 To truly enjoy sports, you must be strong. Walking into a gym, hearing the sound of the ball being dribbled, shoes squeaking, the whistle of a referee and the fans cheering, is a feeling that is unlike any. For me, what separated Haikyuu from other sport anime from the get-go was the very real and believable emotion that comes into playing sports at a high level. The incredible highs and the crushing lows that come with sport, the mental strength that comes with tirelessly repeating in action until it's second nature, and playing a sport for that one moment in which you fall in love with it. For me, Haikyuu encapsulates all these feelings with the foundation that is their masterful storytelling. Haikyuu follows the Karasuno volleyball team, which focuses on Hinata Shoyo, the main protagonist of the show. And while many games were played throughout three seasons, I will jump through what I felt were the most important moments in terms of emotion in Haikyuu. Beginning with the very first episode of the show, it really captures that feeling of a first game, whether it be a first game back or the first game ever. Immediately, Hinata takes us through the varying emotions of playing your very first game, from the pregame nerves to the warm-up, and then through the game. And through this first episode, they flash back through to Hinata's hard work to try and get members to simply join him on the court. This alone showcases his desire for simply wanting to be on the court. And then when we finally see him hit his first spike, it's blocked. But we see him brought back up when he actually scores the next spike. And then we see the bliss of spiking a ball or scoring a goal or hitting a three. It's all the same. Hinata is desperate to feel that high again. And when he loses, he's desperate to know what it feels like when you win. After they lose his first and last junior high school volleyball game, the truth about team sports is revealed to him quite bluntly. In order for your team to win, all the pieces must work together. All of your members on the court must be strong. In a team sport, there is no one person who can lead their team to victory. It is done with all six or five or eleven, no matter the sport, not one. In order to remain on the court. Jumping to the middle of the first season before Asahi rejoins the team, he does not want to come back to volleyball. There are certain defining moments in sport, and some include scoring a game-winning basket, spike, or a goal. But on the other hand, suffering a crushing defeat can truly define a team or a player. By the way, they bounce back. For Asahi, in his second year, the ace was constantly given sets against the iron wall that is that day tech. And Asahi would get his spikes blocked repeatedly throughout the game. Each block gutted his confidence to the point of him leaving the team. For Asahi, loss drove him to the point where he fell out of love with volleyball. Sport is arguably more mental than it is physical, and Haikyuu is able to properly present the two sides of it. Some people would have left volleyball behind to never return to it, but Asahi would come back to the team, displaying his passion for volleyball, and his growing mental fortitude. Oikawa is one of my favorite players in Haikyuu. Because of his contrast to the freakishly talented duo Hinata and Kageyama, he represents work ethic and hard work to a tee. He is an example of what happens when an individual who is not special, not incredibly athletic or insanely physically gifted, is committed and is passionate about being the best he can possibly be. He has studied matches, trained not only his body but his mind to be able to fight at a high level, to pick apart his opponents and to bring out the best of his teammates. He is comparable to the Kauai Leonards and the Steph Currys of sport, so yes, he is talented, but has worked intensely harder than the rest to get to where he is. And throughout this first encounter with Aoba Josai, we see Karasuno's great run come to an end, and the way the game ended would be on the duo's freakish quick being blocked. The team has felt lost before, but not when their team felt unstoppable. Karasuno surely felt as though they could never lose, and for this game to be ripped from their duo's hands, who would help bring the team this far, that pain is indescribable. Specifically for Hinata and Kageyama, the final play would get replayed in their minds over and over again, and they would feel guilty and responsible for their team's downfall. When you lose, you feel as though it's all on you. When you miss that final shot, your mind starts to create what if scenarios? What if you had hit it? What if you had made a shot earlier in the game? What if you made the right pass? But it's life. All of that guilt and that anger just builds. Like Hinata and Kageyama do, you need to find an outlet to release that anger. And like Karasuno's advisor would tell them, they have fallen, but only the strongest stand back up. And so Kageyama and Hinata have