Popverse's top stories of the day

• COVID left fans wanting the personal touch from their local comic stores
• Think Spy x Family is just a cute slice-of-life anime? You aren't ready for what is coming in season 3 and beyond
• Dan Mora, Scott Snyder, and Frank Miller lead an all-star line-up in Artist Alley for New York Comic Con 2024

Haikyu!! was one of the biggest-ticket items at Anime NYC 2024, whether in terms of cosplay, merch, or the widely-attended Fly and Connect panel hosted on the Main Stage by TOHO Animation. The purpose of the panel was to highlight the behind-the-scenes work done by the animators to bring Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle Movie to fans. One animator in particular was given special recognition for the amount of cuts, about a quarter of the film, that he did.

That animator is Hideki Takahashi, who also worked on the Haikyu!! series and contributed to anime like Detective Conan and Pengin Highway. Takahashi contributed about 300 of the 1200 cuts that went into the final film, according to the panelists, which amounts to about a full episode of a standard anime series. 

Haikyu!! has garnered worldwide fans for its compelling characters that strive to be the best at what they do. And in the heroic efforts of Takahashi to get the anticipated film version to fans, we can't help but see a parallel to the hard-working protagonists of the volleyball series. Still, we hope that Takahashi got a good long break after completing this massive effort - Haikyu is as much about what happens off the court as it is what happens on, after all.

According to IMDb, Takahashi is set to return to the Haikyuu!! saga in the next film, which is without a release date as of this writing. Learn how to get into the story of Haikyu!! here.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out our guides to upcoming movies, upcoming TV shows, upcoming comics, and upcoming comic conventions. If you're looking for specific franchises or genres, we have all the upcoming MCU, upcoming Star Wars, upcoming Star Trek, and upcoming DC movies & TV for you. If you're a fan of superheroes and not specific to just Marvel or DC, we have overall guides to all the upcoming superhero movies and upcoming superhero TV shows (and new seasons) as well.