Haikyuu, Disability, and the Importance of Representation

[Music] just over a year ago i tweeted this i can't read it out because of youtube rules to do with profanity in the first 30 seconds of a video but you get the point so i watched all four seasons within a few days and then decided to read the manga from the start and less than a month later i tweeted this saying that i'd finished reading haikyuu and that i thought it was pretty much perfect so i'd like to talk about it on the off chance you have no idea what haiku is and as such completely disregarded the spoiler warning at the start it's essentially a story about japanese high school volleyball it follows the journey of shoyo hinata a plucky and energetic volleyball fanatic who gets into the sport after seeing the little giant the diminutive star player for the local karasno high school playing in the national tournament this lights a fire in hinata and despite his short stature and inexperience with the sport he makes his way into karasno high school's volleyball team where he forms an unusual bond with another player tobio kagayama also a valuable fanatic who is the exact opposite of hinata preeta naturally talented yet socially inept since the little giant and karasuno's previous coach left the team a few years back it went into a steady decline however alongside kagayama and his new team mates hinata is desperate to stand where the little giant once stood and conquered nationals yet again it's a great concept anyway as you can tell from that tweet at the start i'd heard a lot of good about haikyuu almost exclusively so actually but i definitely had my misgivings about how exceptional it could actually be and again from the second tweet and after having rewatched and reread haikyuu multiple times over the last year i can confidently say that it has become alongside a few of the final fantasy games my favorite story ever told sounds unfathomable if all you know is that it's about volleyball but it turns out that basing a story around a team setting and the highs and lows of competition allows for really unique instances of character development and narrative progression that other stories wouldn't be able to efficiently put into practice and it leads into what is one of the most memorable media experiences i've ever had however this video is not going to discuss why exactly iq is a good story like a review of some sort there are better places than here to find that sort of thing instead this is going to be a really personal video actually much more so than any i've made before and my aim is to convey what exactly height you did to become specifically my favorite the reason for this is ultimately because through the unique framework it uses to tell its underdog story high q ends up being the most compelling and convincing allegory for disability and the disabled experience that i've ever come across two things to quickly clarify there the first is again that this is exclusively from my perspective and my own experiences with disability not a general this will be the case for everyone kind of thing and secondly it's worth pointing out that haikyuu was not intended to be a story about disability but i'm going to try and spend this video explaining how and why i see it that way first and foremost though i'll need to briefly give you a bit of personal information my credentials when it comes to this matter if you will it's always weird talking about yourself online but i think it would help for context i have a spinal disease called cyringomyelia what this means is that within my spinal cord there are essentially gaps cysts filled with fluid i have three of them two smaller ones near the top of my spine and a longer one near the base these cysts expand over time and go on to cause a variety of symptoms ranging from muscle weakness varying degrees of nerve damage chronic pain and so on i've had this pretty much my whole life started getting symptoms when i was eight or nine chronic pain and hypersensitivity to touch across my lower back and sides were the first two and since then it's gotten progressively worse with new symptoms popping up and now it's at the point where i can't walk without assistance i'm 26 now almost 27 being in constant pain for 18 or so years had no choice but to stop doing sport and activities like that when i was about 16 17 and i've used walking aids since i was 22. that's the most important stuff summed up just some context for the rest of the video so you know where i'm approaching this from i won't go into it any more than that here but if you want more info you can just google it or ask me in the comments but i just wanted to explain this to help demonstrate the fact that ever since i was just a weekend with a sore spine i've been looking for disabled representation in media to see someone who i considered to be like me or at least someone whose experiences were actually relatable and unfortunately i honestly don't think i've ever come across someone on tv or in a game anything like that who i could really identify with from a disability perspective that is until i watched and read haiki the premise of this video ultimately hinges on the idea that hinata's journey and development reflects and runs parallel to the disabled experience or at least my experiences as a disabled person it isn't exclusively hinata some other characters and story points are also pretty relatable but it is predominantly him and later on another character hoshumi who made haikyuu such a distinctive experience for me it's difficult to explain because on a surface level it's not like i directly see my symptoms or condition represented in this story however what i do see is relatable structure that is the tangible challenges faced by hinata throughout haikyuu are relatable the internal struggles he faces are relatable and i think that some of his experiences would actually match up with my own if we were to directly transpose them probably the simplest way of putting it is that haiku is a story about volleyball that's the foundation upon which everything else is built might sound like a weird stretch but media has an inarguable effect on real life and is meant to represent the diversity of the human condition so let's make that concept of volleyball being a framework analogous to general modern society the framework upon which our lives are built the characters in high q all participate in some sense involved which again would relate back to real people participating in and contributing to society as a whole haikyuu makes it clear that there is no greater advantage in volleyball than being tall a physical attribute you have no control