DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA Slice of Life2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu
ONA Slice of Life2.43 Mini Anime
ONA Slice of Life2.43 Mini Anime: Fukui-ben Kouza
ONA Slice of Life2.43 Mini Anime: Volleyball Kouza-hen
ONA Slice of Life2.43 Mini Anime: inside story

REVIEWS

• 

  NarcReal

  81/100
  "I was hoping for a sad ending, but a happy ending could be a good one."

  Remember:
  Every review always contains spoilers.

  So, this is the first time I actually reviewed the latest completed anime show and if you think it's not that good, then I'd like to apologize, because I simply based on anime works rather than the raw sources for reviewing a show, this one is a good example.

  I wonder why, but this is so interesting, I haven't and probably never watched Haikyuu before so I would say that I can't get subjected by a view of a volleyball anime as a stereotypical sport genre, although, I have watched a sort of anime which is correlated with sports as well, something that I could actually use for the premise of my review here. Before we started, first of all, don't get projected by another sport anime for the sake of comparison as well, even when I actually did it because the subjectivity is killing, after all. I really could see the way how people perceive this show as tropes but well, I don't think so. Unlike another genre, the first important thing that I usually looked upon the sport genre is the natural intensity, simply, I despised those who made the exaggeration level of drama while putting aside the real meaning of life by putting the pro and contra side here and there for the sake of entertainment. And at last, before the review, I owe you an apologize because I think 2.43 is pretty good in my view, so, here it is, it might just be an unconscious bias but who knows, and this review sounds boring for some, who don't want to waste time by reading this. So, if you read this, you may want to skip on this one as well.

  2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu, I can't memorize this title so well, really, I just called it 2.43, just to make it easy, since the title isn't that memorable as well. People wouldn't look into this one, because they though, "Ah, it might just be the same as or even worse than ..." is pretty much a justified view of being tangled by singular perspective as well. But, really, this show gives me a faith about sports genre in general, as it has a deep value of life, it's not hyped, not underrated either, simply between both. As I like slice of life in general, this show is really giving away the passion that I've been waiting for this one. Apart from its dullness, I simply enjoyed it as well. The plot isn't that good but slowly but sure developed, starts from the Kimichika and Yuni, who separated for 10 or more years after the childhood, and wanted to play volleyball simply because they liked it. And when it actually revealed that Kimichika went from Tokyo due to his attitude, the drama started, and so on, and I felt it's not that good either, I was hoping for the slice of life material here as well, but when the drama seems to be forced, no one would like to watch it, well, not for me, as I'm committed about finishing any anime show no matter how bad or bland it is as well. The comedy isn't fully fleshed, but at least, it's there, the main focus is the slice of life, after all. If I'd like to conclude, this show has a premise of 60% slice of life, 35% sport, and 5% comedy, and sport here works as the background rather than the main genre as well. Too many skipped scenes that might not be pleasant for some, hence it actually covers the plot hole for a bit, but can't get into the depth of it. I somewhat liked the art style, pretty much, not good nor that bad, although, for the animation, it's somewhat irritating to notice the robotic move around the players as well. The character developments don't seem to be good, very focused on only two main characters, while the others left abandoned albeit with a little development over the background. However, Subaru Mimura looks like getting recognized pretty much here, as he is one of side characters that actually has given a major development over the plot as well. The voice actors, they aren't memorable enough to tell but simply good, except that Kimichika's voice isn't that unique as well, but Subaru's voices, once again, gave away the good talent here. Also, the thing that soothes me would be the Opening theme, it's simply pretty good for a show like this, while the Ending theme isn't that memorable as well. And then, apart from the major flaws which I have pointed out, it really has the essence of life and somewhat a feel of psychology as an athlete in general, which I actually felt it before. Although, I was hoping for a sad ending, but a happy ending could be a good one. There is an usual "keep dreaming" sentence in every scene, as they played as a team which only consisted 8 members and simply played it, just that. At last, I simply enjoyed this show as a slice of life enjoyer, but for people who watched this because "It's a sport", then it wouldn't be as good as my experience. As I think this is a good one, so I would give a good rating for this one. Okay, I think that's all and thank you for reading this bland review, without any visual graphics to support the review.

