Haikyu!!

• 1. Introduction

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  Haikyu!!, a Japanese manga written and drawn by Haruichi Furudate, had more than 75 million copies in circulation by December 2025. That total places it among the best-selling manga series of all time. Its subject is a high school volleyball team and the boys who play on it. Why did a sports story reach so many readers? Who are the two characters at its centre, and what binds them together? How did one weekly serial grow into television seasons, films, stage plays and video games? And what did critics, and even a national team captain, notice in the way its anime stretches out a single rally?

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• 2. Rivals Turned Partners

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  Shoyo Hinata was a junior high student when he glimpsed Karasuno High School playing in the Nationals on television, and he became obsessed with volleyball. Commentators had given one Karasuno player the nickname "The Little Giant." He was a short wing spiker, but a talented one. Hinata was short too. He had no experience, yet he was athletic and had an impressive vertical jump.

  At his junior high school, Hinata joined the volleyball club and found he was its only member. He spent the next two years trying to talk other students into practicing with him. In his third and final year, some friends finally agreed to join so the club could enter a tournament.

  Tobio Kageyama stood on the other side of Hinata's first official game. A third-year student and a prodigy setter, Kageyama was known as "The King of the Court" for both his skill and his brutal style of play. His team was the favorite, and it crushed Hinata's. A short rivalry sparked, and Hinata vowed afterward to beat Kageyama in high school.

  Hinata studied hard and earned a place at Karasuno, the school the Little Giant had represented. He was shocked to find that Kageyama had chosen Karasuno too. The school had lost its standing as a powerhouse since the Little Giant's era, and other local teams called it "The Wingless Crows." Kageyama's gift for setting and Hinata's athleticism combined into an explosive new tactic and an unlikely setter-spiker partnership. The two push each other toward their full potential, and Hinata builds ties with his first real team. Together they begin a journey of redemption, aiming to restore Karasuno's name and reach the Nationals.

  Both boys want to play volleyball professionally. They have promised each other that after high school graduation, no matter what happens, they will meet again on the same court.

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• 3. From One-Shot to Serial

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  On the 8th of January 2011, Furudate's story first appeared as a one-shot in Shueisha's seasonal magazine Jump Next! A second one-shot followed in Weekly Shonen Jump on the 25th of April 2011. Full serialization in that weekly magazine began on the 20th of February 2012 and ended on the 20th of July 2020. Shueisha collected the chapters into 45 volumes, released from the 4th of June 2012 to the 4th of November 2020.

  At a panel at New York Comic Con, the North American publisher Viz Media announced that it had licensed the manga. Its English release began in 2016. In January 2019, Shueisha started publishing the series in English at the same time as Japan, through the website and app Manga Plus.

  A spin-off illustrated by Kyohei Miyajima ran on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ website from the 13th of May 2019 to the 24th of March 2025. Its chapters were gathered into 14 volumes, released from the 1st of November 2019 to the 4th of September 2025.

  On the 5th of February 2024, Weekly Shonen Jump ran a 16-page special chapter by Furudate. It revisited the showdown between Karasuno High and Nekoma High from a different angle. Eleven days later, on the 16th of February 2024, moviegoers who saw Haikyu!! the Movie: Decisive Battle at the Garbage Dump received a book titled Haikyu!! Volume 33.5. It held a 16-page manga, character illustrations, the storyboard for chapter 322 and a Q&A with Furudate. The print run was limited to 2 million.

  The newest branch of the manga began on the 5th of January 2026 in Shueisha's Saikyo Jump magazine. It centers on Hinagarasu, the series' mascot, who is a parody of Hinata himself.

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• 4. Four Seasons on Air

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  The 6th of April 2014 marked the premiere of the anime adaptation by Production I.G. It ran until the 21st of September 2014 on MBS and other JNN stations, with English subtitles on Crunchyroll. That first season had 25 episodes. Spyair's "Imagination" opened episodes 1 through 13, and "Tenchi Gaeshi" by Nico Touches the Walls closed them. From episode 14 on, "Ah Yeah" by Sukima Switch served as the opening and "LEO" by Tacica as the ending. Episode 14 had no opening, and "Ah Yeah" played over its end credits instead. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime for digital and home video release in North America.

