“The team with the better six is stronger.”
On a 9×18m volleyball court, six players stand together. No one can touch the ball twice in a row, and the ball has to cross the net within three hits. Volleyball isn’t about who can hit the hardest spike—it’s about not letting the ball drop. From the start, volleyball is a sport you simply cannot play alone. At the beginning of “Haikyu!!”, former middle school rivals Hinata and Kageyama reunite at Karasuno High. Hinata has speed, reflexes, and jumping power, but never had a good setter. Kageyama is a genius setter but never had a fast spiker to match him. When they finally meet, they become the so-called “freak duo.” As their captain Daichi says, “Each player may be incomplete, but combined, their talents explode.”

But being a team is more than just covering each other’s weaknesses. Kageyama once wished he could “do everything himself—receive, set, and spike.” It takes him a long time to truly accept that one “simply can’t win alone” and that “there are six players on the court.” When Hinata and Kageyama miss during a quick attack drill, it’s Daichi who saves the ball. In their match against Shiratorizawa, when Daichi is worn out, libero Nishinoya digs Ushijima’s fierce spikes. Nishinoya can’t score points himself, but he trusts the ace to score, so he yells, “Set me another one!” Other teams are the same. Nekoma keeps the ball alive with seamless receiving so their heart and brain, setter Kenma, can play comfortably and move as little as possible. Fukurodani works together to manage their ace Bokuto’s mood swings, keeping him in top form. Six players work together on the court—lifting each other’s strengths and covering each other’s flaws.

“Haikyu!!” often shows Karasuno on the brink, as if standing at the edge of a cliff. But in the end, from that cliff, the crows—the symbol of Karasuno—take off. They keep jumping—trusting the libero to keep it alive, the setter to put it up, and the spiker to put it away. Three months after a heavy loss to Date Tech, Nishinoya shouted with confidence, “Don’t worry! You look forward, I’ve got your backs!” In the end, “the team with the better six is stronger” doesn’t mean simply having six standout players. It means six teammates who willingly cover each other’s weaknesses and shoulder failures together—and when those six are on the court as one, that’s when the team is truly strong.

“Don’t look down—volleyball is a sport where you always look up.”
Volleyball is a game that aims up from start to finish. Players lift the ball high for the set and keep jumping for the spike. On the court, eyes stay up—not just on the ball, but on the walls to break, the limits to clear, the fears to face, and the growth you can only reach by going higher. When Kageyama tells Hinata, “If I’m with you, you’re the strongest,” they look unstoppable: the highest jump, perfect timing, blistering pace. But against Aoba Johsai, their flawless quick attack is blocked—and they lose. In that moment, they realize a teammate can’t save every ball—and they can’t win with their eyes closed. To win, each of them has to grow. As they prepare for the next match, Hinata learns to keep his eyes open in the air and find the right contact point, while Kageyama adjusts the tempo and arc of his set to create a new quick attack. Libero Nishinoya learns to set, while Sugawara learns to join the synchronized attack. They evolve to get stronger—so they can win and play on the court one more time. 

“Does losing prove that you are weak? Isn't losing difficult for all of you? A challenge where, after ending up on your hands and knees, you must see if you can stand up again? If you stay on your hands and knees, that proves that you are weak.” That’s what faculty advisor Takeda tells Kageyama and Hinata as they lie on the floor after losing to Aoba Johsai. To grow strong, they have to learn to get back up every time they fall. At first, they fear losing and being weak. Kageyama worries the new quick will fail and that he might even lose the old one. Hinata is scared of the block in front of him. After Date Tech’s perfect block, Asahi is afraid to even call for a set. And when Atsumu targets him with serves, Nishinoya feels that old fear return. Nishinoya remembers when he was a timid kid. His grandpa taught him to taste before saying “I hate it,” that even hostility has reasons, and how far a bike can take you. “You’ll never know unless you try,” his grandpa had said. “But what if I’m still scared?” the young Nishinoya had asked. “Then you ask for help,” his Grandpa had replied with a smile. And that’s exactly what they do, they share their fears. Manager Yachi tosses balls so Kageyama can practice his sets. Former Coach Ukai watches Hinata’s spikes. When Asahi sinks after getting blocked, Nishinoya keeps his ball alive; when Nishinoya has to receive, Kinoshita shouts from the sideline that the ball is coming forward. They put the ball up higher, then higher still. A match ends when the ball hits the floor. So even when fear strikes, their eyes stay upright to the last ball. In a sport that always looks up, “Haikyu!!” is the story of kids who keep their eyes up and their steps forward—each in their way.

