Haikyuu!! Movie 2: Shousha to Haisha - Reviews

I know this review is probably pointless to most people, but I had a hard time finding info about the movie in detail when I was trying to decide whether to watch it or not after watching the first season so hopefully this will be of use to someone! Also, for full disclosure, this was written from the perspective of someone who has only watched the anime and has not (yet!) read the manga.

This movie recaps roughly the second half of the first season of Haikyuu.

[spoilers if you haven't seen season one]  The movie covers two arcs: Karasuno's matches with Date Tech and Aoba Johsai at the Inter-High tournament. Most other arcs/sub-plots have been excluded or greatly cut down.   [end spoilers]

Would I recommend this if:

• you've never seen season one?   Definitely not. This glosses over so many things and you'd miss out on a lot. Just watch the show instead of this, things will make so much more sense if you do, especially if you aren't a volleyball fan (like me); there's a lot more actual volleyball gameplay in this movie, but a lot of the explanation of the strategy has been removed so it becomes less clear why certain plays were 'great' or 'smart' or whatever.
• it's been a while since you've seen season one and you're wanting to get back into the show?   Sure. If you don't want to rewatch the entire first season, then this does a decent enough job of covering highlights from the biggest events; don't forget to watch the first movie too, which covers roughly the first half of the first season.
• you just finished season one and are about to start season two?   Ehhh, maybe? Honestly, you really don't need this recap since season one should be fresh in your mind, but if you're a completionist, then there was one new scene that I noticed that wasn't in the original tv show. But it was super duper minor, even less so than the scenes added in the first movie. So I guess it depends on whether you think the ~1.5 hours of your time is worth seeing

[minor spoilers ahead]   a small scene about the Date Tech team about halfway through the movie    [end spoilers].

Compared to the first movie's new scenes, I didn't really think this was worth the time, especially since I don't personally care much about the characters shown in this new scene. If that includes you, then maybe you can come back to this movie far into the future when you want to scratch the Haikyuu itch, but don't want to commit to completely rewatching an entire season or the entire show.