  The second season aired from the 4th of October 2015 to the 27th of March 2016, again with 25 episodes. Spyair returned with "I'm a Believer" as the opening for the first 13, paired with "Climber" by Galileo Galilei. "FLY HIGH" by Burnout Syndromes took over as the opening for the second half.

  The third season was much shorter. It aired from the 8th of October to the 10th of December 2016 and ran only 10 episodes. Burnout Syndromes supplied the opening, "Hikariare," and Nico Touches the Walls supplied the ending, "Mashi Mashi." Sentai Filmworks licensed this season as well.

  The fourth season was announced at the Jump Festa '19 event, and a kickoff event was held on the 22nd of September 2019. It premiered on the 11th of January 2020 in the Super Animeism block, with "Phoenix" by Burnout Syndromes as the opening and "Kessen Spirit" by CHiCO with HoneyWorks as the ending. The first part ran weekly until the 4th of April 2020. The second part was meant to air in July 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it. It finally aired from the 3rd of October to the 19th of December 2020, with "Toppako" by Super Beaver opening and "One Day" by Spyair closing. The season totaled 25 episodes, and Crunchyroll simulcast it.

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• 5. Beyond the Series

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  In November 2012, TV Tokyo's program Sakiyomi Jum-Bang! broadcast a radio drama for the series, with several voice actors giving voice samples for the characters. Shueisha's Vomic website distributed it in December 2012.

  Four original video animation episodes followed. "The Arrival of Haiba Lev" premiered at Jump Festa on the 9th of November 2014. It reached home viewers on the 4th of March 2015 in a limited-edition DVD of the anime, packaged with the 15th manga volume. "VS Failing Grades" premiered at Jump Festa on the 3rd of November 2015 and shipped on the 2nd of May 2016 with the 21st volume. Two more episodes, "Land vs. Sky" and "The Path of the Ball," were released on the 22nd of January 2020. They adapt the Tokyo Nationals qualifiers story arc.

  Compilation films reworked the television episodes for the cinema. Two arrived in 2015, between the first and second seasons. One was released on the 3rd of July and the other premiered on the 18th of September. After the third season, two more were announced in March 2017. They came out in September, on the 15th and the 29th.

  The franchise also reached game consoles. Haikyu!! Tsunage! Itadaki no Keshiki came out on the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on the 25th of September 2014. Haikyu!! Cross Team Match followed on the same system on the 3rd of March 2016. Hinata also appears as a support character in the Jump crossover fighting game J-Stars Victory VS, on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. On stage, a series titled Hyper Projection Engeki: Haikyu!!, directed by Worry Kinoshita, began running in 2015 with Kenta Suga playing Hinata.

  On the 13th of August 2022, two anime films called Haikyu!! Final were announced as the finale of the series. The first, Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle, was released on the 16th of February 2024. In April 2024, Crunchyroll announced that it had acquired North American and select international theatrical rights, and the film opened in the United States and Canada on the 31st of May. The second and final film, Haikyu!! vs. The Little Giant, is set for 2027, alongside an anime short called Haikyu!! Where Monsters Go.

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• 6. Counting the Copies

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  Volume one of Haikyu!! landed at 22nd on the Tohan charts for the week of the 4th to the 10th of June 2012. Volume two ranked eighteenth between the 6th and the 12th of August 2012, and volume three held eighteenth between the 8th and the 14th of October.

  Circulation figures show the climb that followed. By December 2016, the manga had passed 20 million copies. It topped 28 million by January 2018 and 33 million by December 2018. The total passed 35 million by December 2019 and 38 million by May 2020. Then growth sped up, with over 40 million by August 2020 and over 50 million by November 2020. Later milestones were over 55 million by August 2022, over 60 million by September 2023 and over 70 million by December 2024.

