Harukana Receive - Reviews

I went into this just thinking it was gonna be another ecchi sports related show.  However, the characters were well done, and their interactions were great.  It was not just about the sports, but was a feel good type of show.  Glad I stumbled across it.

For a show about teenage girls playing volleyball on the beach, this is a surprisingly respectable and good anime. Good enough that I'd recommend it as long as you don't mind some fanservice. Which by the way is really not all that bad given that amount of skin shown is about what you'd expect given the context. I just wish that they covered the entirety of the manga and had 2 cours to work with instead of 1 cour. The short duration hurts the story and natural progression of it; and it shows.

The story is pretty standard run of the mill stuff for a sports anime. The characters find a passion some way or another in the sport and then aim for the very top with their team mates. But what makes this anime stand out despite it's 12 episode duration is it's choice of backstory for it's characters. It's pretty common for a good sports anime to have some interesting and sad backstories to why some characters play and how it affects their playstyle and strengths on the field during a sport, but Harukana makes it self stand out by choosing to develop certain interpersonal relationships more deeply than normal. It's the stand out point of the anime and a large part of why it scores higher than most people would expect at first glance. Otherwise the story is pretty standard with matches, training, and down time for characters to interact and develop; nothing too crazy. 7/10 story.

The characters are also pretty run of the mill, but not without some backdrop development for anyone that's on the screen a good amount. Most of the the time the characters come off as one note, but their stereotypes are supported by a healthy amount of flashbacks and backdrops. And there's a reasonable amount of development given the anime's short length, so there's not much to complain about albeit not much to praise. That is besides a number? of deeply developed relationships of which I won't disclose. I may be fluffing it up too much, but I like it enough to give the characters an 8/10.

The animation and sound kind of leave some things to be desired though... The animation is a bit shoddy at times and there really isn't much of an impact even during the highest action moments. For a sports anime it really doesn't get you as hype as you'd expect. An easy comparison is Haikyuu; the successful and popular indoor volleyball series. Even if I mellowed out of watching it at some point because it got rather repetitive and felt like a drag to go through the later the series went on, the action sequences themselves were very enjoyable and hype to watch. The movement, choreography, ball hits, serving, etc. The animation and sound all had great OOMPH to it Haikyuu. I unfortunately cannot say the same for Harukana Receive's volleyball scenes, and yet it's still decent enough to enjoy the rest of the show.

Once again the real star of the show for me is the writing of the characters. It's their interactions that got me the most hype in this anime which may be not what you'd want out of a sports anime, but even the sound and animation reflects this. Yeah you can tell that they made sure to put more effort, time, and budget towards the climax volleyball sequences, but it still pales in comparison to something like Haikyuu. And yet the makers of this anime clearly allocated time and resources towards climax scenes happening off of the beach ball court. It shows in the scene direction, how beautiful the characters silhouettes+faces+the scene are, and the choice of music. And for the record the music and OST in this show are pretty good even if the voice acting is done mainly by newbie/low profile VAs.

6/10 for the animation because it lacks punch during the sports scenes, but is pretty decent otherwise and has beautiful climaxes away from the volleyball.
7/10 for the sound because of the music. The voice actresses were reasonable, but the music sells it even if the sound effects were lacking during the volleyball scenes.

And finally a side note about one of the differences between this anime and it's manga. I don't know whose decision it was to make some of the characters a bit darker in the anime than they are in the manga, but it's an EXCELLENT decision. It's amazing visual variety and contrast; definitely one of the big wins the anime has over the manga, but I'm obviously biased from consuming the anime first. Narumi and Kanata look great and there's no way around it for me. And I know it sounds weird, but it's just a very cool thing that the anime did imo. No politicalness or whatever involved; just how I feel.

As a whole Harukana Receive is an anime that maybeee you're considering picking up for the fanservice, but at this point it's more likely you'd watch it for it's characters. Either choice is valid though and it's a reasonable watch. Just don't watch it if you want REALLY good volleyball scenes. It's alright for those, but just watch Haikyuu in that case. And although I didn't really touch on it in the majority of the review, there IS fanservice. There're butt slaps, strange shots, and so on. That said, it never feels obscenely out of place and annoying if you've ever watched anything with fanservice is what I will say; and it doesn't dwell on it or have it get in the way of important moments which is good enough for me at least. The story is hurt by the short run time, but the characterization is still worth watching for. Though I had hoped for more, it's a 7/10.