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Haikyu!! Second Season
Episode 9

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 9 of
Haikyu!! Second Season (TV 2) ?
Community score: 4.6

There are plot episodes, and there are getting there episodes. This is obviously a very simplistic way to look at things, but in a series like Haikyu!! it sometimes helps to think of things in simple terms. In order to fulfill the overarching plot, which is comprised of both season one and the current season two and basically entails the Karasuma team climbing to the top of the high school volleyball world, there have to be episodes that focus on the smaller elements of that – be it gameplay, strategy, or the question of whether Hinata and Kageyama will ever talk to each other in a remotely friendly way again. All three are interconnected, although it isn't always easy to see them as such. Yachi, the new manager, certainly has trouble understanding that they're all part and parcel of the same issue, and it isn't until the end of the episode that she really grasps it, and thus spells it out for us viewers: it isn't that Hinata and Kageyama ever stopped being friends or teammates, it's more that they began to doubt themselves, or, more specifically, that Kageyama began to cast aspersions on his own ability to give Hinata the tosses that he wants and deserves. Seeing his partner doubt himself is what angered Hinata, not anything Kageyama specifically did to him.

It's a nice parallel to the Tsukishima storyline that we had over the past two episodes, and while Kageyama and Hinata don't have the sort of relationship that Tsukki and Yamaguchi do – which makes sense, since they haven't known each other as long – by the end of the episode we see that they really do care about each other. Hinata can't stand that Kageyama would sell himself short, especially when he's been doing his damnedest to improve his own skills so that they can play better as a team. It comes back to what we saw last week, with moving into a new space and realizing that you won't always be the best that there is, but where Tsukishima retreated into negativity, Kageyama buries himself in intensity, trying almost too hard in his quest to improve. It may well be the first time he's ever tried to do so for the sake of the team at large, to say nothing of someone besides himself, and I feel like what's really been going on is that he's been working to make up for his past attitude and being much harder on himself than he has to be. (Or, as Hinata phrases it, being creepy when he's worried about someone else.)

As always, the plot isn't the only enticing thing about this show, and this episode manages to put in plenty of the fun little moments that make it more than just a sports story. One of the best scenes is of Sugawara and Asahi being unceremoniously awakened by what is clearly an annoying morning person, although not even he can wake Yamaguchi up, and the horror on the boys' faces when they realize that practicing too late may cost them dinner instantly humanizes a later scene. That these moments take place at random and never last more than a minute or two makes them that much better – they offer us glimpses of the characters as people rather than players, reminding us that no matter how much they love volleyball, they also love food and sleep...or will go out of their way to avoid a social gathering, in the case of their coach. You know, just like the rest of us who aren't amazingly talented volleyball players. This episode does a particularly good job of balancing characters and plot, even as it is recognizably leading up to the final matches of the practice session and serving more to get us to those games than to provide any memorable action of its own. But when a show can keep you just as interested in the day-to-day or the practicing sans 80s-style training montages...that's when you know it's doing something right.

Rating: A-

Haikyu!! Second Season is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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