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• 

  Talls

  75/100
  A show with more potential than being a Haikyuu clone

  I think it’s kind of funny that the second anime I decide to make a review of is another sports anime. I think there is something about this genre that is fun to analyze. Especially when the shows are more grounded and reflect things I’ve seen/experienced in high school sports. That being said this is also my first review of a seasonal anime, which I normally try to avoid but I was pretty excited for Seiin as I’ve become quite the volleyball fan this past year.
  But first I’d like to address the big orange and black elephant in the room. This show will probably always be compared to Haikyuu, and I personally found myself making these comparisons as I watched it. I do think there’s enough differences between the two, and I will try to refrain from making comparisons, but I do believe it’ll inevitably happen. Also, if you are looking for a show to hold you over between seasons of Haikyuu I do think this is a good choice.
  
  Story (Some Spoilers ahead)
  I think the story is about as run of the mill as you can get with 12-episode sports animes now. That’s not to say this is a bad thing though. But the format is generally a school gets a gifted set of new players, which makes them and interesting team to others in the prefecture. This interest general allows for them to get a practice match with a higher/highest ranked school in the prefecture and it develops a sort of rivalry that is settled by the end of the show. This structure while common is still engaging to the audience if built upon correctly.
  Which I think Seiin does a fantastic job at making this dynamic work. The rival school’s motives are delved into way more in this show, and the sense of rivalry goes past just Seiin being a good school suddenly. And it delves more into the concept of geniuses of a sport. It brings out more of the rival schools characters roots and aspirations of wanting to play on the center stage of nationals. Which happens to be the same goal as Seiin, but the reasons are more character driven for Fukuho. There are some more important plot points that get resolved earlier on, but I feel like they go more towards character development, so I’ll touch on it here and elaborate more later possibly.
  The show is tonally very different at the start compared to the ending. The start has a more Stars Align approach of having mystery surrounding the background of our main character Haijima. This being that he drove a fellow student to attempting suicide, and this leads Haijima to move back his hometown, Fukui, where he reunites with Yuni Kuroba. This beginning portion of the show is paced insanely fast too because they try to blitz through middle school but also set up drama between Haijima and Kuroba going into high school. This drama stems from Haijima being a gifted setter, and Kuroba being too affected by nerves and emotions when playing the game. This throws a wrench in their chemistry during their first tournament, and it follows to high school leading Haijima to not wanting to play as he feels like a detriment to teams.
  We as the viewer know Haijima isn’t the entire issue as he is a genius setter, but he must overcome his stubbornness of wanting to do everything. While Kuroba needed to learn to be more confident in himself and become the ace Seiin needed the most. And this is the big arc the two of them go through learning that they need each other to make this work out.
  
