out, Kageyama has also signed up for the team, along with a crew of other freshman that either don't care much about the club, couldn't give less of a crap about sportsmanship, and are some generally difficult people. And so, this volleyball team starts their long, long climb to the top, and 5 episodes into Haikyuu, I'm more than invested enough to see how they get there.
So, hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, as I welcome you to a new First Impression of the volleyball/comedy mashup that is Haikyuu. Let's begin then.

It also doesn't help that Hinata is far from the best player on the team.

I'll get this out first: I could not care less about volleyball, and that's sort of the excuse I've been constantly peddling so I can avoid sports anime in general, and yes, I fully realize how stupid that is. I mean, it's not like sports anime are completely about sports, the same how mecha anime aren't just about giant goddamn robots; what I'm basically trying to say though is that after avoiding it for so long, Haikyuu will be my first sports anime once I complete it. What first interested me about Haikyuu in particular is that you don't find many anime, especially those of the shounen/sports genre, that place their thematic focus on failure. Our characters try, and fail, and try again, and all this seems to be building towards some kind of larger thematic point that I can only begin to guess at right now. The characters all seem to represent different stages and kinds of passion: Hinata being the purely enthusiastic one who never gives up, Kageyama being the one who channels his passion into stoic seriousness, and the rest of the cast is made up of personalities such as the one-who-doesn't-care, and so forth, and their classes of personality sometimes create subtle points about the nature of passion and sportsmanship that I somewhat appreciate.
Though at the same time, the characters are probably the worst part of this show. Oh, they're entertaining and fun to watch, much because Haikyuu has really good comedy to help pass the time, but I'd argue that at this stage, only Kageyama is showing signs of real character development that is actually effective. For the rest of them, I basically took one look at them, guessed what stereotype they were, and now only 5 episodes in, I think I've reasonably extrapolated what slight changes they will make throughout the show. I mean, take our main character. How cliche is it to have the main character be the bland "I will never give up!" paper board with arms and legs? Though, this next part gives me a little hope.

Sh*t's about to get serious.

Alright, confession time. Due to circumstances, I actually know the ending of the show, which sort of puts me into a unique position. On the bright side, if it handles the ending like I hope it will, Haikyuu could actually become something rather inspiring with its message, but on the other hand, the shock the ending is undoubtedly supposed to have will complete go over my head. But then again, does it matter? After all, isn't the journey just as important as the ending, and in an anime that promises to have entertaining characters, intense action and great comedy, I think I'll appreciate the next 20 episodes just fine. I want to see these characters grow, overcome difficulties to be the best they are, and I even want Hinata to achieve his dream when the journey is over. ...That's what I think. But then my heart sinks and I cast my eyes downward, because I, and anybody else who has seen Haikyuu, know that there is only one way this will end. Goodbye for now guys.

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