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“A wall looms in front of me. A tall, tall wall… The view from the top. It’s something I could never, ever see on my own. But maybe, just maybe, if I wasn’t alone…” Furudate Hauichi’s Haikyuu!! opens with the main character standing on a volleyball court, monologuing. Hinata Shoyo is a first-year high school student with one goal in mind — to play volleyball and win the Inter-high tournament. Haikyuu!! follows Hinata Shoyo and fellow protagonist — “the King of the Court'', setter Kageyama Tobio — as their volleyball team fights through the ranks of the Inter-high tournament. Together, the pair become an almost unstoppable force, earning themselves the nickname of “freak duo”. Hinata and Kageyama connect on a deeper level — trust in each other bringing them almost perfect synergy on the court. However, the two weren’t always partners. The first chapter of Haikyuu!! Takes place at the middle-school interscholastic boy’s volleyball tournament where both Kageyama and Hinata are in attendance. Kageyama with Kitagawa Daiichi, a powerhouse school favored winning. Hinata with Yukigaoka, a tiny school from the middle of nowhere. Out of all six of his teammates (the bare minimum needed to compete), Hinata is the only volleyball player. He’s still a rookie, at that. Despite all his bravado and determination, Yukigaoka middle school still falls to Kitagawa Daiichi in the first round. Despite his loss, Hinata is unfaltering. He approaches Kageyama after the match and makes his declaration. “Then someday I’m gonna beat you!” Kageyama meets this challenge with characteristic arrogance. Hinata
is not the only one whose confidence is all for nothing. In early chapter five, middle school Kageyama is shown barking orders at his teammates. “Move faster, jump higher! Faster, higher!” until his team gives up. They stop hitting his tosses, and Kageyama is benched. Kitagawa Daiichi loses the game. As individual players, Hinata and Kageyama were unable to succeed. Together, they managed to soar.
However, Kageyama and Hinata aren’t the only powerful
setter-spiker duo in Miyagi Prefecture. From the moment Oikawa Tooru is introduced in chapter thirteen, he and Kageyama are compared to each other. Before Oikawa joins the practice match Karasuno is playing against Seijoh, he is already described as “a guy who can serve like Kageyama” by Kageyama himself. Even in nicknames — Hinata coins the term “the Grand King”, mimicking Kageyama’s moniker from his middle school years, “the King”. It is revealed that Kageyama and Oikawa played on the same team in middle school, which is explored in flashbacks that further detail Kageyama’s relationship to the older setter. In the aforementioned flashbacks it becomes clear very quickly that, while driven, Oikawa is an anxiety-riddled teen with an intrinsic need to be the best. Furudate mentions chapter after chapter Oikawa’s need to win, his anxieties revolving around falling short and failing. He employs a very effective use of pathos in Oikawa’s character — tapping into the audience’s empathy. After all, being an emotional teenager is far from a rare experience. In a flashback
in chapter sixty Oikawa’s best friend since childhood, Iwaizumi Hajime describes Oikawa as somebody who is “carefree, but can get weighed down at times”. It becomes apparent as this flashback continues on that Oikawa gets more than “weighed down at times”. Two major players in Oikawa Tooru’s anxiety rear their heads in chapter sixty’s flashbacks. First, Ushijima Wakatoshi: the captain of Shiratorizawa Academy’s junior high, Oikawa’s talented spiker that he vows to defeat after junior high, and the player that has defeated Oikawa year after year. Second, Kageyama Tobio: first-year, prodigy setter, everything Oikawa wishes he could be with half the effort. Despite being two years his junior, Kageyama begins to threaten Oikawa’s position as the starting setter. In the flashbacks in the first half of chapter sixty, Furudate’s framing and use of value do a wonderful job of illustrating Oikawa’s descent into letting his anxiety control him. The faces of Ushijima and Kageyama are darkened in shadow when they appear, giving a menacing air to their appearance. The flashback progresses, making use of sharp, scratchy lines and speech bubbles to show Oikawa’s desperation as he begins working himself harder and harder. The readers can feel his need to succeed, to win, to prove his worth. Finally, Oikawa snaps. Kageyama asks him to teach him how to serve, and Oikawa attacks him in a moment of blind, anxiety-fueled rage. He is only stopped by Iwaizumi physically intervening. With one final outburst scrawled on the page with messy linework, Oikawa declares that he can’t take a step back
because “there’s no way I can do that when I can’t possibly win against Shiratorizawa the way I am now!”. Much like Hinata to Kageyama, Oikawa makes a pledge to defeat Ushijima and Shiratorizawa. All of Oikawa’s motivation as a character comes from this rivalry with Ushijima — to the point where it ultimately becomes his downfall.
Kageyama and Oikawa aren’t the only foils in these sets of players. Ushijima is everything Hinata isn’t. Tall, experienced, strong. In height alone, Ushijima stands at six-foot-two. Hinata is less than five and a half feet tall. Ushijima plays the very position Hinata aspires to — the ace. The star of the volleyball team, the spearhead of offense. At the time of his first year, Hinata is a simple decoy. He’s about as far from the ace position he yearns for as he can get. Despite all these differences, Hinata and Ushijima are similar in at least one way. Both players carry an immense amount of pride in themselves and their teams. In chapter seventy-seven, Ushijima describes the teams that have lost to Shiratorizawa as “barren-land”, particularly Oikawa. Face darkened in shadow and looking down, Ushijima’s air of arrogance as he says this is multiplied tenfold. While Ushijima’s confidence is more of a knowledgeable arrogance, Hinata contains an earnest determination. Wide-eyes and round faces give him a younger, more innocent appearance, which often causes players like Ushijima to underestimate him. Ushijima does exactly this. While standing outside of the gym, talking to Hinata and Kageyama, a ball comes sailing towards him.
