Plenty of training!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Haruichi Furudate
Translation: Adrienne Beck
What They Say
Ever since he saw the legendary player known as “the Little Giant” compete at the national volleyball finals, Shoyo Hinata has been aiming to be the best volleyball player ever! He decides to join the team at the high school the Little Giant went to—and then surpass him. Who says you need to be tall to play volleyball when you can jump higher than anyone else?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The name of the game this time is “evolution,” as nearly every member of the team seems to be taking great effort to improve themselves. Hinata’s of course at the center of all of this, and his solution is to not close his eyes any more during quicks. It doesn’t sound like a huge change, but it means that he’s fighting to take a more active role, and at turn become better at fighting in the air. But at least at first, Kageyama shuts down the idea hard, saying that it simply won’t work, and his reasoning is sound.
As things progress, this leads to a separation, as Kageyama and Hinata break apart from one another to focus on improving themselves. This unsurprisingly kicks off with something of a fight… but in a rather interesting change of pace from what you normally see, it actually turns out that this is just what they need. Which is to say, rather than a cliché “they need to learn to get over their differences and truly understand one another!” the book actually uses this chance to have both players improve their own skills, which in turn better aids their combination when they come back together. It’s a neat little take on your classic “training arc,” and makes it real satisfying when the time comes for them to once again cooperate.
In a somewhat surprising note, though, a good bit of the volume’s focus actually goes to Tsukishima. And I have to say, it’s real neat to see, as he honestly hasn’t gotten a lot of attention up until now. What’s even more interesting, though, is it turns out that he actually more or less has been treating the club as just that, rather than his sole focus like virtually every character in pretty much other sports manga. It’s honestly a bit surprising to just full on see someone be like, “it’s just high school sports, man” in one of these things, and makes for an interesting contrast to everyone else on the team. Of course, though, we do get a bit of backstory explaining his attitude, as well as him actually gaining some motivation as well, so it’s not THAT far removed from what you’d expect. And I’d say the execution there is solid, but nothing especially mindblowing. Still, it definitely goes a long ways towards fleshing out one of the characters on the team who was formerly a bit underdeveloped, which is greatly appreciated.
In Summary
As the series goes full on “training arc” mode with this volume, it’s a bit slower than the more action-packed matches, as well as a good bit more orthodox than what we got last time. That sadly means this entry is a lot less likely to blow you away, but it’s fortunately not without a few tricks up its sleeves. The main one is that the actual evolution the main characters undergo skews a bit from the normal formula seen in sports series, and fortunately ends up packing a really solid punch as well when you finally get to see the results. And on top of that, we do also get some heavy focus for Tsukishima, which is definitely much appreciated. Add in a few extra nice little scenes and some light character introductions, and you get a volume that’s certainly more than competent, even if it’s not the most exciting book that the series has put out.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: April 4th, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
