Haikyu movie announced, anime will end with two-part film instead of S5

The final part in the Haikyu anime saga has just been announced, with Production I.G. preferring a two-part theatrical movie over season 5.

Haikyu is arguably the most popular sports anime and manga in the entire world and has been at the pinnacle of the genre ever since its serialisation in February 2012.

The first three seasons of Haikyu were released in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively; however, season 4 was a split-cour production, with the first set of episodes being released in early-2020 and the second cour coming to an end in December that year.

Now, over 18 months later, the future of the Haikyu anime has finally been revealed with the Japanese website for the show confirming that the series will actually end with a two-part theatrical movie, not season 5.

Haikyu anime gets final anime movie, not season 5

Only minutes ago, on August 13th, the official Japanese website for the Haikyu anime series confirmed that a final theatrical movie was in development.

A countdown had been going on the website for the past several weeks, with a new teaser trailer premiering on the Toho Animation YouTube channel when that counter eventually reached 0 only a few short minutes ago.

The announcement trailer confirmed that “The production of ‘HAIKYU! FINAL’ anime sequel theatre version two-part production is decided!”

Prior to this announcement, there had actually been some confusion around whether this next instalment would in fact be season 5 of the main anime series. As previously noted, this started when season 4 was split into two cours and when the second cour premiered, many fans and news outlets incorrectly assumed, that this was the fifth season.

To be clear, Haikyu has released four TV anime seasons so far, with a two-part theatrical movie being preferred over a fifth TV season – which will conclude the series.

Whilst fans around the world are celebrating news of the anime’s return, not many would have been too surprised to see Haikyu eventually find its way to the silver screen- the main reason for this is because the anime had not yet adapted the entire manga.

Per AnimeGeek, the anime found a stopping point at volume 33 chapter 292 of the original series. The good news is that, whilst the manga concluded in July 2020, it ended with a total of 45 volumes and 402 total chapters published in Japan.

Interestingly, the official English Haikyu!! Twitter page had also posted a message before the season 4 finale in 2020 thanking fans for their support on the series and ending with “Looking forward to the continuation!”

Then we have popularity; a sure thing for the Haikyu series. The anime is widely considered to be one of the best sports anime out there, with scores of 8.7/10 on IMDB, 8.6/10 on RatinGraph and a rating of 8.45/10, 8.64/10, 8.79/10, 7.82/10, 8.36/10 and 8.54/10 seen across the MyAnimeList rankings respectively (including OVA’s).

Haikyu final movie: Release date remains TBA

Whilst news of a two-part Haikyu movie is welcomed, sadly a targeted release window for the conclusion films was not revealed as part of the recent announcement; however, we can make some predictions based on the production schedule of previous seasons.

Season 4 was announced at Jump Festa ’19 and premiered in January 2020, on a roughly 13-month production cycle. Under the assumption that each part of the final movie will be produced separately, rather than as a continuous production, fans could see the film open in Japanese theatres as soon as September 2023.

Interestingly, this theory has been reaffirmed with the announcement for the movie confirming that “kick-off event will be held in August 2023” – which typically occurs around 3 weeks before the domestic premiere.

However, international fans should note that the global release will likely be delayed compared to the domestic premiere, which typically occurs between one and three months ahead of the overseas release – likely around November 2023.

This article will be updated as soon as more information on the Haikyu movie is shared.

By Tom Llewellyn – [email protected]

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