A thread on why you are all doing Seijoh dirty by pretending they aren't individually strong players.

A disclaimer: By posting this now it kinda looks like a response to @dandellieons but it actually isn't??? I saw a tweet months ago that prompted this but it's just been sitting in my drafts. I saw that this was an overall fandom sentiment which confused me so i'm posting it.

So yeah this is not against anyone in particular nor is it personal. If i come off as angry in the thread i'm SORRY because that's not how i feel. These are fictional sports teams, it's not that deep. If we don't agree on this that's fine. This is just my opinion.

First of all, let's look at the first thing Haikyuu tells us about Seijoh. Daichi literally says they are made up of players who could go to any other team and become the ace.
Y'ALL HEARD THAT? GOOD. KEEP THAT IN MIND.

And the way they talk about them shows that Seijoh has had this reputation for a long time. Longer than 3 years. Which means they were already known as a powerhouse team before Oikawa joined.

That doesn't say much about the current team though. Karasuno was once a powerhouse too

So let's get into why people think Seijoh is "weak" or "ordinary"

I think it's just the shounen antagonist formula.

Every antagonist has to be stronger than the last, to keep the stakes high. So to keep shiratorizawa as a threat, seijoh HAS to look weak by comparison.

This fits into Ushijima saying all players except Oikawa are weak. (A mindset some of the fandom seems to share with him.)

Do take notice that Hinata explictly DOESN'T!

We literally see him in shock that someone would say such impressive players are weak.

To me it kinda seems like people are missing the purpose of the scene. It's supposed to show Ushijima's wrongful mindset that Karasuno isn't a threat to him because Shiratorizawa has better players.

I love him, but we are really not supposed to agree with him here.

So, let's get back to Seijoh being "weak" in comparison to other teams.
I'm gonna put this very simply: They arent.

They are shown to be stronger than every other team in the prefecture except Shiratorizawa and Karasuno.

Even all he other dangerous teams, like wakutan and Date tech, are either beaten by Seijoh or shown to be easier to beat than seijoh.

So why do people consider them weak?

Here's a hot take: people underestimate shiratorizawa.

Yes, you heard that right.

Because of, again, that sweet shounen antagonist formula. We are quick to believe that the teams at nationals are a bigger threat than shiratorizawa.

Except that they aren't.

Shiratorizawa was at their prime, people were not just expecting them to go to nationals, but they were one of the teams people thought had the chance to WIN nationals. Out of over 40 teams, they were the best of the best. Comparible to inarizaki and itachiyama.

Tsubakihara, a team that actually made it to nationals, is a lot easier to beat than Seijoh ever was.
If they were in another prefecture, or even in one that allowed multiple shools to go, Seijoh would have made Nationals multiple times already.

So let's get rid of the idea that losing to a team that was expected to at least make semifinals in nationals somehow makes them ordinary.

Which brings me to my second point: Luck.

Victory is never guaranteed. This is shown again and again in Haikyuu.

In fact we are explicitly shown that just because Karasuno is going to nationals doesn't mean they're the best. They lose to date tech pretty damn badly in s4 because they weren't working propbarly as a team.

Yet some people seem to think the victory against Seijoh was absolute?

(Here's another hot take before i got back to my main point: Oikawa was NOT in his element at the second seijoh match. At least that's waut i think.

Do you know how many times his serve either goes out of bounds or even hits the net? Way more than in any other match we see.)

Not to mention the whole thing with mad dog, if Kyoutani hadn't done that ridicilous out spike in the first set, seijoh might have won.)

I'm not saying they're a better team than Karasuno, but i am saying that it was still perfectly plausible for karasuno to lose against them.

Same for the shiratorizawa match! Had it been just a little different, karasuno could've lost. Sport is skill, yes. But you need to be in your best form at exactly the right time and even then, luck is always a factor. No matter how good you get, victory is never guaranteed.

And now let's get to what i think is the biggest reason people underestimate the other players: the practice match in season 1

After all, without Oikawa, seijoh was losing against karasuno, who didn't even have nichinoya and asahi so they weren't a strong team at all.

That must prove something right?
Well, no.

Missing Oikawa isn't just missing one player. He's the setter, the one who interacts with the others the most. The support tower of the team.

And this was really early in the new year. Kindaichi and Kunimi are first years. We can safely assume that they have barely, if ever, practiced with Yahaba as a setter before. And the 3rd years are definitely way more used to Oikawa.

Playing with a setter your spikers have barely matched with? Unless the setter is a genius like Kageyama, or someone extraordinarily good at matching with spikers like Oikawa, that is gonna be really hard.

Not to mention that Oikawa is the CAPTAIN! When karasuno didn't daichi during the wakutan south match, they were in real danger of losing. Does that mean that Daichi is the only good player? Obviously not. But they were missing a part of the team they were used to.

Hell, the skill difference itself between Daichi and Ennoshita isn't even super big. (He's a better player, yeah, but the gap is not imppssibly big) it was the mental blow of not having your captain during a match that was the real onstacle.

Seijoh during the practice match isn't the same as a Seijoh if Oikawa had never gone there in the first place. They were out of balance as a team, which is dangerous especially as a team that relies the most on strategy and complicated teamwork. That's why they were losing.

Going back to the date tech match in s4, Kageyama being a little out of it and not completely in synch with the rest of the team was enough to make them lose set after set against date tech. Teamwork is delicate and little things being off can mess everything up.

Also, while we haven't seen timeskip hanamaki, matsukawa, yahaba or watari. (Have we seen kyoutani? I don't remember, i don't think so) we do know that Kindaichi is a pro player on a division 2 team, on the same level as tsukishima

You gonna tell me Tsukki isn't a strong player?

So yeah, that's my two cents on this whole discourse. It was just a little thing that bothered me for a while but honeslty i don't think less of anyone for disagreeing with me, so PLEASE don't take this thread personally.