Haikyuu Execs Address Season Four's Surprising Hurdles

By Evan Valentine

The worlds of sports and anime have intermingled in countless ways over the years. One of the biggest sports anime is definitely Haikyuu, the volleyball-focused series that recently announced two anime films will bring its adaptation to a close. Now, in a recent interview, two of the creators behind the television series took the opportunity to discuss some of the biggest challenges that arose from the creation of the fourth season of the series.

To start, series composer Taku Kishimoto dove into the difficulties that arose from summarizing the source material of the manga:

"The most important thing in series composition is how to summarize the story. However, there are some parts of the story that need to be compressed and some parts that need to be drawn out more tightly than others. We had to think about how much of the original story to include in one episode of the TV anime series, but it was very difficult to balance the content and the length of the story while emphasizing the plot development and cohesiveness of each episode and not changing the impression of the original story."

Adding to this, director Masako Sato re-affirmed Kishimoto's thoughts while also discussing the previous OVA of the series: 

"That was really difficult. The length of the OVA was always a problem. I was like, "What should I do?" (Looking at Kishimoto) I'm not blaming you. (laughs)"

Kishimoto then expanded on his thoughts when it came to how to translate some of the fast-paced action of the series to the small screen:

"I can get a rough idea of the pacing for everyday scenes, but when it comes to games, it's a bit more difficult. It would be better if I had a perfect picture in my mind and could share it with the storyboard artist but that is not always possible… For example, if you write a detailed description of a match, the structure is pretty heavy, but when you put it on screen, it's over in an instant. Even for a momentary scene where the players toss and spike the ball with a bang, if you write out a sequence where the characters are glancing at the opponent, checking the opponent's position, and tossing the ball, you will have quite a lot to write down."

Via Haikyu English Twitter Account

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