  Characters
  I think the best way to speak of the characters is to just break them down almost one by one as it’s a bit necessary to show what I meant in the story section. Along with the show being more character driven than story driven.
  Kimichika Haijima: He’s a genius setter that has a passion for the game that extends to winning at all costs. This put a huge burden on himself in the past when teammates didn’t want to be under his rigorous rule. Does this sound kind of familiar? Well if you’ve watched Haikyuu he’s very similar to Tobio Kageyama. But not to a fault really since he holds more of a burden than not getting into the high school, he wanted to be in. Haijima goes through the trauma of feeling responsible for almost causing a friend of him to kill himself. This burden holds him back when he realizes his new middle school team isn’t good enough to win unless he did all the work. And would eventually continue to hold him back once on Seiin since some people left the team due to his arrival.
  This causes Haijima to visit the Tokyo high school he was originally supposed to go to with Kuroba. Only for them to find out that the “attempted suicide” was fake. And the goal of this suicide was something his teammates went in on to hopefully bring Haijima down to earth and hurt his ego. Along with finding out that the person who was used as the scapegoat wanted to quit volleyball but couldn’t outright quit.
  This side plot would further help Haijima towards becoming a better team player along with the help of the rest of the seiin team. Learning that he has a reliable team and that he can make them prosper is a big part of his arc. Things like sacrificing being the setter in games to have better defense, learning to use all his attacking options, and lastly learning to trust his teammates are all factors that make Haijima a better teammate and player.
  Yuni Kuroba: It’s hard to directly describe Kuroba as he’s a bit of a coward for most of the show, but he is a capable player that learns to trust Haijima and himself. A lot of Kuroba’s arc ties into Haijima’s arc as the show presses this duo and their growth together a lot of the time. And it mostly starts to flourish and take form after their practice match with Fukuho. Where Kuroba see’s how impactful Subaru is. This sets Kuroba’s goal to becoming more like Subaru into motion to become a better ace for Seiin. And this goal is pushed onto Haijima as well since the ace can’t flourish without their setter.
  It is hard to talk about Kuroba without also talking about Haijima as the show gives these two the most spotlight for the Seiin side of things. And I think this duo works well as they are both flawed players at first. They have things that hold them back from being star players in the first half like Kuroba’s fear of being useless, and Haijima’s fear of bringing people to no longer wanting to play volleyball. These two struggle and flourish together, which makes for the pay off in their matches so much better as you see the two develop.
  The next two I want to talk about are the antithesis to our main characters in Subaru Mimura and Mitsuomi Ochi. These two are both apart of Fukuho Technical High School, which is a school that has never missed the spring national tournament. So, you are aware this school is capable and a tough opponent, but their motivations revolve around these two characters the most. Subaru Mimura is a powerhouse of an ace and a fellow genius. And his goal is to bring Ochi to the center stage of nationals this year as they’re both 3rd years. Subaru also has some issue in that he had surgery on both of his knees in the past, and later in the show it is revealed he’ll probably need to have more surgery done. This to me hit right at home as I’m also someone who has had surgery due to playing a sport, and it prevented me from continuing to play this sport afterwards. So, the frustration and fear Subaru feel at times in this show felt even more impactful to me. As losing something you love to do (especially something you’re good at) hurts so much even if its only temporarily.
  Ochi is a character that is a simple but ties more into Subaru kind of like how Kuroba ties to Haijima. But this dynamic is different from the Fukuho boys in that Ochi doesn’t actual play the game and is instead their manager. He is the moral support to the team, and the driving factor of Subaru’s goals for nationals. Since Ochi isn’t as strong of a player as Subaru or most of the other boys at Fukuho he was only given the manager position. But he constantly is there to give the team that morale boost in simple ways like getting water, towels, and even coming up with strategies for the team. He is like Haijima in that his game knowledge is strong, and he is like Kuroba in that he is there to strengthen and support the pillar of their respected teams.
  I like how the dynamic of these characters and their rivalry almost mirror aspects of each other, and they are fleshed out and shown enough to really impact that final match between the two teams. While there are other characters in this show that impact and help our main characters, I felt highlighting these 4 were the most important.
  Pacing
  This show has insane pacing which can be a good and bad thing. For me I normally hate when animes do time skips and fast-forwarding as it can remove significant development or take away from what I was watching. This show not only has that but also focusses more on speeding up matches and other parts of the show to move it along. Which isn’t a bad thing as the only match that matters are the finals match between Seiin and Fukuho. And I know why most of the matches/games are skipped around and almost sped through. For one this show is more focused on its characters rather than the storylines behind the whole show. And secondly, it’s because Volleyball is a rally sport meaning it can be a back and forth brawl, but you don’t always need to show every point like Haikyuu does. As you can keep the game close and show the highlights or changes in the tide on break points and other points of that nature. Still for me I think how fast the show is at the start can be hard to watch as they’re trying to set up characters but also rush to high school. So it is hard to ignore how fastly paced this show can be as they try to cram all of its story in 12 episodes.
  Animation/Design
  I think like most 12-episode animes there are ups and downs in the animation process. Some episodes have this crisp and impactful animation behind what is happening in the matches, and in other episodes we get less of this and more still images and displaying what the score is. We get moments of pure genius in the impact of a serve like in Haikyuu and Ping Pong the Animation, but then will get crappy still images/frames that people would call Dragon Ball Superesc. But I don’t think this is something exclusive to this show and is more of an issue with seasonal animes in general. Hell, even Haikyuu ran into this issue in its past season where a couple episodes looked bad the whole run time. So, it is hard to nickpick and be too angry about these moments and it is better to watch for the explosive and kinetic moments this show gives us. Character design is something I’ll loosely touch on because I do like the art style of these characters. They are distinct from each other and I think the show uses the different heights and body types that were designed to their advantages in the games.
  Closing Thoughts
  2.43 Seiin High School was a bit of an emotional ride. The characters are some of the better ones I’ve seen in sports animes in that they drive the story forward and keep the stakes high until the end. The progression and arc these characters go through are not only relatable/things we have seen, but they still stand out and can be developed on further. I like how the show is not afraid of giving us darker scenes and concepts as most sports animes are happy fun times for most of their airtime. And I would love to see this show get a second season especially since I think national tournament arcs can have the most impact. But at the time of writing this the Manga/light novel has been on hiatus for a while, and obviously there’s been no announcement of a second season yet. So, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed in hopes of this show getting a second season.

  But even without a second season I think this show serves its purpose and is a fantastic watch. Like I said earlier if you need a show for that volleyball fix while the next season of Haikyuu is in development this is the show for you. And I hope I convinced just a couple more people to give this show a watch as it has a lot of good going for it that I couldn’t fully touch on here

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• 

  jsilva

  30/100
  a poorly executed mess of a show with few redeeming features

  2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team Review

  Positives

  OST
  This show has a really great soundtrack, the OP and ED slap and a lot of the songs that they play in matches are really good and fit the tone surprisingly well.

