Anime has all kinds of genres: horror, action, romance, and sports. When it comes to the sports genre, no anime beats “Haikyuu.”

“Haikyuu” is a volleyball anime about a first-year student at Karasuno High School named Shoyo Hinata. When I first heard of “Haikyuu,” I thought it would be boring because it’s a sports anime and would be super repetitive.

 Boy was I wrong. This show has sports scenes that match the intensity and feeling of watching a great fight scene. Not only that, the characters face challenges that they have to overcome just like in any anime. Some examples are killer serves and insane blocks.

The plot and storytelling in this anime are really good. Karasuno High School in years past was a top charts volleyball team; however, throughout the years, the team has fallen out. But with the new first year’s raw potential, the team is quickly rising through the ranks.

This show also has a great group of characters, most notably another first year known as Tobio Kageyama. He is an insanely good setter who was shunned by his old team for being so much better than them at volleyball that they could not keep up. When Kageyama and Hinata meet, they have an amazing friend/rival relationship.

My favorite character is a second-year student named Yu Nishinoya. He’s the team’s libero and has an amazing personality. He is short for a second year; however, he is very enthusiastic about being an upperclassman. On top of that, he is very supportive of his team and will go out of his way to help them improve.

Other characters that are important to mention are Daichi Sawamura and Ryunosuke Tanaka. Sawamura is the team’s captain. He’s very strict but also supportive and a really amazing character. Tanaka is one of the team’s spikers. He is very awesome, supportive, and funny. “Haikyuu” has no shortage of amazing characters.

This show was really inspiring because the main character Hinata, who is also short like Nishinoya, does not give up playing spiker because of his height. He makes up for his height with his insane jumps and athleticness. 

The person who inspires Hinata is a character known as Tiny Giant. Despite Tiny Giant’s height, he’s an insanely good professional spiker that Hinata as a kid saw on tv that drove him to play volleyball.

Haikyuu is a great anime with an amazing set of characters, amazing sports scenes, and a great plot. The best place to watch “Haikyuu” is the anime streaming app “Crunchyroll.”