Anime Review: 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team Episode 1

2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team

Studio: David Production

Genre: Sports

Streaming: Amazon

When people hear the words volleyball and anime, the first series that inevitably comes to mind is the hugely popular show, Haikyuu!! Funnily enough, despite practically everyone I know absolutely adoring that series, it just never really clicked with me. I found it watchable but ultimately lost interest in it pretty fast. Because of this huge popularity, however, the awkwardly named 2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team is likely destined to rest under the shadow of its more popular counterpart. It’s a shame really because, despite both shows featuring an all male cast of teen boys engaging in the sport, the tone is very different between the two. Haikyuu!! is a series that excels in the speed and excitement of the games they play, whereas 2.43 is quieter, more introspective, and looks to spend more time developing the characters as people than on the games themselves.

The anime follows Yuni, a cheerful guy whose half-heartedly part of the practically nonexistent volleyball club at school. Enter his former childhood best friend, Chika, who has just moved back into the area and as it turns out is something of a volleyball prodigy in his own right – but with a much colder attitude than Yuni remember from their younger years. The first episode mostly focuses on the relationship between the two, and them gradually forming something of a bond again. It doesn’t take long for Chika’s enthusiasm for the sport to infect Yuni and the other team members, but a dark reveal towards the end of the episode about Chika’s past threatens to destroy it all. So far, this anime has more of a drama feel than a typical sports show.

That isn’t to say that the sports are completely missing from the show – we open with a very hype scene of a volleyball match, the music fast and dynamic to match. We see this however from the perspective of Chika, who sat on the bench as he silently berates players for not doing things right. The title also, “2.43” actually stands for the height of the males’ volleyball net.

The opening music is very catchy and quite jazzy though the visuals itself used with it were rather average. Animation wise, the colours are all a little bit muted with more realistic designs for the characters. The more muted colour palette also really suits the more wintery setting of the show, as we see the characters frequently traveling back and forth through snowy landscapes. It gives the whole show a colder, more mature feel, which given some of the subject matter hinted at in the episode, does seem quite apt. I also found there was a strange highlight used around the outlines of most of the characters, which I personally wasn’t a big fan of.

From the first episode, it’s hard to tell how good this anime will be in the long run – it’s only scheduled for a short twelve episode run but I do like that there is a bigger focus on the character interactions between the main two characters so far. I really liked how the two communicate – it’s very easy when they start talking and honestly despite his cold countenance, Chika seems just happy to not be practising volleyball alone. With the other players too – he seems to be teaching them and not putting them down which is not how I expected him to be from the brief hints we saw of his inner nature at the beginning of the episode. It’s a quiet first episode rather than one that hits hard, but I like that it’s taking a very different route than its father series, Haikyuu!!, and this is likely to be the series’ main strength. I do feel however that this is likely going to be a series that falls under the radar this season, especially with colourful, fun skateboarding anime, Skate the Infinity also airing. Still, if you’re looking for a school series that focuses more seriously on character interactions, then this might be a show to check out.