“Talent blooms and instincts are honed!”
There’s a simple, unwritten rule in sports: the best become starters, and the better team wins. That’s why talent matters. Talent can overtake years of hard work, and there are places effort alone can’t reach: height, power, brains, and natural athletic ability. Hinata’s leaping ability makes him Karasuno’s perfect decoy, yet he doesn’t even make the roster—he volunteers as a ball boy just to stay at the Miyagi training camp; by contrast, Hyakuzawa, still raw but two meters tall, is selected. Sugawara’s three years of experience as setter are overtaken in an instant by Kageyama’s talent. Kita trains diligently every day but doesn’t earn a jersey until his senior year. Yamaguchi’s first one-point serve against Aoba Johsai hits the net, and Kinoshita gets his chance against Inarizaki—only to lose it almost immediately. Oikawa keeps losing—to Ushijima and to his junior Kageyama—and even at his best in his final bid to reach the national tournament, he never gets there in three years of high school. In “Haikyu!!” the kids who weren’t born prodigies know the truth: no matter how much you practice or study, even with longtime teammates, people born with something start from a different line.

“To my average self, do you really have time to look down like that?” In the Inarizaki match, Tanaka, who wasn’t born a prodigy, gets stuffed again and again and looks cornered. But he resets, shouts “Left!”, goes up, and finally puts it away—by sticking with it until it lands. His struggle is shown as a cliff, an endless staircase, a rocky wall with no path, and from that cliff, he jumps, and that’s how he takes flight. Oikawa knows he isn’t a genius. He knows someday someone will beat him or catch up. But not today. He dives for the ball, slides across the floor, and keeps the rally alive. Yamaguchi’s first jump floater fails, so he keeps practicing until he nails it. But it’s not just the kids who weren’t born prodigies who grind. The gifted grind, too often rising faster and higher. As one team gets stronger, so do the rivals. “Haikyu!!” isn’t a story where the everyday protagonist beats a genius. It’s about kids who know they might never get past the wall called ‘natural talent’—and keep trying anyway. Sometimes they get lucky and succeed; more often, they fail. But along the way, they learn to work hard. In the end, even under that simple sports rule—the best win starting spots and the better team wins—“Haikyu!!” shows the mud-stained ones who keep grinding, hone themselves, and bloom.

“Just one block. Just one point out of 25. Just… a club.”
“Why are you so desperate? Volleyball is just a club. At best, years from now you’ll write on your résumé that you worked hard at a school club, right?” First-year middle blocker Tsukishima throws this at the seniors gathered in the Third Gym during the joint training camp. Most of the kids there aren’t athletic scholarship students, and they don’t dream of going pro. When the coaches were debating whether the third years should still play with the spring tournament coming up, a teacher told Sugawara, “Keeping up with volleyball won’t do you any good.” He’s a senior with entrance exams ahead—and not a starter. Even if he works hard, he doesn’t know if he’ll get into a match or even step on court. And yet he runs to the gym. “I don’t play volleyball because it benefits me,” he says. If not everyone wants to be a player, and it isn’t even useful for their future, then why are they all in?

