HAIKYU!! 2nd Season

Haikyu!! 2nd Season continues the story of the Karasuno High School boys' volleyball team. Like the first season, it was made by Production I.G and is based on Haruichi Furudate's manga from Weekly Shonen Jump. This season has 25 episodes and aired from October 2015 to March 2016. Its first episode is called "Let's Go to Tokyo!", and that title is a good hint of where the story goes first.

At the start, Karasuno is still hurting from a painful loss to Aoba Johsai in the Inter-High qualifiers, the summer tournament. The third-year players, captain Daichi Sawamura, Koshi Sugawara, and Asahi Azumane, have chosen to stay on the team instead of quitting to study for exams. Now everyone looks to one last chance: the Spring High tournament, a big national event held in winter. To get there, Karasuno must first win the qualifiers in its home area of Miyagi.

To get stronger, the team joins a training camp in Tokyo with several schools. Their friendly rivals from Nekoma, with the quiet setter Kenma and the clever captain Kuroo, are there. So is Fukurodani, a strong school with Bokuto, a loud and moody ace, and Akaashi, his calm setter who always knows how to cheer him up. Shinzen and Ubugawa also take part. At first, Karasuno loses game after game against these strong city teams.

These losses push everyone to change. Hinata no longer wants to only jump with his eyes closed and let Kageyama do all the work. He wants to see the court himself and choose his own shots. Kageyama does not agree at first, and the two have their biggest fight so far. Slowly, with help from their coaches, they build a new version of their fast attack in which Hinata has more control. Other players grow too. The tall and sarcastic Kei Tsukishima has always said volleyball is "just a club." In this season we learn about his older brother Akiteru, who worked very hard at volleyball but never became a regular player, and we start to see why Tsukishima holds back. Time spent with Kuroo and Bokuto helps him learn how to block bigger, stronger hitters.

In the second half, the Spring High qualifiers begin. Karasuno faces new teams such as Johzenji, a fun and wild group, and Wakutani South, a team with a short ace who plays a lot like Hinata's hero. Old rivals Aoba Johsai and their captain Toru Oikawa are waiting too. Injuries and changes in the lineup test the team, and the bench players get their own chance to help. Over the whole season, the powerful Wakatoshi Ushijima of Shiratorizawa, the best school in Miyagi, stays in the background as the biggest wall ahead.

This season keeps the warm humor and exciting matches of the first one, but it spends more time on how a team learns from failure. It is about practice, not only talent, and about how each player, starter or not, finds a reason to keep going.