Karasuno High School Volleyball Club opens with a flashback to the Junior High match between Yukigaoka and Kitagawa Daiichi with Hinata swearing revenge on the King of the Court, before jumping back to the present with Kageyama and Hinata facing off in Karasuno’s gym. Hinata is a bit pissed at the fact he can’t defeat Kageyama if they are on the same team, and while Kageyama remembers Hinata’s physical ability and speed, he didn’t even bother to learn his name. We are also introduced to the team dad, Daichi, the cool headed Captain, strong and dependable. The team mom, Sugawara, always encouraging and the resident pitbull, Tanaka, who comes off as intimidating because of his appearance and his love of pulling the weirdest faces but is a real soft touch at heart.
However, Kageyama immediately gets their friendship off to a bad start as he tells Hinata, he hopes he has improved otherwise he will waste another three years. This riles Hinata up as he knows he plays to the best of his ability with the team he had and that he did everything he could, so Kageyama shouldn’t tell him it was all for nothing. The third years are surprised that both Kageyama and Hinata are at Karasuno as Tanaka remembers Hinata from his match the previous year, however, Hinata challenges Kageyama without listening to what Daichi is telling them about teamwork.
This is made even worse when the dean arrives and watches the serving contest between Hinata and Kageyama which results in him taking a ball to the face and his toupee coming off. He doesn’t punish the team providing they don’t say anything about his hair piece but Daichi kicks them both out of the gym until they can work together, which might not be the best thing to do since Karasuno reputation as a strong team has nosedived in recent year and they don’t have a lot of new members. Daichi is using his rather scary presence as Captain in order to get this point across and in the next couple of episode we do see them start to work together, however, their faces when they realise they can’t play until they work together are hilarious.
Despite using any method they can to get back into the gym it doesn’t work against Daichi, Tanaka even comments that he is being harsher on them than he normally is with new members and Daichi agrees. However, Daichi believes if he can get Kageyama and Hinata to work together, they natural abilities can merge to give the team an explosive boost. Kageyama and Hinata challenge the third years to a match and Daichi agrees however, it will be a 3-on-3 match with the other two new members who we haven’t met yet, with Tanaka being on Hinata’s team and Daichi being on the other team. If they lose, Kageyama can never play setter while the third years are at the school, this is a massive blow to Kageyama as he is a setter and even though he can play in other positions, he doesn’t want to and even makes an impassioned speech to Hinata about why the setter is the coolest position on the team.
The match is schedule for that Saturday and Kageyama knows he has to do something about Hinata’s receiving by then, so Tanaka helps them about by agreeing to open the gym. Kageyama and Hinata arrive at 5 a.m. two hours before the scheduled practise at 7 a.m. so the boys can train. We are also introduced to a new character in Kiyoko, who is the team’s manager and when she speaks to Hinata and Kageyama as they are blocking the gym’s entrance Hinata literally blows a fuse which was funny. However, the hilarious moment is seeing Sugawara’s derpy face as he shuts the gym door. Karasuno High School Volleyball Club really sets the groundwork for building the necessary relationships between the team members.
We still have the same opening and closing songs but what really grabs your attention is the strange faces the characters make which are carried over from the manga which was a nice addition as these are normally not seen in the final animation but it really adds to the comedy of the series.
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