Anime Where Guys Play Volleyball
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Called “I Hate Sports, ” as a vehicle to introduce fans to sports anime they might have otherwise ignored due to a lack of interest in the sporting activities themselves. It's a clever idea, even though I personally suspect that the overlap between dork media fandom and sports fandom is larger than it might seem (like comedian and deranged millionaire John Hodgman, I believe we are in the process of a reality-destroying jock/nerd convergence, something first heralded by phenomena like fantasy sports and that weird period where
Stars Brian Bosworth and Howie Long tried to become big-deal movie actors). I've both played sports and watched anime my whole life, so to me the genre seems like a happy and obvious marriage.
Volleyball Anime Gif
But in the west, sports anime has long faced an uphill battle. Passionate fans of fare like Hajime no Ippo and Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl have rallied behind their favorites, only to see them flop.
's entry into the sports anime race, struck out, leaving the second season stranded at first base. Turns out sports anime was a hard sell-- the fans who liked it loved it, but there didn't seem to be that many of them. But the tide, it seems, has gradually turned, buoyed on by basketball, cycling, swimming, and of all sports, volleyball.
On its face, volleyball might seem a little obscure. In terms of team sports participation and audience, it lags behind traditional favorites like baseball, soccer, and even ice hockey. But in fact, volleyball is a dearly-held part of Japan's sporting identity-- it was introduced before WWII, and even got its own new name (haikyu, just like baseball got dubbed yakyu). These days, folks are more apt to call it volleyball, or simply volley. The game became a permanent part of Japan's sports conversation in the 1960s, when, in the midst of the nation's economic rebirth, the women's team (and to a lesser extent, the men) emerged as a global powerhouse, defeating the favored Soviet Union in both the 1962 World Championships and the 1964 Olympics. Participation surged, books about the sport were written, and of course, there was anime and manga. In the wake of boys' fare like Star of the Giants, Attack No. 1 became
Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley Bu (tv Series 2021)
I've always liked Attack No. 1's theme song, one of the most recognizable in Japan. It's an urgent ballad about the heroine, Kozue Ayuhara, and her drive to win. “But sometimes I cry, ” admits the singer, “...because I'm a girl!” The sheer cheesiness makes me grin every time. The anime chronicles the rise of Ayuhara, a transfer student at her school, who at first seems too shy to join the embattled volleyball team. But when the captain confronts her, Ayuhara doesn't pull her punches. “The team is terrible.” she says. “I want to play, but I hate losing!” This inevitably sets the stage for a confrontation, as the upright and proud captain challenges the newcomer to return her serves. Kozue's teacher has an idea of his own-- her new buddies, the school delinquents, really just need a way to blow off steam. How about volleyball? And thus, the team is formed!
In 1968, it was starting to go out of style. It couldn't stop the series from becoming a breakout hit, thanks largely to the appeal of Kozue herself-- in a subset of manga dominated by earnest good girls, she stood out simply by being a boastful, competitive punk. The anime looked quite good for its time (a recent blu-ray remaster is eye-popping, and gives me hope that the show or its compilation movies will appear on
Manga tropes, such as the absent parental figure, the rich-girl rival, and of course, the dead boyfriend. (A few years later, the even more popular romance Candy Candy would up the ante with two dead boyfriends!) The field of
Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team? A Popular Novel Is Animated! 【winter 2021 Anime】
Sports manga also benefited, with both other sporting hits (Aim for the Ace!) and further volleyball yarns, like Ashita e Attack (“
, ” not to be confused with Ashita e Free Kick). That series, created directly as a cash-in after Japan's women won Olympic gold again in 1976, is sometimes mistaken for a sequel or spinoff to Attack No. 1, because it has the same key creative staff. It wasn't near as big of a hit, but it aired just as the women's team took gold at the Volleyball World Cup, a competition that would later relocate to Japan permanently.
's Now the White Ball is Alive, a book written in anticipation of the team's great victory at the 1984 Olympics. Naturally, the team failed to win gold, edged out by the surging Chinese team, but they still took home bronze. The book's anime adaptation, Attacker You!, is almost definitely the best thing that
Volleyball In My Background Pt2 Special/sleepover(spin The Bottle)
Ever produced. The studio is better-known for enjoyably weird, bad 70s TV cartoons like Charge Man Ken, Dame Oyaji, and Ninja, the Wonder Boy, but they would periodically get it right, and they did so with Attacker You!.
The show actually uses a lot of Attack No. 1's building blocks-- a transfer student, a snooty and talented captain-- but shies away from the classic show's high drama in favor of energetic situation comedy. The title character (she introduces herself to someone in English, by saying “I am You!” a joke that always works well) is new in town, come to live with her estranged dad and adopted little brother. She runs afoul of the volleyball team after her baby brother takes a whiz on the court, and the captain, Nami, has a challenge for her: return a serve, or lick the dirty part of the court! Gross. You accepts, and in those dizzying opening moments, Nami is struck by a terrible realization-- the new girl might be ignorant of the sport, but she's got a mean jumper, and she's getting closer and closer to every one of the agreed-on ten serves.
I actually like Attacker You! more that Attack No. 1-- it deftly switches between dramatic sporting face-offs, as we follow You's development as a player (she faces a major hurdle when the other girls hit their growth spurts, and she kinda doesn't…!), her tense family life, and her rivalry with Nami, as they compete both on the court and off it, for the affection of the handsome boys' team captain. There are some aspects of the show that haven't aged well (the team's coach, a heavyset male teacher, sometimes smacks his charges around when they aren't getting results, and for a
Haikyu!! (tv Series 2014–2020)
As You. Decades later, a redux, New Attacker You!, would emerge, co-produced by a Chinese company. There was much ado when Space Dandy got its simultaneous
And broadcast, but New Attacker You! did the same thing in 2008, recorded in Chinese and Japanese simultaneously and actually airing in China well before it emerged in Japan. In fact, the show never got a wide TV broadcast, and would later be touted as an exclusive for the launch of
Anime about the women's soccer team). But like I noted earlier, the men aren't shrinking violets. Their team made an absolutely epic ascent in the Olympic games, winning bronze in that famous 1964 competition that saw the women take it all, then progressing to silver in '68 before winning their own gold medals at Munich in 1972. But tantalizingly, they never quite reached that summit again-- they're a tough team, but tend to finish just outside the winner's circle at Olympic and World Cup competition, in 5th or 6th place.
Japan's Olympic Men's Volleyball Rookie Goes Viral On Twitter For His Anime Style Moves
That failure to achieve greatness didn't dampen the enthusiasm of a kid named Furudate, who spent his high school years absolutely addicted to volleyball, both playing as a middle blocker and raptly watching his hero, national team wing spiker
. Furudate wasn't a good student, though-- his grades suffered at the expense of volleyball. But he had another talent: he could draw. That would pay off later… actually, kind of a long time later. He went to college for art and graphic design, and at age 25 was tipped as an emerging manga talent by
The genius of Haikyu!! has many facets. The artist excels at showing and describing the mechanics of the sport, breaking down how a talented spiker still can't achieve much without expert support from a setter. He excellently uses the small squad size-- six court players at a time-- to build his ensemble, seeding it with beloved archetypes (the handsome ace! the arrogant newcomer! the gallant captain!) before mixing those archetypes up. The imposing ace of the team, Azumane, would be the main character in another series, but here, he's burdened by high expectations and is underconfident. Instead, our man character is Shoyo Hinata, a shrimpy freshman who loves the sport, but has never really been good at it. The one thing he's good at? Jumping. His natural foil is fellow newcomer Kageyama, a junior high prodigy with a sour disposition who never really figured out how
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