  In Japan, Haikyu!! was the sixth best-selling manga of 2015 and the eighth of 2019. In 2020 it was the fourth best-selling manga series, with 7,212,099 copies sold.

  Weekly charts caught individual spikes. In December 2016, the 24th volume topped Oricon's Top 10 Weekly Sales chart, selling 282,363 copies in its first three days. During the week of the 11th to the 17th of May 2020, the series sold 473,858 copies on the same chart. Only Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba sold more that week.

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• 7. Awards and Rankings

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  Honya Club's 2013 recommendation ranking placed Haikyu!! fourth among fifteen recommended comics. In 2016, the manga won the 61st Shogakukan Manga Award in the shonen category.

  In November 2014, readers of Da Vinci magazine voted it the eighteenth greatest manga in the history of Weekly Shonen Jump. The same magazine's "Book of the Year" list ranked it fourth in 2014, sixth in 2015 and ninth in 2016. It ranked fourth again in 2018, thirteenth in 2019 alongside Space Brothers, tenth in 2020 and eighteenth in 2021. On TV Asahi's Manga Sosenkyo 2021 poll, 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, and Haikyu!! placed eighth.

  The anime drew its own list placements. In November 2019, Polygon named it one of the best anime of the 2010s, and Crunchyroll included it in a "Top 100 best anime of the 2010s" list. IGN also listed it among the best series of that decade. During the winter 2020 season, it was among the top 10 streamed anime on Crunchyroll in the UK, Canada, Oceania, Mexico and Brazil. Fans voting in Funimation's Decade of Anime poll named it Sports Series of the Decade.

  On Tumblr's Year in Review, it ranked second behind My Hero Academia in the Top Anime & Manga Shows category in 2020, and third in 2021. At the 5th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, Hinata was named "Best Boy" and was also nominated for "Best Protagonist." The fourth season's opening theme, "Phoenix" by Burnout Syndromes, was nominated for "Best Opening Sequence."

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• 8. What Critics Noticed

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  Leroy Douresseaux of Comic Book Bin praised the manga for looking closely at personal and mental struggles as well as athletic ones. He also noted its strong focus on character drama and team dynamics away from the court.

  Kim Yeon-kyoung, captain of the South Korean National Women's Volleyball team, reacted to and analyzed Karasuno's final rally against Aoba Johsai in season two. She said a few moments were exaggerated and impossible in real life. Even so, she was pleasantly surprised by how the show portrayed high-level volleyball and found it "fun to watch." She also said the creator "is a person with a high level of volleyball knowledge."

  Several writers focused on the team. Melina Dargis of The Fandom Post praised how the show builds a team mentality across many characters instead of a few individuals. Her point was that volleyball "is not an individual event, but a team sport." Noelle Ogawa of Crunchyroll admired its portrayal of personal growth and its sense that people need the right people and the right environment to bloom. Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network singled out Kiyoko, Karasuno's team manager, saying her jump as she brings Hinata his lost sneakers shows she is "just as much a part of the team as any of the boys."

  Silverman also noticed the anime's attention to detail. She pointed to the deep breaths, the muscles moving in the players' legs, and point-of-view shots that follow the ball during rallies. Isaac Ackers applauded how the show builds intensity without borrowing the speed of real sports. In his words, "Instead of speeding up, it slows down." He described how it hangs on specific plays and stretches out the time the ball spends in the air.

  Rafael Motamayor of Slash Film said the best part of the show is how it folds relationships and character stories into the sport. A simple toss becomes a lesson in trust, and a spike means confronting years of self-hatred and doubt. He credited Production I.G's fluid animation and Yuki Hayashi's soundtrack with turning a simple game into "an operatic duel of fates." Guillermo Kurten of Comic Book Resources praised the characterization and the entertaining story, even for viewers who do not like sports or know volleyball. K. Thor Jensen of Mashable placed it on his list of the best sports anime.

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