Update July 9, 2020: The Haikyuu!! manga’s ending chapter has been confirmed. Please the new story for more details. The remainder of this article remains as originally published.
Fans of manga volleyball may be finally seeing the Haikyuu!! manga ending soon. Weekly Shonen Jump has announced that the Haikyu!! manga is entering its final story arc and based on the progression of the plot, it appears the final chapter could be coming relatively soon.
Mangaka Haruichi Furudate has been serializing the Haikyuu!! manga series since 2011. Volume 40 will be releasing on November 1, 2019, and VIZ Media is publishing the official English translation both digitally and in print.
The Tokyo Nationals story arc (which will be the starting point for the Haikyuu!! Season 4 anime) ended with Haikyuu!! Chapter 368. Early in October 2019, the author took a one-week break to perform some research and now we know why.
When the Haikyuu!! manga’s final story arc was announced, Weekly Shonen Jump said the story was moving to the other side of the Earth. They were not kidding since the story is moving from Japan to Brazil! What’s more, the focus is shifting from indoor volleyball to beach volleyball!
Warning: The following contains major spoilers for the final story arc of the Haikyuu!! manga series.
The Karasuno High boys’ volleyball team’s journey took them to the Tokyo Nationals. In Haikyuu!! Chapter 369: Food Becomes Muscle, the team has dinner after discussing their recent match and the effort it took to reach that point. They feel as if they have grown but they also wish they could have taken the team even further.
Shoyo Hinata is lying in bed when Coach Ukai brings him his food. The coach tells Hinata that the lesson he must learn is to not push past his limits. Instead, he should work toward raising those limits over time and to pull that off he needs to build strong muscles by eating good food. In response, Hinata begins to cry while eating his food.
There is a two-month time skip to March when the third years graduate. Everyone says goodbye to Shimizu, Daichi, Sugawara, and Asahi, who simply smile and wave goodbye to the tearful expressions of thanks.
A second time skip jumps several years into the future. The final panel shows a food delivery man riding a bicycle in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Haikyuu!! Chapter 370 reveals that Hinata is this delivery man! After graduating from high school, Hinata desired to shift from indoor volleyball to beach volleyball since he believes the training necessary for the 2 vs 2 matches will help him improve.
The problem was finding someone in Japan who Hinata could learn under. It turns out a former student named Katou Lucio is now coaching in Rio so Hinata decides to go.
Meanwhile, Tobio Kageyama was widely recruited and chose to advance to the volleyball league rather than attend college. His star has risen so far that he’s representing Japan in the 2016 Rio Olympics!
Both Hinata and Kageyama have grown up and they still practice together. Hinata is diligently working on his sports nutrition and his muscle-building.
As for the future, we’ll just have to wait and see what the Haikyuu!! manga’s ending brings. Based on the quick time skips it’s possible the story could come to an end in 2020. At the same time, Hinata’s goals that have been revealed so far are pretty open-ended so it’s possible the manga has several more years left in it. Stay tuned!