If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.
The Haikyuu!! creator's biggest challenge when making the manga was not getting bogged down in the rules
You're allowed a bit of creative license when creating a best-selling manga, we think
Popverse's top stories of the day
- How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
- Watch: Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]
- Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]
Sports anime usually live and die by their drama – the over-the-top relationships that give us a reason to care about the action. However, depicting the intensity of most sports requires careful planning and knowing what to include and what to leave out. For Haruichi Furudate, the creator of Haikyuu!!, the biggest challenge in depicting volleyball in a manga was telling the reader enough about the sport without getting bogged down in the details.
Because Furudate pulled so much from his own experiences as a high school volleyball player when creating the manga, Haikyuu!! tends to remain grounded pretty well in reality. There aren’t many flashy moves or named attacks like in other series, which means that the writer was tempted to overexplain the intricacies of playing volleyball. “I think the majority of Jump readers are not originally interested in volleyball,” he explained during an interview. “So I always worry about how to incorporate [the rules] into the story without making readers think it’s a pain to read.”
The biggest difficulty, however, lies in the rotation of players. In volleyball, players rotate around the court, spending time in the front and the back throughout the match. As a result, what a player can do in a scene is often dictated by where they are in the rotation at that moment. “The difficult part is that it’s hard to match the highlights of the story with the actual rotation. Just when you think, ‘I want the main character to do something great here!’ he ends up in the back line!”
This is why most writers try to leave pesky things like rules and reality in the background, but it is a big part of why Haikyuu!! is so special to fans – Furudate took extra care to get the details of the game right without turning every chapter in a How to Play Volleyball guide.
Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:
And if you're looking for specific franchises or genres, we've also got lists for the:
Finally, if you're a fan of superheroes and not specific to just Marvel or DC, we have overall guides to:
Follow Popverse for upcoming event coverage and news
Find out how we conduct our review by reading our review policy
Let Popverse be your tour guide through the wilderness of pop culture
Sign in and let us help you find your new favorite thing.
Comments
Want to join the discussion? Please activate your account first.
Visit Reedpop ID if you need to resend the confirmation email.