Haikyuu to Support High School Volleyball Teams Impacted by COVID-19

Haruichi Furudate's Haikyuu was officially brought to an end earlier this year, but it still [...]

By Nick Valdez

Haruichi Furudate's Haikyuu was officially brought to an end earlier this year, but it still continues to impact the youth in Japan by offering some awesome support to teams impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When the series first launched in Japan it notably increased the visibility and popularity of volleyball as a sport thanks to how dynamically Furudate captured the series on page. Through its eight year run in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, the series only had more impact with its branching out into and anime and much more before it was brought to an end earlier this year.

But even with the manga's end, Haikyuu is still making a major impact with kids in Japan with a cool promotional effort that sought to highlight as many high school teams as possible. Just as Karasuno High School did in the series, many real life teams seek to enter the Inter-High School Sports Festival. Unfortunately, this year it was canceled due to the pandemic meaning that many kids didn't get to play.

As a show of support, Haikyuu gathered as many volleyball team uniforms as they could and ended up with 165 teams! Laying out all of the uniforms, the staff behind the series took a special photo to commemorate the real life teams behind the sport. You can check out the photo for yourself below, and see a video of the process it took to make it all happen in the video above from Shonen Jump's official YouTube account!

Haikyuu's manga might have come to an end, but the franchise will be living on through anime. The fourth season of the anime was initially scheduled to debut this Summer, but was delayed until October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So the Haikyuu franchise knows just how badly this pandemic has impacted everyone!

Are you excited to see the rest of Haikyuu's fourth season later this Fall? What did you think of the manga's official ending? Did Haruichi Furudate's series make you try out volleyball for real at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!

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