"Haikyuu!" is a masterpiece at every conceivable level. Yes, Really.

Hindsight is something that it is incredibly easy to benefit from. After all, it is simplicity itself to say something was never going to work when it has already finished not working. But hindsight can give a somewhat unearnt arrogance, which brings me to a concept I have a real issue with.

"Doomed from the start".

This phrase is oft used to dismiss failed media, from the latest box office bomb to the newest live action anime adaptation, and it's easy to see why. Sometimes you experience something so incomprehensibly bad, so bafflingly terrible, that it seems obvious that it was flawed from conception.

But to pit phrase against phrase, how can that ever be true if "there is no such thing as a bad idea."?

I believe that no story is ever doomed from the start, and I'm going to prove it to you. And for that, I need an example, something recent which was less popular than a naked cactus hugging competition.

But what could I choose that is so inarguably woeful that "doomed from the start" seems undeniable?

Lovecraftian

Ah.

Surely, no one could argue that "Cats" was a good idea?

Well, imagine a better world. A world without James Corden in a cat suit (Actually, why stop there, a world without James Corden), a world without Tom Hooper getting far too much credit for the 2 and a half hour mistake that was "Les Miserables", a world where when they went to make a film based on "Cats", they actually hired people who might be able to make a decent film based on "Cats". If the crew tasked with adapting the feline themed musical included say, stage performers who knew the source material, a director with a real passion for the project, and makeup artists who weren't instructed to create something so shudderingly skintight, is it such a wild leap to imagine Cats might have been closer to paw-fect than claw-ful (Sorry)?

"Cats" may seem like an inevitable failure, but projects less likely to succeed have thrived with the right team; for example the best TV show of 2021 was a "League of Legends" adaptation. Weird world we live in.

Every idea can succeed, if enough talent love and care is behind it.

Even an anime about high school boys playing volleyball.

Beyond brilliant.

Let me sell you on 'Demon Slayer'. The main character’s entire family is slaughtered by the most powerful demon in the land, leaving only his sister who has been transformed into something no longer human. While she fights her savage new instincts, the protagonist must train himself into a Demon Slayer, to seek both revenge and a cure for his last remaining family member. Also, he meets someone who always wears a boar mask and screams "PIG ASSAULT" constantly.

Easy sell.

Let me sell you on 'The Promised Neverland'. In a suspiciously idyllic orphanage, three friends repeatedly achieve perfect scores on their constant tests. When a chance encounter reveals the horrific truth that the children are merely cattle for an unseen race of monsters, the central trio must come up with a way to escape, while under the all-seeing eye of their matron. Their incredible intellect give them a crucial edge when it comes to planning their way out, but their brains are a double edged sword, as the smarter a child is, the more prized they are as a meal. Sadly there is no character with a boar mask who screams "PIG ASSAULT", but I think the premise is good enough even without this massive boost.

This is another easy sell.

My descriptions if anything, have sold him short

When those are your direct competitors, how on earth does "Haikyuu!" sound appealing?

One boy who is on the small side wants to play volleyball, despite the sport naturally suiting taller players. The story begins with him starting high school, and joining the school volleyball team as he tries to follow his dream of making it to the national tournament in Tokyo.

Kageyama's (Second kid in from the right, black hair) look of dismay neatly matches my own when I realise I'm trying to convince the world that a volleyball cartoon is some of the best tv you can find

If doomed from the start could ever be applicable, I was convinced it would be true here. Maybe it would be 'alright', maybe, but how likely was it to hit even that most modest of goals? Surely the choice of setting and plot dramatically limited how exciting or interesting it could possibly be? After all, it's another story about high school boys but none of them are fighting demons or shooting fire from their hands, they're just running around in a sports hall. I've run around in sports halls! This show isn't even escapism! It's also not even about a good sport, it's about volleyball! I don’t care about volleyball. I just don’t. It’s not even that I hate it, it's just a sport I fundamentally do not care about. Football is my sport, cricket is my sport, winding my dog up and running away is my extreme sport, volleyball is something I might watch 5 minutes of when its on during the olympics before getting bored. And! Even if I did like volleyball! How good can a sports anime really be! Stories centering on sport are only good if they're real life stories or "Rocky". As Haikyuu is an anime/manga, you don't even get the realism you would with something in live action. How am I supposed to be impressed by a kids journey of improvement if I have to get past the barrier of the whole thing being a literal cartoon. How is any of it supposed to realistically give off a sense of growth or effort? Cartoons are famous for being able to put to life ideas and fantasies too whacky or insane for live action, and you've used this medium to tell a realistic story about high school volleyball. "Haikyuu!" (The name is literally just "Volleyball!" in Japanese!) seemed like a failure as an idea, a run of the mill sports story, which somehow got popular in the famous "Shonen Jump" magazine, because kid's are stupid I guess.

