Haikyu!! Movie: Battle of the Garbage Dump
✅ This is a spolier-free review
- Animation: ⭐️⭐️
- Soundtrack: ⭐️⭐️
- Story: ⭐️⭐️
- Overall: ⭐️⭐️
Haikyuu!! Movie: Gomisuteba no Kessen
I landed in Tokyo and the weather was miserable, rainy, cold and no sakura to enjoy… I had no intention of watching the new Haikyuu movie in the theatres. I just assumed I would wait until it was available online. Because of the weather, I did a quick Google search and found out there was a cinema in Shinjuku that was playing the movie with English subtitles. So I decided to kill some time watching it to shelter from the rain.
Oh boy, what a mistake did I make.
The movie ticket was 2000 Yen (about 12€). The theater itself is very nice. Great and comfortable seats, and they even gave me a small movie book (in Japanese) to complement the ticket.
I wanted to wait to review the movie until it was available online to get better screenshots that would exemplify my pain with this but since it is unknown when the online release is happening… here we are.
Remember season 3?
Season 3 was peak Haikyuu, the intensity of the plays, the not knowing what was going to happen in the story, the animation (oh my…). Pure joy 🤩
This movie is such a far cry from the original Haikyuu series, as a fan I feel insulted. The animation is awful, and the drawing is awful.
Repeated soundtrack
You may not care about the soundtrack but I think in Haikyuu the music played a key role (like in most anime). The different tracks across the first 3 seasons were spot on. Maybe it was so spot on that the studio decided to re-use some of the tracks. Really? 😕
For real 🤦♂️
You will not make me believe there aren’t other artists or tracks from the same artists that can be used in the movie rather than reusing previously played ones.
It just felt repetitive, it made no sense and I felt a bit cheated. The movie did not feel as fresh. It was even worse because I was remembering great scenes from previous seasons with that soundtrack which were so much better than what I was seeing on the big screen.
Fanservice
The whole movie was a big fanservice montage. Each character had their key moment. Tsukishima had the blocks and the smirk, Sawamura had a defense and leadership moment, Nishinoya the incredible dive, Yamaguchi the pinch serve, and so on.
It was nothing new. It felt like they were checking off boxes. Have we shown Yamaguchi serve yet? Yeah, ok, back to the bench and keep quiet. Next character, please?
It was ridiculous.
I assume it’s the format. If you would play this in a 24-length season it wouldn’t feel as rushed or as “checking off boxes”. You could expand on each character, making their appearance more natural and organic. This felt forced, felt they needed to squeeze a moment for each one in the 2-hour movie.
It was not enjoyable.
The art style and animation was trash
I’m sorry, Furudate-sensei. This movie has destroyed your masterpiece’s reputation. I haven’t yet caught up to the manga, I am collecting it (in Catalan language. Yes, I want to support Furudate by paying for this 💰) rather than reading it for free. So far there are only 9 volumes out, so I’m a bit far away from owning the complete series 🤏
I can understand his art style might’ve changed from volume 1 to volume 45 (as it did for Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball ✅) however… I can’t help but wonder how is Furudate feeling after seeing this piece of shit of a movie? 💩
When you think “anime movie”, what do you think about? 🤔 My first thought is impeccable animation 💯 They usually condense a season’s work and budget into less than 2 hours. You expect excellent scenes and buttery-smooth transitions… We’ve got just small glimpses of that in this movie. Yes, it was that bad 👎
Maybe it’s just me 🤷♂️ Maybe I came into the movie with such high standards that I left disappointed 😔 We’ve watched great animation in seasons 1 through 3. Granted, after Season 4 maybe I should’ve gone into the theater with another mindset. Yet, I wanted to believe 🥲
Visiting Kamei Arena in Sendai
I went there. I went to the arena that inspired most of the matches. Of course, the place had Haikyuu decoration and it felt a bit magical, I won’t lie.
Outside in the park, a group of teenagers dressed in Haikyuu cosplay were taking pictures.
Additionally, you can find posters and marketing material for the movie scattered around Sendai (and Japan in general). Notice how some of those posters have old-style art rather than the disgusting new. Coincidence? I think not.
Next movie? Meh
Am I looking forward to watching the next movie? Not really. They try to leave you with a cliffhanger but instead, I left the cinema thinking I wasted my money giving the animation studio my hard-earned yens.
You can tell they spent millions on advertising. I traveled across Japan for more than 20 days and saw Haikyuu everywhere I went. My question is, of course, why spend so much money on this rather than the actual movie? Just to disappoint us? The anime industry has a wrong focus. Focusing on selling merchandising rather than delivering excellent anime should not be their goal.
The title of the movie is very fitting, it was truly garbage.
