The episode picks up right where Episode 14 ended, with the Miya twins surprising Karasuno with their own version of the quick attack. Although this caught them off-guard and may have rattled them a little bit, Coach Ukai found ways for Karasuno to continue surprising Inarizaki High.

Before talking more about the match, I wanted to mention a standout scene from early in the episode. After Osamu and Atsumu surprised everyone with their quick attack, one of their teammates comments how they must be able to trust each other because they’re twins. We then see Osamu thinking about how trust really doesn’t play into it, because of the things Atsumu does (not listening to Osamu and taking Osamu’s things without asking and not giving them back). This was amusing, yet felt like a natural way for two brothers to interact with each other.

Back to the actual match itself. Tsukishima manages to surprise everyone both with an offensive and a defensive move during the match, which help to score points. Hinata and Yamaguchi manage to pull off a couple of surprises as well that help Karasuno score points. With these various surprises, Karasuno manages to close up the point gap with Inarizaki High.

By the end of the episode, we still haven’t quite finished the first set between Karasuno and Inarizaki High. With the final score, it looks like the winner of the first set will likely be decided by the end of it. Watching the opening credits this week, I really get the impression that the battle between Karasuno and Inarizaki High will take almost the entire season or all of the entire season. As the pacing has gone right now, there have been no skips ahead in time when it comes to the set. We’re definitely watching this set in real time, much like we did with Shiratorizawa. Which makes me think we’re going to be getting a total of three sets between these two schools in order to determine the winner. That’s just a guess, though, since I haven’t read the manga. And please, no one tell me whether or not I’m right, because I don’t want the spoilers.

But this episode definitely contained some great moments, such as the awkward interaction between Kageyama and Tsukishima after Tsukushima pulls off one of his surprises in the match. Hinata had some great moments in this episode as well. And I think these moments are going to be important to help keep the flow of the story interesting to watch, especially if I’m correct in assuming the whole season is going to be focusing on the matches between these two teams. It’s nice to see that Karasuno can still pull out some surprises, but I’m wondering how much longer they’ll be able to keep this up. They’ve had to pull a few out already just in this episode alone. I’m looking forward to seeing how this battle between these two schools progresses, as well as what kind of character moments we’ll get along the way. Haikyu!!‘s strength comes in its combination of exciting volleyball matches and character development moments that punctuate the matches that are being played.

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