Do be warned that this article contains major spoilers for the movie, Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle.
After nearly five years, the beloved volleyball anime Haikyu!! finally makes an epic return. Four seasons of buildup brought us to the highly anticipated Dumpster Battle, a matchup between Nekoma and Karasuno on a national stage that had been in the making for generations.
With so much buildup and anticipation, I went into the movie expecting a battle that would at least be on par with Karusuno’s second match against Aoba Johsai. Longstanding rivalries! The hunger to prove one’s worth! The intense rallies! The drama! There needed to be drama that could rival Oikawa’s unforgettable cross-court set to Iwaizumi — signifying the trust he had that his childhood friend would receive his toss no matter what — before crashing headfirst into a table, only to get up again and stumble back into the battlefield.
You can only imagine my initial disappointment when there was almost none of that in Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle.
In fact, I was almost upset when the match ended on what I perceived to be the most anticlimactic note possible. Just as Kenma‘s about to toss the ball, it slips through his hands because it had just come from a long rally and it was slick with sweat. The ball drops, giving Karasuno the final point they needed to win the quarterfinals. Where was the drama? Where was the Oikawa-level set? It was unfathomable to me that the Dumpster Battle could end in such a way.
As I left the theater and started voicing my displeasure with the movie to my partner, however, she pointed out an important factor that I hadn’t considered at all. Right from the start of the movie, it was clear that the Dumpster Battle was never about whether Karasuno or Nekoma would come out on top. It was about Hinata’s rivalry with Kenma and whether the former could push the latter’s limits so far out that he’d be forced to care about the match and actually enjoy volleyball for once.
It’s all in that text Hinata sends to Kenma on the morning of the game, and Kuroo even says as much. Today’s battle isn’t simply Karasuno versus Nekoma, it’s Hinata versus Kenma.
There are many fair criticisms about the movie, to be sure. For one, I found myself wishing that the flashbacks hadn’t taken up so much screen time, especially since the movie’s runtime is short enough as it is. But when you think about the themes of the movie and of the series as a whole, it makes sense that this would be the matchup with the most flashback sequences.
The members of Karasuno and Nekoma have always been close, even as rivals. They may be enemies on the court, but both teams have always supported each other and helped each other grow for the sake of meeting on a national level one day for a good showdown. Then you take into account the fact that Kenma has always been the odd man out on Nekoma due to his lackadaisical attitude, and the point of this matchup and the movie becomes clear: Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle is about getting Kenma to finally give a damn about something and to realize that, y’know, the real volleyball is the friends we made along the way.
Throughout the entire match, Kenma sees it as a game. He only starts to enjoy himself when he’s able to strategize and figure out how to shut Hinata down, and his interest instantly fades when it seems like his victory is all but assured. But things change when Hinata shows growth in the middle of the match, and Kenma’s psyche shifts for that last rally.
The last rally in Dumpster Battle is shot beautifully, as we see everything from Kenma’s point of view. The camera shifts to a first-person perspective, and we never leave Kenma throughout the entire sequence. From Kageyama’s serve to the final score, the movie makes it clear that this is about Kenma. We see him flashing back to the practice match they had with Karasuno before coming back to the present day and fighting to toss the ball one more time to keep things going, only for it to slip out of his hands.
Everyone in that match had laid a hand on the ball at least once within that rally, and as cheesy as it may sound, it’s fitting that Kenma should’ve been the last one to touch it — the symbol of Karasuno and Nekoma’s determination over the last four seasons to make it to this point.
When the match finally ends, Kenma keels over in exhaustion. He tells Kuroo he had fun and that he enjoyed the match, and Kuroo tears up. While I’ll always defend the Aoba Johsai match as the high point of Haikyu!!, it’s difficult not to appreciate what the series has done with Kenma and the Dumpster Battle as well.
Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle was never about whether Karasuno or Nekoma would win. Kenma’s final line was a culmination of all the hard work, pain, and camaraderie that had been built up since season one, and that’s what the movie wanted to convey in the end.