to become strong, again talking about that mental fortitude. To play sports, you must be strong. Until the interhigh preliminaries, Karasuno goes to Tokyo to partake in several training camps with other schools. During that time, we have another low, when Kageyama and Hinata have their argument. All teams have moments whether it be on or off the court, when they must figure out in that space why a particular thing is not working. However, the argument should not be a focus, but rather what the team or players do after that argument is important. Hinata and Kageyama spent time practicing on their parts of the quick, in order to make it as unstoppable as possible. Which meant that Kageyama would have to put a specific spin on the set, and Hinata would have to be able to fight midair. And throughout these training camps, Karasuno won three games and suffered 63 losses. However, during the camp, they practiced new moves and sets that would become crucial in the future. To play sports, you must be strong. You have to suffer losses in order to win. Which brings us past the interhigh prelims. To the spring prefecture playoffs where Karasuno faces off against Aoba Josai for the second time. And let's take a look at that final play of the match. We have Karasuno's team feeling an incredible bliss. From losing against Aoba Josai in those exact same circumstances, that feeling of not only winning against an impossibly tough opponent, but winning against the very team that broke their spirits before, is a feeling unknown to them. All of their diving recieves, the blood of the captain, the sweat of the team and the literal tears that were placed on those courts, were all for that moment. With that, I want to point out the parallels in Season 1 and Season 2, specifically for Hinata and Kageyama, and how they defeated Aoba Josai in the exact same manner that they lost, a quick. And this time the duo would spread their wings and soar over their competition. This is where the mental strength comes into play. Sport is survival of the fittest. To move forward to remain on the court, you must become strong. It's good seeing the fruits of your labor and hard work tend into results and personal gain and wins, but on the other hand, that same hard work, the tacks that you have to put on your body, all for it to go down in one single play. Aoba Josai played their hearts out. They played as good as they could have possibly played, but on that day, it was simply not their day. Seeing their players hold back tears and then completely break down, again encapsulates the mental aspect of sports. It shows the intense amount of pressure that athletes put on themselves to perform. The blame that the ace put solely on himself. There is not one person that could feel exactly what he was feeling at that moment, but the other ten or so players wearing that jersey. And what hurts even more was that it was their final game together, as Oikawa and some of the others were seniors. And the final moment I want to look at is Tsukishima's passion during the third season. While they were having spring practices, Tsuki was often shown not wanting to put the extra effort in to try and better his skills and his reasoning being that he will never be the best, that there was always someone better than him. He then asks Bokuto, Ace of Fukurodani, why he plays, and he tells him about the specific moment where he got hooked onto volleyball. He then tells Tsuki that once that moment comes, he will truly love the sport. He will get hooked. In this game against Shiratorizawa, a fire was lit under the middle blocker. When his moment came, Tsuki rose to his competition and blocked the ace's powerful spike, and his passion for volleyball was announced. That's a moment I think that applies for everyone, and Haikyuu demonstrates that perfectly. Whether it be an amazing spike, a goal that you've been practicing, or having a very good game, these moments are often defining moments that one never forgets. It's a very precise moment that feels like you are stuck in between time and space, and that you are meant to do nothing else but to play. For me, Haikyuu's prowess lies not only in its amazing storytelling, but its ability to convey emotion and as an athlete, Haikyuu precisely points the exact same emotions I felt, like the players on their team. Haikyuu succeeds by making me feel like another player on the roster. I feel exhausted when I'm watching them walk into their fifth set, and it also broke my heart, like it was my team, who lost after being so close. Regardless of the sport you play, Haikyuu's ability to echo the same passion and heart that go into team sports, and to be able to convey the ups and downs of sport are some of the reasons why Haikyuu is one of my favorite shows. Haikyuu's messages of resiliency and growth don't apply only to sports, but to life. Only the strong get to remain on the court, that goes for any court. Build yourself to become the strongest person that you can possibly be, and you remain on the court forever.