Reason # 302 why Furudate's writing is so excellent, if not genius:

Hinata Shouyou, the protagonist of a shonen sports manga, does not necessarily always act like a protagonist in a shonen sports manga.

aka:

A (Brief) Character Study of Yamaguchi Tadashi.

(thread)

Yamaguchi: What would you say to Tsukki right now?

Hinata: Nothing.
Hinata: What would you say, Yamaguchi?

Often shonen protags encounter characters, struggle with them either physically or ideologically, then win them over somehow, thus proving their ideology and the manga's.

But Haikyuu!! isn't trying to sell us any one ideology like "Friendship will help you overcome struggles!" or "The power of determination beats all!" It's real life. Characters fail. Fail often. Fail brutally. Like Yamaguchi Tadashi.

Rather than setting Hinata up as the protagonist who convinces all the other characters to "Play from your heart" or "Believe in the power of your spike" or some other typical shonen line, he's a teenager who wants to get better at the sport he loves.

Hinata's driven to improve to the point of self-centeredness, he's got no grasp of technique, & he awkwardly declares to opponents, loudly, in public, that he will defeat them. He's noisy & fidgety & provokes his teammates a lot.

But still, you can't help but watch him fly.

Hinata is a protagonist you want to cheer for. But he is not the mouthpiece for Furudate's "message" or "agenda" through the manga. I mentioned Hinata & Yamaguchi's conversation about Tsukishima because it's one of my favorite moments of writing that leads to an excellent payout.

Every time I come back to the Tokyo training arc where Tsukishima has his run-in with Bokuto & Kuroo (~oya~oya?), & Yamaguchi asks Hinata "What would you say to Tsukki right now?" I can't help but applaud Furudate's decision NOT to have Hinata give some big speech.

Writing is a series of decisions, & sometimes the best choice is negation.

Hinata's reaction to Tsukishima's attitude is simple: "You can't make someone want to play if they don't want to, so why bother trying to motivate him?"

This is a teenager talking, & it's accurate. Hinata wants to get better at the sport he loves. He sees Tsukishima's attitude & figures, "Well, HE doesn't want to get better in individual practice, oh well."

But that isn't what Yamaguchi is looking for. He wants some big inspirational speech to shake Tsukishima out of his funk. And we, as the readers, want the same thing. We expect our protagonist—the radiant sun—to shine the light onto the gloomy moon (the metaphor established +

in the same episode/manga arc). We expect the author to speak through the protag & give us, the readers, insight into the story's main "message."

But that isn't what Yamaguchi gets. And it's not what we get.

What we get, Yamaguchi & us, is Hinata shrugging & saying idk man, my dude Tsukki's acting like a lil punk right now, whaddya gonna do lol.

What are you going to do?

Hinata asks Yamaguchi that.

What are you going to do?

"What would you say to him?"

Hinata doesn't have an answer for Yamaguchi because he doesn't need to have one; he's a teenager. He's a child. He's not a fountain of wisdom spewing dramatic monologues about Friendship & Willpower & Determination. He's awkward & a little dumb & a whole lot of passionate

about what he loves. That's what drives him.

What drives Tsukishima? In the moment Hinata asks Yamaguchi what he would say to Tsukishima, Yamaguchi remembers his own failure as a pinch server, the humiliation, the promise to himself that next time, he would have no regrets.

We don't get a stirring speech by Hinata about how Tsukishima needs to embrace the power of Teamwork.

What we get is this:

A side-character who's still kind of important approaches another side-character who's starting to get his development and inspires him.

We get this:

A young and confused and emotional teenage boy chases after the friend he has always stood beside and behind quietly and submissively, trying to shake Tsukki from his downward spiral, grips him desperately by the shirt, and screams at him in the night about pride.

"What more do you need than pride"

Yamaguchi is projecting here. He's so desperate to help his friend, to shake him up, to give him something to fight for, that he projects onto Tsukishima. Because that's what we do as people. I make your problems mine, I make my problems yours.

Not in the sense of unloading troubles onto your friends. I'm talking about empathy. The ability to connect with someone through raw, visceral emotion. As always, Furudate is leading us to the larger picture: it's about how we connect. It's about how we care for each other.

This is such a brilliant move to have Yamaguchi say this to Tsukishima instead of Hinata, because it makes sense in the story. Yams is closer to Tsukki, has seen him grow (and refuse to grow, in this arc), and has a personal history with what makes Tsukki so reserved towards +

volleyball and treating it like "just a club." This is a brilliant move because it gives more weight to the words when Tsukishima hears them, and thus they carry more weight when we read them. It makes narrative sense, so it makes sense to us to be powerfully impacted.

Who doesn't feel a small chill up their spine when Yamaguchi reaches up and clutches tight to Tsukishima? Who doesn't start to tear up when he cries out so brokenly about their pride?

And that's it, isn't it? We, too, feel empathy for their failures and shortcomings, their triumphs and victories. We, too, know the sting to our wounded egos. I'm not talking about arrogance, here. I'm talking about dignity, how we carry ourselves.

Will we walk tall and proud? Or will we slouch through life, never to lift our eyes to the sun? What more reason do you need to strive for victory, Yamaguchi is asking, than the simple desire to take pride in knowing you have done something, and done it well?

And so, we get this:

Bokuto: "If you experience that moment, it'll really get you hooked on volleyball."

Akiteru, Tsukki's disgraced older brother.

And Tsukki's declaration to Yamaguchi, that he would stop Ushijima.

What Furudate does with this character's arc is subtle and loud and slow to build and quick to rise. What Furudate does is what the world does for us: put people in our lives who touch us, affect us, and help us grow. We are who we are because of who has touched our lives.

Yamaguchi, and readers, were expecting The Protagonist to make some speech about willpower, but sometimes the reason for doing something is as simple as one's dignity, one's sense of pride in one's self.

Sometimes you don't need a reason to start something, just curiosity.

Those were Kiyoko's words to Yachi at the start of Season 2, and they ring true here, too. Or Tendou to Ushijima: "I think what drives a lot of people is childish."

As in, you don't need some Grand Purpose. You don't need some Huge Reason to love something.

Sometimes, the greatest passions of your life can begin when you stop your bike outside a TV store, and see a spiker leap through the air, and you think, I want to fly like him.

Sometimes, our lives are touched by others in ways they may never know, and we connect in ways we cannot comprehend until it's all over, until the story is told, and we look back on our lives and say, Look at what I did with my one, proud life. Look at who my life touched.

Please, please, if this thread finds you outside the Haikyuu fandom, please consider reading or watching Haikyuu. Furudate is an incredible writer, and the story is phenomenal. It will touch your life.

(lol tries to do a character study of one character and ends up talking about the series ending, of course. thank you Furudate this series will be with me forever)

y'all replying or qrt'ing with private accounts...i can't see your tweets so I guess I'll just say thank you and hope you like the thread?