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Crunchyroll to Stream Haikyu!! & Baby Steps Sports Anime

Media distribution service Crunchyroll announced on Saturday that it will stream the sports anime Haikyu!! and Baby Steps. For premium members, Haikyu!! will begin streaming on Sunday, April 6 at 5:00 a.m. ET, while Baby Steps will begin on Sunday, April 6 at 6:00 a.m. ET. Free users can watch each episode one week after its premiere.

The streams of Haikyu!! will be available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and streams of Baby Steps will be available in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (Central and South America including Caribbean), the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Turkey!.

The story of Haruichi Furudate's Haikyu!! manga and anime follows Shōyō Hinata (voiced by Ayumu Murase), who began playing volleyball after seeing the "small giants" who played the sport when he was in elementary school. He suffers a crushing defeat in his first and last tournament in middle school at the hands of his rival Tobio Kageyama (Kaito Ishikawa). So, Hinata joins Kurasuno High School's volleyball team, vowing revenge against Kageyama.

However, Kageyama is also on Kurasuno's team. The former rivals form a legendary combo with Hinata's mobility and Kageyama's precision ball-handling. Together, they take on the local tournaments and vow to meet Kurasuno's fated rival school in the nationals.

Susumu Mitsunaka is directing the series off of scripts by Taku Kishimoto. Takahiro Kishida is designing the characters and Production I.G is handling the animation.

Sentai Filmworks has licensed the series for North American digital and home video release.

The anime of Hikaru Katsuki's Baby Steps manga stars Taishi Murata as Eiichirō "Ei-chan" Maruo, a punctual and earnest boy who has strived for straight As since elementary school. The 15-year-old high school boy stops by a tennis school to deal with his lack of exercise. Minako Kotobuki will play Natsu Takasaki, a beautiful, earnest girl who Ei-chan meets Natsu at the tennis school and who only has passion for tennis, while Takuma Terashima and Daisuke Namikawa round out the main cast as Kojirō Kageyama and Takuma Egawa, respectively.

Pierrot (Naruto, Kingdom) is animating the television series in 25 episodes. Katsuki himself is collaborating on the creation of episodes with original stories not told in the manga. Kenji Saitō (Dennō Coil, Bakuman, Bottom Biting Bug) is producing the anime for NHK.