MIYA TWINS AND GREED VS GLUTTONY
a 5AM brainrot thread hh

The twins’ prominent hunger metaphor can be seen as greed vs gluttony. The drive in greed is that it’s not (and will never be) enough; for gluttony, it’s enough but you want more anyway, it’s an acknowledged indulgence.

Atsumu’s love for volleyball is something closer to greed. His love for volleyball is very simpleminded and veers towards compulsion? It’s established that his drive is simply “to be better at volleyball,” as seen in his “ten fingers is better than two arms.”

He places stock in going to u19, then going pro; sees them as steps to better volleyball. He doesn’t place stock in fancy quicks or establishing connections with his teammates, and he doesn’t take their defeat to heart; to him, his plays are a means to an end;

the end being not winning a match or scoring a point (“my spikers”) but simply better volleyball. He even goes so far as promising to toss to Hinata (instead of getting competitive with Tobio) bc Hinata had earned his respect and his definition of “the best volleyball”

had expanded to include him.
[The extent of his actions go beyond pure competitive spirit— extra practice alone, even after he replaces Osamu as setter (the best player.) It’s also established early on that Atsumu initiates most of the competitions and Osamu just keeps pace.]

By contrast, I see osamu’s hunger as something like gluttony. He sees volleyball (and by extension his brother’s setting, bc the miya twins essentially see each other as volleyball) as a luxury; he indulges in the full 8 seconds before serving; he literally talks

about wanting to eat more and more endlessly despite stuffing yourself silly. (to which atsumu responds w “bro wtf” so shndjdh) He sees volleyball as an indulgence: of his athletic gifts, of his competitive spirit, of his brother, of his connection with the rest of the team.

Consider baby miyas picking positions. Atsumu is unsure until he hears that the setters are the “best players” and “let you hit it.” Osamu goes straight for spiking (indulging his gifts); even forsakes being a setter. (“I’ll let u hit it” runs almost directly counter his mindset

This also kinda relates to their interpretations of the “who needs memories” banner. To Atsumu it means striving for better/building muscle for the future; for osamu it means indulging in the present moment, the first bite of rice. Other things would be:

atsumu’s faceless rivalry with noya (simply referring to him as “the other teams liberal”) because his focus is on his own service aces vs osamu’s rivalry with hinata, which focuses on hinata being a single blocker. Or when Osamu wonders why
Atsumu is happy that Nishinoya

recovered and received his serve, or when he couldn’t understand Atsumu’s need to experiment (developing a new serve) or kagehina “experimenting” midmatch. osamu’s missed serve could be see as an indulgence in his own power (rather than being driven to playing better) as well.

This theme relates to their role as the greatest challengers and foil to krsn/kghn. Hunger is a consistent theme in hq, but only in the Miyas is it dissected into two aspects; Furadate’s beautiful analysis on the nature of simple hunger vs a passionate hunger.

(idk how to,,,,analyze kghn too diff dndn but it’s interesting to wonder whether the twins are at their core identical and grew around each other in different directions or that they’re fundamentally different but influenced by a slew of identical experiences,,, nature vs nurture

Tsumu treats Samu as his equal and Samu treats Atsumu as his older brother. Samu has long since acknowledged the luxury of never having to be alone and indulges in it; while Atsumu has enough hunger for the both of them bc he sees himself and samu as connected or even identical.

They both loved volleyball; Osamu bc it made him happy, and Atsumu simply because it was volleyball. Osamu quit bc he realized there were other things that made him happy, and there were others to keep pace with atsumu and his greed. Atsumu went pro bc volleyball is volleyball.

bonus final thought, bc I’m putting this tgt at 4am: Atsumu’s hunger lies mostly in volleyball bc volleyball is smth held exclusively between them for so long, that it has to be volleyball right? Osamu who loves his brother a little more than his brother loves him.