ess

i cant overstate how important this panel is to me, how important this line is to me, how important it is that takeda is saying it and that he's saying it to hinata.

takeda famously does not know much about volleyball as a game. he saw a group of boys who loved a sport and wanted to support them as much as he could. he organized practice matches and buses and tournaments, but he didn't know the plays or the techniques or the positions, and he knew he couldn't coach them. that's why he asked ukai to coach. takeda learned, of course, but still--he couldn't know as much as ukai, whose grandfather was a famous coach, who raised the little giant. takeda doesn't know volleyball, and next to ukai, he especially doesn't know volleyball.

but this line. takeda confidently, firmly, matter-of-factly, tells hinata what volleyball is. takeda DOES know volleyball. he knows it better than anyone, better than any of the players, better than ukai, because he has seen it as a complete outsider. he was there for every practice game, (almost) every argument, every injury, every bus ride--not as a coach or a player, but as their mentor, as something completely detached from the game. first and foremost, takeda is a teacher at karasuno. he has seen every player outside of the volleyball court. he has seen them as students, as mentees, as boys. takeda has seen first hand how volleyball, how this sport, how their team, follows every player outside of the gym. his lack of volleyball experience is what allows him to see so clearly the impact that volleyball has on each player, especially hinata-- takeda sees firsthand that none of karasuno, HINATA ESPECIALLY, ever really stops playing volleyball. ever.

it's with this knowledge that he tells hinata what volleyball is. THIS IS STILL VOLLEYBALL. this: hinata, sitting on the bench, so feverish he can barely stand. that is still volleyball. volleyball is not just the game on the court. volleyball is the injuries and the training and the practice and the food and the effort and the people and the friends and the rivals and the family.

haikyuu twitter has brought up the theme of class struggle in hq and it really got me thinking just how subtle and effective furudate is in portraying class divide throughout the story.

hinata is introduced riding a bike, seeing volleyball through a store TV (not his own like Hoshiumi, Ushijima, Kageyama), and years later he's still riding a bike up and down a mountain every day for an hour to get to school and practice. how the gyms in the public schools like nekoma and karasuno have stages because they're multipurpose, as opposed to the specific volleyball facilities that shiratorizawa and other private schools have. the bond that nekoma and karasuno have as being the public schools in their prefectures, being known as "scavengers", taking what they can get and fighting tooth and nail for it. THE DUMPSTER BATTLE.

Shiratorizawa Academy vs. Karasuno High. almost every other school (aoba johsai, shiratorizawa, kamomedai) having non-volleyball team-specific tracksuits and merch, while karasuno wears the generic "ics" athletic wear. star players like ushijima and hirugami having family that played pro-volleyball and got them started from a young age in professional spaces.

daichi's nightmare about the basketball team overtaking their gym and not letting them practice. kageyama noticing right away that the floors in the all-japan youth camp weren't wooden. takeda working overtime to try to get gyms reserved, practice matches organized, buses rented out. ukai still working at his grocery store his entire first year coaching karasuno (suggesting that karasuno couldn't afford to pay him enough).

karasuno having to adjust to the lights and the height of the ceiling at nationals, when all the other teams were used to it. karasuno renting out that little old inn for nationals, right next to the giant, 25-floor hotel that other teams were staying in. inarizaki intimidating their opponents with their huge student section, affording to literally transfer an entire student BAND from hyogo to tokyo.

avatar aang