  Art style
  For an adaptation of a not very well known at all source manga the art style is brilliant. Some of the plays in the matches look brilliant due to close ups and other cool effects.

  Plot themes
  Some (take note that I say some) of the plot themes are decent. These include Subaru Mimura's injuries, Oda's height, Kuroba's "stage fright" and Haijima's leadership issues.

  Negatives

  (This section is going to be a lot longer than the positives)

  Character development
  In the whole of this show, I would say there are about 4-5 characters who they at least make an attempt to develop. These include:
  -Haijima
  -Kuroba
  -Subaru
  -Oda
  -Ochi

  I say 4-5 as Oda is barely developed, they have one scene where he talks about how hard it is to play volleyball as a middle blocker while being short, and then he does a block. He also has some issues with being benched but that's it. That's his whole character arc.
  Haijima's arc is lifted straight from Kageyama, and Kuroba's is fully finished by about the 5th episode and he doesn't change until the end of the series.
  Subaru experiences no change at all, but at least we get to see more of his character in the show, the same goes for Ochi.

  As for the other characters, no attempt whatsoever is made to develop them. This is obvious when it comes to Fukuho's team as most of them we aren't even introduced to in terms of name, but the surprising thing is that there's even someone on Seiin's team who has about 1 line in the whole show.
  Of course I'm talking about this guy.

  

  I wouldn't even know that this guy was in the show if not for the matches and for the single line he says in the last episode.

  Forgotten plot lines
  There are many plot lines in this show that, while sounding like a cool premise initially, are never resolved, or if they are, it's done half-assed in a single episode.
  Examples of this include:
  -Yori getting beat up
  -Haijima's old teammate "committing suicide"
  They literally retconned a full suicide, essentially using it as a shock factor for 1-2 episodes before just completely forgetting about it.
  Yori is also completely forgotten about after he is beaten up, and I think we see him about once in the rest of the show as he is sitting in a car.
  Considering Yori is/was an influential figure is Kuroba's life, it's insane to think that he would completely disappear, especially as he shows he is fine with Kuroba playing volleyball, making his absence from the show completely delusional.
  Another example is the "great coach". All the coach does is pair them up once or twice. That's all he fucking does.

  Queerbaiting
  When this show first started, it seemed obvious that this show would be BL.
  This is shown by some of the dialogue between characters:
  Haijima: "I'll drill it into you"
  Kuroba: "You'll do what?" blushes

  There are also other instances but tbh I have forgotten the exact lines and there's no way I'm rewatching this to find them.
  But essentially it makes references like these throughout the first few episodes. Then it completely stops it, and makes no attempt at a BL whatever.
  It clearly implied it in the first few episodes and then completely drops it. Very fucking annoying.

  Confrontations
  Another problem with this show is that everytime Haijima and Kuroba come into a confrontation with literally anyone, instead of talking with them or even shouting at them or anything, Haijima just sets the ball to Kuroba? And then Kuroba either spikes it or catches it in his hand? While epic music plays? Like I don't know what the fuck they were thinking when writing these confrontations because it makes dogshit to watch, zero closure on any of the issues that caused the confrontation, they just fucking spike a ball and it's meant to be really cool. No fucking thanks.

  Haikyu sections
  I know some people might say "just because it's volleyball doesn't mean it's ripping off Haikyu" and that's true. But "just because it's volleyball doesn't mean it isn't ripping off Haikyu" also makes sense. And this show rips off Haikyu.
  A blatant example takes place in the 11th episode.
  In an attempt to inspire the team, the cheer squad unravel a banner that says "Soar to new heights" (that may not be completely accurate but it's along those lines). And apparently the coach wrote it. It then shows a close up of the word "Soar" and it really inspires them.
  You might remember in Haikyu when the literal exact same thing happens except the banner says "Fly". Also in Haikyu it actually fucking makes sense as they are called the Fallen Crows. In 2.43, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

  Conclusion

  This show is a clusterfuck of loose ends and poorly executed plot lines. The only good things are the OST, and some of the matches, although you would be way better off watching Haikyu for both of those things, and you would get a better plot also.
  I will not be watching the second season that it is trying to build up to (if it gets renewed that is) and I regret wasting my time. I had very high hopes for this show when it came out but it completely ruined itself. In conclusion, you probably shouldn't watch this show if you haven't.

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