Would you watch an animated volleyball game in a movie theater? What if that volleyball game was the culmination of years of friendly rivalry between the two teams and the climax of several character arcs? What if the sound design was really, really good?
The long-anticipated Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle movie was finally released in the US, and it was everything long-time fans could hope for and more.
Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle
Susumu Mitsunaka (Director), Yumiko Nakata (Cinematographer), Junichi Uematsu (Editor), Haruichi Furudate (Manga), Susumu Mitsunaka (Screenplay)
Ayumu Murase, Kaito Ishikawa, Yuki Kaji (cast)
Released February 16, 2024 (Japan) May 30, 2024 (US and others)
The first thing you need to know about Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle is that it is not the beginning of protagonist Shoyo Hinata’s story. It is, in fact, about 75% of the way through, picking up immediately where season 4 of the anime left off. Reviewers from other outlets who were unfamiliar with the Haikyu!! franchise gave the film low ratings due to not understanding that this movie is not a standalone work, but an adaptation of the third-to-last arc of a manga that ran for nearly ten years. Watching this movie blind is like walking into Avengers: Infinity War having seen zero Marvel movies prior to it. Although, unlike Infinity War, if you have no problem watching a random high school volleyball game with no context, you could still enjoy Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle, even if that might make it hard to remember character names.
And that’s what the Dumpster Battle is: a single game of volleyball played between Karasuno High School and their eternal rivals from Tokyo, Nekoma High School. Each team has a distinct playing style, with Karasuno attacking heavily and Nekoma prioritizing defense and strategy; each team is also associated with an animal that represents them metaphorically (Karasu means crow, and neko means cat). Since cats and crows are often found digging through trash, their fated match is referred to as The Battle of The Garbage Dump, Dumpster Battle, or Trash Heap Battle depending on which translation you’re looking at. The focus of the story is primarily on Hinata and his friend and rival, Kenma Kozume of Nekoma, as well as Kenma’s childhood friend Tetsurou Kuroo, who is also the captain of Nekoma’s team.
I’ve read all of Haikyu!! (and reviewed some of it for WWAC), and watched the anime several times with different friends (and just finished rewatching the most recent season two days before going to see the movie), so I was fully prepared and knew exactly what I was going to see on the screen. My partner has only seen the anime with me but had not read the manga or kept up with years of fandom discussion, and they still enjoyed the Dumpster Battle experience.
I was a little worried that pivoting from full anime seasons to films would mean less of the manga would make it into the adaptation, but my worries seemed to have been unfounded. All of the most memorable moments of this arc were given their due in Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle — and my favorite Knife Panel was dramatically enhanced by the well-timed sound effects. The bystander commentary on the matches was trimmed, focusing on Kenma and Hinata and the way their rivalry enhanced their friendship. Flashbacks to Kenma’s childhood with Kuroo and his first meeting with Hinata help pace out the match, which seems to last forever and end much too soon.
The sound design was by far the biggest standout of the film, as compared to the anime. The very effective use of silences at key moments, such as when the background music dropped out and all the audience could hear were the characters’ breaths and the ball falling, made the Dumpster Battle really feel like a film and not five anime episodes squished together.
The animation is impressive, especially compared to season 4’s mid-pandemic production. Key moments of action are fluid and exaggerated to a dramatic level not usually seen in serialized anime production. The final point of the game is viewed entirely through Kenma’s point of view; that makes it feel so immersive, as if the viewer really is Kenma, just for a moment. Kenma’s voice actor Yuki Kaji’s impressive range (he voices both taciturn Shoto Todoroki in My Hero Academia and bombastic Eren Yeager in Attack on Titan) is on full display in this film, as Kenma experiences everything from excitement to exhaustion to the exhilaration of his strategy working better than he could have expected. Ayumu Murase, as Hinata, matches that energy fully, and the rest of the cast gives wonderful performances. The theater near me was only showing the film in Japanese with English subtitles, so I cannot review the English dub, but I liked the subtitles.
If you’re a casual Haikyu!! fan afraid the movie wouldn’t live up to your expectations or hold your interest, worry not! As I mentioned earlier, my partner only watched Haikyu!! at my insistence, and had a wonderful time regardless. Though Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle is more for existing fans than for complete newcomers to the volleyball anime world, there’s humor and drama and strikingly beautiful, fluid, and well-made shots. It’s a good movie!
