nicebaka

this is one of the FEW times daichi got the spotlight instead of getting the dim residue of the spotlights on kags and hinata and other countless characters as usual so of course im gonna analyze the hell out of it. this is a long post so grab your popcorn.

chapter 110 is titled "the strength needed for freedom" and ill pretty much be talking about this title overall. ok ok ok i wanna first give a run down on what happened in these few chapters to set the stage. we got johzenji bulldozing karasuno with playing around with their style. like ball going everywhere and being all crazy with monkey tricks and the audience makes comments about how johzenji just keeps throwing all these attacks at karasuno and they've been forced into a reactive position and haven't been able to retaliate. then a spike that was caused by one handed set throwing karasuno off guard, received by kags quickly, was back into johzenjis court, gaining more momentum they spiked again, which was clean received by daichi. his receive stabilized the ball and delivered it to the setter slowly who finally set and hinata made a spike. he then proceeded to advise them that sure they keep attaching in all these jumpy ways but its not like the ball actually disappears does it? my another reason for pointing this out is to show that this was how furudate introduced a hard contrast between the two teams.

THEN. then. we have this panel of yuji staring at daichi

my assumption is he's annoyed at just how smoothly he stabilized the mess they successfully managed to put karasuno in. a tweet said hes jealous so ill take that too.

onwards with the game, they keep revealing tricks to throw karasuno off. yams remembers he somehow finds this familiar in a way and narrates old ukais saying "in order to have fun in a competition you need to be really good at whats being competed with." yams, who feels most distant from playing while having fun like that, is enamored? seeing the living examples of that saying. hinata is impressed by that, to be free you have to be strong even tho he IS a little of that, noted by takeda who says how johzenji aren't the only one with freaky attacks they've got stuff of their own. kags gets hurt and is subbed out. suga comes in and does the suga synchro alongside narita. so now we have johzenji- yuji, getting too impressed by that synchro attack he saw and deciding to attempt it themselves, wing it in other words. of course it didn't work and the ball lands into their own court and karasuno wins the first set. this is the first huge mistake they make cuz of their 'fun' playstyle.

takeda notices how their banner is the complete opposite of them and their style and playstyle and karasuno talks about how their banner means you don't have to be fancy to have a solid foundation and skills(hehe) and the word fancy here is related to johenzjis crazy playing style which is later revealed to be a cheap replacement of lack of that. or in other words "a way of existing that doesn't show off but is strong and sincere." and deduce that that must've been how they used to be. their own teammates make the same comment as takeda basically and say things along the lines of it needs to be changed. yuji, being clear about just to what extent he feels that banner is inaccurate states that their new playstyle is gonna be the same after now forever so it needs to be changed. despite the disagreement of their manager misaki hana.

i also love the little detail of daichi on the cover of chapter 112 holding hinata and kags and the court like dices on a board game. and that court is the implied chapter title, playground.

ill talk about this more later.

here, yuji, still under the belief that their banner "simplicity and fortitude" stuff is now outdated and inaccurate, calls karasunos captain boring. and he said just like that how hes glad the freak twins are back cuz he wanted to keep having fun. like hes actively calling stability boring.(yeah yeah i get it.) and i love the tiny detail of hinata not understanding what yuji meant by that but still decided to defend his captain and team. second set starts and bam we have nishis receive that went to kags who, due to adrenaline of his recovery and a new chance to be on the court, has riled up because of johzenjis energy and wild playing style. as a result made the first set too hastefully and thats why hinata also screwed the spike and thats when daichi showed up to back them up and save the ball. he bumped the ball, sent it over to johzenji's side, they bumped it and set the ball for yuji to spike and THAT was shut down by daichi TOO. like first stability, then defense. back to back.

and THIS ball that daichi set up for kags this way was set well by the blueberry this time and spiked well by hinata. they go to apologize to daichi when they score.

BRO. daichi told them(with that gorgeous smile) that they're getting too excited.

i'd like to elaborate what exactly he means by that, by using another word he used in some other translated captions here before i move ahead- stiff means possibly getting messy process and inevitable unwanted or unexpected results due to the lack of flexibility to adapt. this quality here is the simplicity mentioned in johzenjis banner. you're not forcing anything and then naturally not avoiding anything. adaption to anything that happens is whats showing clean fortitude, like daichi is acknowledging that their crazy playstyle is cool and nice therefore they should continue with it, just don't do it too much, but thats not a huge problem for him because hes there to face that crazy head on and make sure their crazy doesn't create problems. its SO cool that daichi lectured kags and hinata about exactly what johzenji was doing. accept they're more deep into not realizing it. AND THEN HE REPEATED YUJIS POINT so UNAPOLOGETICALLY. "i'm not flashy and can't make plays like you, But I can provide you with support. Well, go on and give it your all." oh my GOD.

this him with johzenjis banner im not ok dont talk to me i love him. literally "you go crazy I'll be right behind you when you fall cuz of that" I freaking love him. like he straight up responded to anyone who thought the same about him primarily as johzenji. yuji said their team didn't need that banner anymore. And they were doing good without it. but into chap 113 they've started to realize they're loosing the fun. and daichi just keeps being stable in that stable way and it just keeps cancelling them out alongside making accurate perfectly timed calls to action.

this is where this gets so good. an occurrence from apparently a while ago is shown, where okudake asks yuji that there will be times he won't be able to be loud and flashy and have fun so what'll he do then? "I'll still try to have a good time." he said blatantly, as a result of not considering the actuality of a circumstance where it'll be literally impossible. And misakis flashbacks about okudake cuz of karasunos captain.