I mean honestly, it's just volleyball. Volleyball.

Volleyball.

Not to sound like a 14 year old on Tumblr, but I would die for each and every one of them

I think it was the fifth time a scene bought tears to my eyes was when I broke down and begged my friends to watch this. I had to have some confirmation, someone else had to tell me I wasn't losing my mind and the VOLLEYBALL CARTOON really was this good.

No one watched of course. It's a hard sell, and I didn't sell hard enough. Eventually I moved on, watched other stuff, played Dark Souls again, vowed to get really fit and exercised once, the usual pattern. After a couple of months or so, I thought about "Haikyuu!" again. I wondered if it really had been that good. Surely I'd just got caught up in the moment, I had been overexcited, I mean it wasn't up there as one of the best anime. So I rewatched, and well, my thoughts are set in stone now.

It's not up there as one of the best anime, it's up there as one of the best shows. On TV. Ever.

To compare it to its peers, its characters are better than those found in My Hero Academia, the action surpasses that found in Demon Slayer, and it’s a tougher emotional rollercoaster than Attack on Titan. And you know what, for a real hot take, I’ll just say it. It’s better than Breaking Bad. In terms of volleyball training scenes.

Ok, so maybe this all sounds a bit hyperbolic, a bit too much, a bit ridiculous, but it's not me just desperately being controversial for attention, or at least not just that. Every individual element of Haikyuu, writing, direction, animation, music, etc. is absolutely phenomenal, and the resulting show is still greater than the sum of its magnificent parts. It exceeds every possible expectation you could have for it, and I truly believe it deserves to be talked about in the same breath as any of best or most popular tv shows of the past decade, except Game of Thrones, which is not remotely on the same level as the volleyball cartoon.

But why? Or more accurately how? How can the anime that centres on volleyball be remotely worthy of this adoration? How can ball hitting a sports hall floor hit harder than any tear jerking death scene? How can a teenager holding his hands up to block an inflated piece of plastic be a jump off the sofa air punching in delight moment?

Well the only way to find out is to watch it.

So I guess my job is to explain to you why doing that should be your number 1 priority.

Pre Haikyuu- Cool shot I guess. Post Haikyuu- *through sobs* The setter is the conductor of the team. THE CONDUCTOR OF THE TEAM

Let's say you're like me pre-"Haikyuu!". You don't like volleyball. So, why should you watch the volleyball show?

Well let me counter your imagined question with a question. What's the problem with volleyball?

The thrust of the show being volleyball matches isn't a weakness of "Haikyuu!"'s.

It's one of its greatest strengths.

Not a brain cell in site

Stakes are a funny thing aren't they. No one is going to die playing volleyball. It's just volleyball after all. Why bother with programme centered on meaningless sporting tournaments when you could spend your time with superheros grappling supervillains in life or death battles? Those are real stakes, with a premise that is actually exciting.

At least until you think about it.

Let's look at Haikyuu's contemporaries for a second, and also at one of the inherent flaws with the general Shonen power fantasy. In Boku No Hero Academia, I know Deku won't die fighting his latest villain of the week, in Demon Slayer I know Tanjiro isn't getting sliced up any time soon, and in Promised Neverland I know no matter how tasty Emma looks to a demon, she won't end up simmering in a stew because the story can't keep going if she does. The stakes are so high, literally life or death, but main characters can't die because the whole narrative hangs off them. Scenes of protagonists in peril lose a lot of tension when I know death isn't actually a narrative possibility, so each battle or chase scene is a foregone conclusion. These protagonists can never fully "lose" because losing is death and then there is no story.

Conversely, you know the thing about high school boys playing a volleyball match?

They can lose.

The Karasuno team can lose. Why not. It's just volleyball after all. The story doesn't stop if they just lose a game. They can get knocked out of any tournament at any time, because the protagonist can just come back next year, and even then he could still lose.

There is no guarantee he has to win, because winning doesn't really "matter".

But these are high school boys in the last year of childhood doing what they love the most.

Nothing could matter more.

That's the first huge success of "Haikyuu!". The show is "just volleyball" but because of this loss becomes an actual possibility. The show is unbelievably exciting to watch because you have no guarantee that come the end of the scene, these characters are going to be ecstatic winners or miserable losers. I am a thousand times more nervous and engaged watching an important point in "Haikyuu!" than I am in any "life or death" fight in any other Shonen anime. However, for these volleyball games to matter, "Haikyuu!" has to actually have characters worth caring about, so does it?

Buddy if you've read the rest of the piece I'm pretty sure you'll know the answer to that question.

"Haikyuu!" excels in a lot of areas, but if it shines brightest in one it is the character writing. To understand just why it is so good, I think it's best to begin with our seemingly stock Shonen protagonist, and why he's a little different from the rest.

