Haikyuu!! Final Movies are Bad News for the Story
When I learned that they are going to adapt more than one hundred chapters worth of Haikyuu’s story in just two movies, I was so disappointed.
No seriously.
About thirty percent of the story is left to be told and all we’re getting is just two Movies? They will hardly be able to cover the “Karasuno Vs. Nekoma” match, let alone all the good things that come after that.
And if you haven’t yet read the manga, believe me as I say this, the best is yet to come.
The 112 Chapters of the manga that are yet to be adapted have one of the most fulfilling and brilliantly told story arcs in the entirety of manga.
To put that in perspective, let’s calculate a little:
An anime movie is about 2 hours long at most. Two such movies equate to 4 hours.
That’s like, 12 episodes of anime.
In what world can 112 Chapters be adapted in just 12 episodes?
Even at the best pace, 12 episodes can only do 36 to 40 chapters.
But the trailer we saw had panels from the end of the story, they can’t actually be planning on adapting till the very end, are they?
It means, not just the “Karasuno Vs. Nekoma” match will be ruined, but also the one after that.
All those incredible flashbacks? The character moments? All of it will be trimmed down until you are left with only a soulless amalgamation of the story.
It’ll be like the Haikyuu recap movies that retell the story of the first couple of seasons.
Not that there's anything wrong with the recap movies, but we all know that they are meant to be watched after one is done with the actual season. However, in this case, these abrupt movies will be “The” Haikyuu Anime content.
There is really no other way to say this.
It may look good because of the “Movie Quality” but the storytelling is going to be bad. Terrible. Complete and utter disappointment.
They’ll have to trim out everything that makes Haikyuu “Haikyuu.”
Note that this post is an expression of disappointment, and not resentment.
I completely understand why they decided to go with “Two movies,” it becomes very clear when you look at it from the perspective that Anime is a business.
Which is why, I’m going to stay optimistic and share my thoughts on how the Movies may potentially lead to a proper TV Anime after all.
This is going to take a minute, so stick with me please.
For starters, let’s go back to the first season: the animation quality, the OSTs, and everything. It was great.
In the second season, it was even better. Same can be said about the third Season, however, they outsourced some episodes during the production of Season 4, so many scenes were reused again and again, the designs weren’t consistent, and the meme faces were everywhere.
If you compare the season 4 to the previous seasons, the drop in animation quality is astounding. The story content was still good though, they left out a few things but not enough for it to be a problem.
“Production I.G.”, the studio behind Haikyuu knew that the series was already successful, so they didn’t put nearly as much effort as the previous seasons, and it still succeeded.
I definitely wasn’t there at the table when the budget was allocated, so I’m not sure whose decision it must’ve been, but let’s say that their ultimate goal with the two movies is to make more money.
As recently seen with the Demon Slayer and the Jujutsu Kaisen movies… they sell a lot.
We’re talking about a lot of profit, just consider how popular Haikyuu is, but then again, we’re also faced with a serious dilemma.
There is enough source material for the studio to make two full Seasons of anime, yet apparently these two movies are going to be the last we’re going to see of Haikyuu.
With the case of Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, the movies were an addition to the anime, they were still going to continue to drop more seasons.
The global Haikyuu fanbase is frustrated because they do not want the most precious moments of their favorite series be trimmed out of the movies.
The Promised Neverland tried adapting that much content in just one Cour of anime, and we all know how terrible it was.
Especially for the manga readers, their disappointment was immeasurable and their day was ruined.
I can only hope that they are doing something more akin to what Attack on titan did with the whole “Final” season labels.
What I’m trying to say is that these Movies may be labelled as such, but they are not going to be the Final installment of the story.
Maybe, this is just me on copium, but hold on, it makes sense.
What if the movies are just being marketed as such for them to be successful, so that when they are indeed success, more money can be made by using the screen time of the movie, animating more content from the manga that was left out, and then releasing a complete, proper season, a year or two after the release of the movies?
Demon Slayer did it with the Mugen Train movie: the content of the movie was released in the form of weekly episodes before the eventual release of the second season.
Heck, even Dragon Ball did it back when Dragon Ball Super came out.
Since the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F movies were successful, they created a whole series out of it.
So, what if that is going to happen here.
If the movies are indeed successful, and considering how the manga is already finished, they can easily capitalize on this to eventually use the content of the movie with addition of more content from the manga to release Season 5.
And then maybe even Season 6?
Hey, let a man dream.
This also then takes us to “how much are they willing to adapt.”
For example, if the first movie is just going to adapt the Karasuno vs. Nekoma match, and the second movie adapts the match after this one, then even though, we’ll be missing out on Fukurodani’s epic match, and a lot of flashbacks for the secondary characters will be swept under the rug, there will at least be some semblance of “completeness” to it.
Now imagine, if they just stuff both of these matches into the first movie, and then use the second movie for the Brazil Arc.
No, that would be horrible.
So, hopefully not.
Well, not that we can say much because the trailer definitely suggests that they are going to go all the way, I’m afraid.
Honestly, I don’t think many of the anime-only fans understand why the manga readers are so displeased with all of this. It’s because the narrative of Haikyuu is this beautifully woven thread that finally takes the form of an adventurous crow in the final arc.
If they speed through it, we’ll miss out on at least two-third of the content that hasn’t been adapted, which means, even the stuff that is adapted, will feel too disconnected to invoke that same level of emotional response.
Unfortunately, if the movies do turn out to be the last we’ll ever see of the “Haikyuu” anime, there is no way to classify it as anything other than a cash grab.
As a long time haikyuu fan, I can understand the feelings of the fans, it just feels wrong.
And if it is indeed just two movies to close things off, then we’d rather the final arc doesn’t get animated and they focus only on the two Karasuno matches that haven’t been adapted yet.
If you want to check out the trailer, you can check it out here at the Official Toho Animation Youtube channel.
There are a few panels in the trailer that may be spoilers if you haven’t read the manga, but not enough to be a big deal since you don’t yet know the context.
By the way, definitely read the manga, you should know the context because the odds suggest they are going to ruin the story of this legendary manga that is still yet to be told in anime format.
Alright, so these were some of my thoughts on why I and pretty much every other Haikyuu manga fan dislikes the idea that they are going to adapt 112 chapters in just two movies.
Hopefully, they change their plans, the movies haven’t even been released yet.
Otherwise, it is what it is. Sadly.
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