Ushijima reaches up to catch it, but before he can, Hinata leaps up and all but snatches the ball right from his fingertips. Hinata’s face no longer reads as earnest and innocent, entirely shrouded in shadow. Save for his eyes — which shine with a white-hot determination. Hinata hands the ball back to Ushijima with a declaration. “My name is Shoyo Hinata. I'm from the barren concrete. I'm going to thrash your team and go to Nationals." This isn’t baseless determination anymore that he’s shown earlier in the series, like in chapter one where he told Kageyama he’d beat him one day. Hinata truly believes in his heart that Karasuno can win, and this pure conviction can be seen in the way Furudate draws his face in this scene, eyebrows sharp and furrowed overtop of a piercing gaze. It is here that one of the greatest visual comparisons in Haikyuu!! occurs. The shot zooms out to a full-page spread. Ushijima can be seen standing with his back to the camera, facing Kageyama and Hinata. Due to the low angle and the perspective of the shot, Ushijima appears twice the size of the other two players. Only adding to his formidable stature is the giant white eagle behind him — Shiratorizawa’s mascot. Hinata and Kageyama aren’t facing Ushijima and the great eagle alone, however. Behind them flies in a murder of crows — drawn in stark black. Rarely used in the rest of the comic, solid black is used in this panel for shading and things like Kageyama’s t-shirt when before a dark gray was used. Between the harsh shading, dramatic angles, and composition, the spiraling of the clouds in the sky brings all attention to the scene at hand.
Ushijima, the great eagle, intends to face the murder of crows alone, and win.
The character foils of Oikawa and Ushijima with Kageyama and Hinata are key in furthering Haikyuu!!’s narrative of teamwork and the importance of interpersonal relationships. Oikawa and Ushijima failed for the very reason Kageyama and Hinata succeeded. They dug their heels in and refused to cooperate while Kageyama and Hinata found a common goal to work towards together. Separately, Oikawa and Ushijima are formidable players. In chapter forty-eight — Keishin Ukai, coach of Karasuno’s volleyball team — describes Oikawa as a setter who “knows his team inside and out and can consistently get one-hundred percent out of them”. Ushijima is the captain of a powerhouse volleyball team, nicknamed the “Super Ace” for his formidable left-hand spikes. Much in the same way, Hinata and Kageyama are powerful separately. Kageyama has insane precision and killer game sense while Hinata has an ever-burning desire to win and an almost gravity-defying vertical jump. Both are powerful setter-spiker duos who butted heads in their junior high careers. One pair succeeded, and one came crashing down at the hands of the other.
When it comes to values and philosophy — all three teams have vastly different approaches. Both Shiratorizawa and Seijoh center around one key player: Ushijima is Shiratorizawa’s offensive powerhouse, while Oikawa directs Seijoh’s players and drives communication. On the sidelines of the
Shiratorizawa versus Karasuno match in chapter 158, Shiratorizawa’s coach expresses distaste for Karasuno’s experimental play-style. Ukai explains that Shiratorizawa’s philosophy has always been “simple is best”. Pick one player with raw height and strength, and batter the opposition with him — as opposed to Karasuno’s “fight-as-one” strategy. Both Shiratorizawa and Seijoh are formidable teams, known for being consistent finalists. Karasuno is a wild card. A rag-tag group of players who may not be good on their own, but dominate together. While addressing the team in chapter ninety-six, club advisory Takeda Ittetsu refers to exactly this. “When colors mix, they become muddy and messy. But when they all blend together, the final result is the color that wins against all others: black. Become a team of black, like the crows you represent”. He recognizes that alone, Karasuno may not be much, and their strength lies in what they can be together.
Where Furudate excels in his storytelling and rhetoric is symbolism. Each team has a mascot. Shiratorizawa is a single great white eagle — representing its strategy of highlighting one strong player. Seijoh is represented by plants, taking root in the soil and standing strong. Finally, as mentioned by Takeda, Karasuno is a murderer of crows. Scavengers. Possibly weak on their own, but capable of taking on much larger opponents together. In the spring high tournament, despite their previous loss to the team, Karasuno defeats Oikawa and Seijoh. The crows soared high above the firmly-rooted vegetation and went on to face Shiratorizawa. Oikawa was so focused on his own battles with Ushijima, he forgot to acknowledge the threat in front of him until it was too late. After Seijoh’s loss in chapter 148, Oikawa runs into Ushijima in the halls. Ushijima stops him and declares that Oikawa made the wrong choice in deciding to go to Seijoh, gaze full of arrogant confidence as usual. He states that Oikawa’s “worthless pride” stopped him from making the correct choice, Shiratorizawa. He isn’t wrong in that Oikawa chose Seijoh out of a stubborn desire to defeat Shiratorizawa and Ushijima, but Oikawa isn’t the only stubborn one. In response to Ushijima’s allegations, Oikawa warns him, “Together, even a pack of crows can kill an enormous white eagle.” Ushijima doesn’t heed this warning, so sure he can win the match against Karasuno. He truly believes he is the best, after all. After a grueling battle, the crows claim victory from the great eagle, proving Oikawa’s point exactly. Together, Kageyama and Hinata achieved more than Oikawa and Ushijima ever could have separately.