Of course, not everyone plays that way. To Tsukishima, volleyball was just a club. He first shows up when Kageyama and Hinata are practicing late at night and says, “Don’t push yourselves. Keep it light and fun within reason. It’s just a club activity.” After team practice ends at camp, while others stay to patch weaknesses or sharpen strengths, he’s the one who leaves the gym alone, muttering, “It’s just a club.” It had to stay “just” that for him. As a kid, his older brother was the ace of his middle school team. Not wanting to shatter his little brother’s image of him, the brother hid the truth that in high school, he couldn’t even make the bench and sat in the cheering section. When Tsukishima went to cheer in secret and discovered the truth, he formed a fear of what might be waiting at the end if you give everything to just a club. If he throws himself into it, will he start expecting the next? Then someday he’ll lose, and it’ll hurt to face that he’ll never be the best. For setter Kenma, volleyball also wasn’t anything special. “There’s no absolute reason to keep doing it—but no real reason to quit, either.” He keeps mainly going because if he stops, his childhood friend Kuroo will be in trouble. Ask him if he likes volleyball, or how he feels after a win, and the answer is the same: “Not really…” He doesn’t lay out to save a ball, and he doesn’t block with everything he’s got. Besides an all-fired-up Taketora shouting “Guts!”, Kenma plays out of obligation. Win or lose, he isn’t happy or mad.

To Tsukishima’s “Why so desperate?” Bokuto answers flatly: calling it “just a club” isn’t wrong—but when you feel “My time is here!”, that is the moment you fall for volleyball. In the Shiratorizawa match, even knowing they can’t truly beat Ushijima, Tsukishima says, “I’ll at least try to block a few.” After dozens of tries, he stuffs one clean and roars. After their first practice match with Kenma, Hinata declares, “Next time I’ll make you fight like your life depends on it—so you say something other than ‘meh,’ like ‘I’m frustrated’ or ‘That was fun.’” When Kenma’s father once asked Kuroo to take Kenma along to play soccer sometimes, Kuroo answered that he knew Kenma didn’t really want to go, but “when Kenma likes something, he works hard, so it’ll be fine.” For Kenma, volleyball and the club were just “things he didn’t mind,” so he kept a polite distance from everyone but Kuroo. But against Sarukawa Tech, he works for his teammates; against Karasuno, he plays all-out to win. All of it is “painful, hard, and a moment you wish wouldn’t end.” When he goes down trying to take Hinata’s tip and misses, Kenma smiles and says one line. For both Tsukishima and Kenma, the moment came—the moment they fell for volleyball. “That was fun.”

“We played, too—Volleyball!”
On the first day of the Spring volleyball tournament, forty teams are gone in a single day. In the Miyagi qualifiers, Tokonami High loses to Karasuno High by a wide margin. On the same day, Karasuno’s girls’ team also loses. If one team wins, another team loses. They fail—and they’re seniors. In that moment, their high school volleyball is over. “Haikyu!!” keeps talking about “one more” and “next time,” but not everyone finds the courage to ask for “one more,” and not everyone gets a chance to move on. When their spikes are blocked, Hinata and Azumane go for “one more,” and after his first one-point serve fails, Yamaguchi prepares a better “next.” But if you lose in a tournament, there’s no “one more” or “next” left this year.

Could they have played a little longer if they’d practiced a little harder? Been a little more desperate? As Ikejiri says, “There are tens of thousands of kids across the country ending clubs like this,” so “are the kids who make the national tournament the main characters and are we just extras?” “Haikyu!!” answers by showing the last moments of the teams that lose: the nameless backs of high-school teams whose names we never even hear, Date Tech’s third years, crying but trusting their juniors to become an even stronger “Iron Wall”; Inarizaki’s third-year, Kita, who wants to say, “So? Our team’s amazing, right?”—and the second years who answer, “Tell us. We’ll be the kind of juniors you can brag about to your grandkids.” And the Aoba Johsai third year, who eat ramen together, go back to the gym, and play their real last volleyball. They “played volleyball, too,” and even with nothing left, they still promise a next time. If not this year, then next year—or farther ahead. If not them, then their juniors. If not their team, then their rivals will carry that “next.” After the match ends, even after the club completely ends, they know that “next” will come someday. That’s why in “Haikyu!!”, the last goodbye is always: “See you!”

Losing a match doesn’t mean volleyball is over. “You practice and practice and practice—and all you’ve built can end in an instant. So what?” Manager Shimizu says. Just because this stretch is over doesn’t mean everything collapses. Even when the time comes when they don’t play anymore, the time they did play doesn’t disappear. So “Haikyu!!” says: even if not everyone keeps playing, everyone loved volleyball and still loves it. And together, we can say: “We played volleyball, too.”