December Talking Meme: Day 13 (Haikyuu)
Dec. 13th, 2020 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaggedwolfFrom here, eggshrimprolleggshrimproll asked me to give some Haikyuu feelings.
I finished the manga last week, and still need to catch up on this anime season. Anyway, the truth remains that it's a very good sports story. Have some thoughts:
#1: The last play we see Hinata pull off is a decoy and he's so happy about it :D Hinata and Kageyama get to be teammates and rivals forever ;_; I'm so happy for them. They worked so hard, and came so far from the silly middle schoolers they met as, and they're still counting their wins and losses and striving to push each other. I really like that the manga ends with the beginning of those two matches. It's not that winning doesn't matter, it's that the ultimate point is that Hinata got to keep playing volleyball at a high level, got good, because...
#2: "Being good means being free" is a line from the canon that's stuck with me over the years, lingering because of how true it is. The real prize of being good at something is that you've become so much freer in the context of that skill and that makes the whole effort so much more joyful - you see wider, regardless of what you're looking for is the perfect pass or how a proof should unfold. I like how much Hinata and Yamaguchi took that ethos to heart.
#3: I have this joke about how I'm only interested in shows if the cast is >90% dudes or <50% dudes, because I find the area in between incredibly frustrating - the 50-90% dudes ratio is the region where the protagonists are probably dudes but the work feels obligated to pretend its female characters have as significant roles (they don't) and I find that frustrating. At >90% dudes I know I'm probably watching a sports anime or something and have set my expectations thusly.
And yet! I find the way Haikyuu handles Kiyoko and Yachi mostly very sweet. I love that the canon devotes some time to Yachi becoming assistant manager by accident and what that means for her own personal growth, that Yachi learns about why Kiyoko chose to become the team's manager herself and what that means to Kiyoko. They feel real, not like pasted on side characters to support the players.
It's something Haikyuu is very good at with its side-characters overall, which even my protagonist-centered self notices and appreciates. The barrage of details of where everyone's working and studying and playing after the timeskip was a wonderful example of that and I love that the way volleyball has and hasn't impacted their future lives. From Tsukki juggling studying and playing, hungry for the latter in a way unrecognizable to his early first-year self, to all the people like Yachi who only got involved in volleyball in high school because they needed to pick something. Even for the latter, that time had and still does have meaning.
#4: Haikyuu is a wonderful example of a canon and the fic fandom both being great, at least for my biased tastes. Haikyuu the canon operates under a few necessary constraints, namely that it's focused on the volleyball part of its character's lives and it is pretty uninterested in romance (which I appreciate). So with the right mix of detail and gaps, the fic fandom can go utterly ham and clearly has. Obviously I'm fond of some great Hinata/Kageyama, Kiyoko/Yachi and Daichi/Suga fics, but there's fic for plenty of other pairings and genfics that range from funny (the superpowers one) to angsty (the apocalypse one I was too sad to finish...) to bizarre (that cannibalism fic), all executed so dang well.
Thus ends the Haikyuu feelings...I should go see what timeskip fics people have posted for my fave ships tbh.
eggshrimprolleggshrimproll asked me to give some Haikyuu feelings.I finished the manga last week, and still need to catch up on this anime season. Anyway, the truth remains that it's a very good sports story. Have some thoughts:
#1: The last play we see Hinata pull off is a decoy and he's so happy about it :D Hinata and Kageyama get to be teammates and rivals forever ;_; I'm so happy for them. They worked so hard, and came so far from the silly middle schoolers they met as, and they're still counting their wins and losses and striving to push each other. I really like that the manga ends with the beginning of those two matches. It's not that winning doesn't matter, it's that the ultimate point is that Hinata got to keep playing volleyball at a high level, got good, because...
#2: "Being good means being free" is a line from the canon that's stuck with me over the years, lingering because of how true it is. The real prize of being good at something is that you've become so much freer in the context of that skill and that makes the whole effort so much more joyful - you see wider, regardless of what you're looking for is the perfect pass or how a proof should unfold. I like how much Hinata and Yamaguchi took that ethos to heart.
#3: I have this joke about how I'm only interested in shows if the cast is >90% dudes or <50% dudes, because I find the area in between incredibly frustrating - the 50-90% dudes ratio is the region where the protagonists are probably dudes but the work feels obligated to pretend its female characters have as significant roles (they don't) and I find that frustrating. At >90% dudes I know I'm probably watching a sports anime or something and have set my expectations thusly.
And yet! I find the way Haikyuu handles Kiyoko and Yachi mostly very sweet. I love that the canon devotes some time to Yachi becoming assistant manager by accident and what that means for her own personal growth, that Yachi learns about why Kiyoko chose to become the team's manager herself and what that means to Kiyoko. They feel real, not like pasted on side characters to support the players.
It's something Haikyuu is very good at with its side-characters overall, which even my protagonist-centered self notices and appreciates. The barrage of details of where everyone's working and studying and playing after the timeskip was a wonderful example of that and I love that the way volleyball has and hasn't impacted their future lives. From Tsukki juggling studying and playing, hungry for the latter in a way unrecognizable to his early first-year self, to all the people like Yachi who only got involved in volleyball in high school because they needed to pick something. Even for the latter, that time had and still does have meaning.
#4: Haikyuu is a wonderful example of a canon and the fic fandom both being great, at least for my biased tastes. Haikyuu the canon operates under a few necessary constraints, namely that it's focused on the volleyball part of its character's lives and it is pretty uninterested in romance (which I appreciate). So with the right mix of detail and gaps, the fic fandom can go utterly ham and clearly has. Obviously I'm fond of some great Hinata/Kageyama, Kiyoko/Yachi and Daichi/Suga fics, but there's fic for plenty of other pairings and genfics that range from funny (the superpowers one) to angsty (the apocalypse one I was too sad to finish...) to bizarre (that cannibalism fic), all executed so dang well.
Thus ends the Haikyuu feelings...I should go see what timeskip fics people have posted for my fave ships tbh.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 10:36 pm (UTC)Hinata and Kageyama are such good rival protags. I can't believe they're still counting their wins the dumbasses. Do they KNOW they are in LOVE does that even cross their minds??
Totally agree, I love the way Haikyuu handles its side characters, especially the girls. They don't get much screentime (I would have killed to actually see the Queens team in action, the TEASE) but they never feel forced. And for a sports anime everyone has such a lovely grounded relationship with The Sport, it's very refreshing.
Thanks for the reminder to go look at some post timeskip fic