as she observed him

and got inspired?? jealous?? missed what she and the team had as okudake?? (or hes beautiful i know) she remembered okudake requesting her to encourage them cuz they fall apart easily. so yeah they're falling apart right now. the problem, and their weakness is them- especially yuji desperately trying to have more fun and adding more BAM to their style as a solution or a way to counter them and their now more frequently repeating screwups.

like i mentioned earlier how, what johzenji is doing is what you call stiff. avoiding things. not adapting, which is exactly what they should be doing through tough times('not fun parts of the game' as okudake mentioned) misaki knew okudake was right and yuji was wrong but she was too exhausted to say it i believe. and observing daichi and karasuno and how they were literally doing to johzenji what okudake knew would happen to them sooner or later what he called "when it wont be fun." gave her the final push she needed to "whip their asses into shape." as stated by okudake again.

and check this out. she saw daichi compliment them and encourage them and be their support and simplicity. that became why she was finally able to tell them "you guys rely on fighting spirit too much." and as we remember, daichi told kags and hinata dont be so stiff. HAHAHAHAHAAAA two times she observed him two times. he reminded her so much of okudake. AND, AND, as is if THAT wasnt enough, daichi was telling his freaks exactly what okudake told her when she doubted herself. "oh they will listen to you. trust me." this is why okudake guy is so cool. he trusted in misakis abilities when she was doubting herself. just like how daichi does for hinata and others. this is what we call stability and fortitude.

while lecturing misaki then proceeds to narrate how okudake liked to say

see the connection here? its implied that they don't have a playground at the moment. and thats why the are falling behind. theyre not "tough-it-out-so-you-can-play-your-best-to-the-very-end-ing" meaning pushing through the not fun time is how you're literally making the space you're using, the ground you're using, a playground. like you're able to call it a 'play' ground, a ground you play on, when you've played on it, have done the VERB through absolutely everything. Tough it out. (be the support that daichi is) she mentiones how karasuno keeps pushing them back but even then they dont seem to realize their playstyle is not that useful anymore and needs to be changed. means, think and adapt. loosen the stiffness.

see where im getting at? chapter 112's cover?

the playground, the stability, the fortitude

and the noun play used in the word playground that okudake said is the quality called 'fortitude'. THE PLAYGROUND IS DAICHI. YUJI WANTS TO PLAY BUT DIDNT PLAY A PLAYGROUND. i.e. didnt display that traits required to build one. cuz duh building a playground is needed to play. like okudake basically asked yuji that his playstyle is without a playground. and its in all ways, metaphorical and literal, troublesome to play without a playground. misaki said when fun disappears you have to put up with it, keep at it, not grow stubborn, so that you can have fun and play all the way to the end, exactly what yuji and his team want to do. always tryna have fun is forcing it and putting up with the tough times and embracing them enough to adapt IS what will make you stronger- be free. and then have fun. like older ukai said. thats stability. thats how you build the playground. i love that yuji called them both- daichi and johzenjis banner lame but daichi owns what he finds lame with pride mwahahahahahaa-

furthermore, when okudake and misaki said there will be times which wont be able to be defined by 'fun' but instead will be defined by what their banner states. he meant to tell him that there will be times that'll require exactly what hes rejecting. times that are similar to their banner's chant thats "tough" -misaki, and "boring" -yuji. he meant to tell yuji that their original playstyle, their banner is their pride actually as it chants their biggest strength. and yuji assumed this "timeless" chant is boring (like SOME certain people in the fandom unfortunately) And yuji realizes that trying to have more fun like he passionately told okudake he will clearly isn't working. that karasuno is the one having fun at the moment. he realizes that it wasn't easy to have fun all the time after all. since they were being pushed back and realized nah its literally impossible to have fun when that happens and thats what okudake meant. in the end it wasnt them who were the living examples of what older ukai said, it was actually karasuno who were the embodiment of what playstyle johzenji thought they had and wanted to have, because of daichi. he is what the word strong is on the quote "to be strong is to be free." that older ukai said. the one yuji declared is just not his style. he thought his banner is lame and so is karasunos captain, and he still isn't convinced that daichis anything more than that despite having witnessed him first hand wipe their and his own teams messes off so cleanly. Johzenji lost cuz they didn't have a daichi so they couldn't be free and inevitably not strong. karasuno had a daichi, the strong. So they could be free. yuji who believed that they're unrelated concepts infact they're concepts so far away from each other. and cuz they didn't have the living example of the banner they couldn't fly. karasuno had the living example of their banner. And that's why they could fly. And their motto 'simplicity and fortitude' is daichi and 'fly', karasunos motto, is what daichi's mottos byproduct is.

No playing style can exist for long without it. They didnt know that truth, or didnt just witness it like everyone has to do atleast once and this match was that, thought they need to change that simplicity and fortitude to something else that actually matches them. Not having the knowledge that it doesn't match them simply because they don't have it. in fact since fortitude makes you stronger- simplicity makes things easier since you're not letting yourself owned by a fancy playstyle, again, being stiff as stated by daichi and misaki, you can have way more fun. the realization that it was their captain, the foundation that was what was actually giving them a hard time and not the freak twins was his redemption. he probably didn't complain about their banner ever again.

wait no maybe he did. cuz i dunno if he made this connection or not.