This week I’m covering another sports series. It’s Haikyuu!! by Haruichi Furudate!

Plot Synopsis: Junior high school student Shōyō Hinata gains a sudden love of volleyball after seeing a national championship match on TV. Although short in height, he becomes determined to follow in the footsteps of the championship’s star player, nicknamed the “Small Giant”, after seeing his plays. He creates a volleyball club and begins practicing by himself. Eventually five other members join the team by his last year of middle school, but they are defeated in their first tournament after being challenged by the championship favorite team, which includes the so-called “King of the Court” Tobio Kageyama, in the first round. Though Hinata’s team suffers a miserable defeat, he vows to eventually surpass Kageyama and defeat him.

Plot: The plot is pretty good, nothing super serious, but it does deal with the standard lack of teamwork that both Kageyama and Hinata faced in their middle school teams. The plot itself takes place in High School, with the first chapter being a prologue of sorts. Having only read about 15 chapters of this series so far, I can’t really judge it too much, but I enjoy the series quite a bit. It’s nothing serious like any action oriented series, but it’s got it’s tense moments down perfectly.

Characters: Kageyama is probably my favorite character, because he’s been fleshed out a bit more so far than Hinata, but Hinata isn’t a bad character either. The rest of the cast that I’ve seen so far is quite good, although I’m curious to see what becomes of their advisor, who knows pretty much nothing about volleyball.

Art: The art is great, and that is to be expected if it’s serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. I do enjoy it quite a bit.

Overall: This looks to be a solid series, and I’m probably going to binge read it while doing other things.

For those who like: Sports, Volleyball, Good Plot, Excellent Cast of Characters, Awesome Artwork.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.