Shoyo Hinata is the hyperactive ball of energy who lives for volleyball. At first glance he is the most stock cliche of a shonen protagonist, he lives for one central goal and cares about nothing else, he has a natural setback that makes his goal harder but he fights through it determined to be the best, he is shockingly positive which is something his talented angsty rival hates, but what happens if we dig a little deeper? What is Shoyo Hinata really?

He's an annoying moron.

Hinata dodges the trap that claim so many main characters of his type (R.I.P. Deku as an interesting protagonist), of being "perfect". Just because he's a bit special and a real try hard, doesn't mean he gets a free ride in the story. Hinata is irritating, confrontational, unwilling to work on anything but volleyball, and confident in himself to the point of arrogance, and all of these issues are fantastic because you can actually relate to and sympathise with him as a character. Hinata isn't a perfect human being, and that means he has room to grow and change. The fact he is an annoying twerp isn't missed by his team mates either, of course they're friends with him, but they don't ignore all of the problems with him just because he really likes volleyball. That acknowledgement within the show is much needed to, it makes the relationships Hinata builds feel real and earnt because well, a lot of these people didn't like him to begin with.

However, if it was just the protagonist who was well written, I would not be writing this article now. Every member of the large cast of volleyball loving schoolboys is a writing triumph, perhaps none more so than the show's secondary lead, Tobio Kageyama.

Dubbed the "King of the Court" (It's not actually meant as a compliment) by frustrated former team mates, Kageyama's undoubtable volleyball ability does not mean the brooding teenager has it all his own way. He may be an almost superhumanly good at flicking a ball round the court, but his obsessive love for the sport has made him an angry and bossy sort. This passion means he struggles to listen and adapt to teammates, so despite his ability, Kageyama is benched often to begin with, because he is not trusted by the team around him. This is quite heartbreaker for young Tobio. He only wants to play volleybal, but now he can no longer trust the team around him, nor does he feel like they want to play with him. In order to get better at volleyball, in order to do what he loves, he has to improve as a human being.

And Kageyama is not the only one with a complex and relatable internal struggle.

One of the kids is so afraid of failure, they're scared to try, believing that if they put the effort in it will only hurt more when they fall short. Another character is acutely aware they don't have the natural talent that others do, and are bitter about their perceived destiny of never being good enough. One boy quit volleyball once, and now he's returned to the team he has to fight the feeling of being an imposter, as he was too weak willed to stick with his friends when the going had gotten tough.

Recognise any of these problems?

I would wager you do, because unlike brands posting a two week old meme on twitter, they are relatable. And sure, they care about volleyball first and foremost, but the volleyball is just an external challenge, an outside force pushing the characters into dealing with their internal issues. This level of character writing is neither easy or common, and the result of it is that when the boys of Karasuno step out onto the court it really matters to you that they win. You care about them as human beings, you care about the journey they're on, and you know there is no guarantee they walk out of the sports hall as victors, no matter how desperately they want to win. Because after all, it's just a volleyball match, anyone can lose one of those, it doesn't matter.

Because it is just volleyball.

Volleyball.

Volleyball.

The good character writing even extends to the opposing teams as well, making the matches even more engaging.

So then. Onto the volleyball itself.

Mechanically, it is done brilliantly. The action is well shot and beautifully animated, the sound effects are impactful and immersive, and the way the matches are paced and written feels incredibly true to life. It isn't all perfect shots and receives, it's a sweaty messy desperate affair with lots of mistakes, just like the real thing. If you like anime action scenes generally, you are only hurting yourself if you don't watch "Haikyuu!".

Ultimately however, the volleyball is so good because of who is playing it. As I have established, these are some of the best characters you will find, in anime or otherwise. Watching them play their games is just like watching any great action scene, tense and exciting, full of fist pumping moments and edge of your seat action. And yes actually I do weep everytime I watched the a certain character make a certain block, but you don't understand right here's the thing.

It was an important block.

And it meant a lot to him.

Masterpiece

Look, I'm aware school boys playing volleyball will always be a hard sell, because all it is is schoolboys playing volleyball. However, if you like other shonen, if you like sport generally, hell if you even just like stories in general, you owe it to yourself to check "Haikyuu!" out. Frankly, characters this good could be doing near anything and it would be some of the most gripping TV out there, the fact it is volleyball is an almost incidental detail.

But I guess, I guess it would really help my case if I had some sort of proof, something more than just my own experience. If only there were some sort of empirical undisputable evidence to show you how moving and meaningful Haikyuu! has been to so many.

I solemnly promise my pieces will only include graphs when strictly neccesary

Oh. Look at that.

Now stop rewatching the Office or Friends and watch something that meaningful and moving for once.

A volleyball cartoon.

Looking back on my work, I am struck by just how hard it is to sell my beloved show to strangers on the internet. "Haikyuu!" is many things, but an easy thing to sell it is not.

In fact, this article may well have been...

Doomed from the start.