over and the entire premise of this story is that hinata wants nothing more than to participate in this sport despite his diminutive height and all of the logistical and structural issues that limit his efficacy and success you see where i'm going with this yeah haikyuu isn't about disability not really but i think its skeleton is directly comparable to the disabled experience in real life and how society is built unfairly that passion and desire for something although worthwhile and admirable can't fully make up for the inherent lack of equity built into the system what makes iq particularly great though well at least one of the things that makes it great is that it shows the most evidently disability adjacent character i.e hinata overcoming and breaking through the barriers imposed upon him by both his own body and the environment around him without ever creeping into the all too familiar territory when it comes to disabled stories of inspiration porn i can't even begin to count how often i've come across stories both fictional and not purported to either before or about disabled people which have no interest in displaying an authentic and real perspective of life with disability but instead are all about leveraging and commercializing the lives of disabled people in order to inspire able-bodied people if you're not too clued up on what inspiration porn is and why it's harmful i provided a few links in the description below that are worth taking a look at for more context the main way in which haiku manages to steer completely clear of these treacherous waters is by not romanticizing the challenges hinata faces throughout his journey to volleyball stardom you'll know if you've seen the four seasons of the anime which are currently out that hinata improves dramatically throughout the show with a lot of most obvious moments showcasing this appearing during the match against inarizaki things like his improved jumping height his defensive awareness and receiving ability his general understanding of the pace of the game and knowing to slow it down when necessary the scope with which you decide to view this improvement is important though if you look at hinata's exploits against inarizaki as isolated incidents it's impressive and it is genuinely inspiring seeing a short player like him have such an enormous impact against one of the leading teams in the country is in and of itself astonishing and if you analyze this with the intention of being purely reductive hinata's battle against the odds could be on the verge of veering into the gaping void of inspiration porn but that reading of haikyuu would be disingenuous and would make the fatal mistake of ignoring the context of his success in this match haiku's portrayal of hinata up to the point where karasuno make its nationals is nothing short of perfect because of how it frames his development from having no team to being the linchpin of his team without ever resorting to lazy cliches i mean let's think about how often hinata up it's constant so much of the first three seasons plus bits and pieces of season 4 are just collections of hinata doing things wrong he can't receive he can't aim when he spikes for a while he can't even spike with his eyes open he can't serve and he gets so nervous before games that he nearly shits himself every time again i'll clarify that i know hinata is not a disabled character but haiky fits as an allegory so comfortably and seeing its protagonist be an abject mess is actually wonderful it's realistic and is why hike you never ventures into being inspirational for the sake of it because the drops of success you see later on belong to a vast ocean of failure and it is so cathartic to see that expressed someone so disadvantaged someone battling against every odd failing and being failed by the system around him because that's what it's actually like let's look at another concrete example from the story hinata's inexperience in season one stems from him not having a team in middle school he could have had three years of experience but he didn't there weren't resources put in place for him not having the necessary infrastructure for the endeavors you want to pursue as a disabled person is probably one of the most realistic things in the whole show as i said earlier i had to stop playing sport when i was a teenager and when i was younger my favorite sport was cricket always loved it however when my conditions started deteriorating to the point where i couldn't play there were no options for me there wasn't any infrastructure or resources in place to allow me to play a sport i'd played since i was a kid this inaccessibility became even more clear-cut when my mobility issues took a turn for the worse as well there are forms of cricket which are more disability inclusive but none that would accommodate my particular issues because of this i have not been able to participate in a sport i absolutely adore for about 10 years so seeing hinata on his own in middle school bouncing a ball against a wall because he had no team mates and no team really struck a chord with me it became even more realistic to me when hinata and kagiyama's relationship starts to develop in the opening stages of the story hinata finally finds a team and teammates but is still held back the only thing that allows him to play is kagiyama's exceptional ability hinata is completely reliant on someone else in order to do what he wants to do as a concept it's infantilizing humiliating and beyond relatable for people with disabilities this is why hinata telling kagayama the start of the training camp arc that he wouldn't close his eyes anymore when doing their quick was such a pivotal moment in the story for me he not understood that he was allowing himself to be penned in for the sake of others not raising a fuss for the sake of maintaining the status quo and eventually decided that he needed to prioritize himself kagyam is not a villain i mean he's far from it but i like how he plays the heel in this scene telling hinata that his selfishness will disrupt the entire team he isn't wrong for saying this but it's also not wrong for hinata to want to exercise his own autonomy and start building himself up outside of such a constraining setting over the next two seasons you see hinata slowly learn and improve and this is because he's been afforded the resources the opportunities and the space to get better without having to adhere to a way of playing that restricted him you see the real life parallel right restriction is probably the most ubiquitous part of the disabled experience the list of things you're not able to do is a lot longer for the average disabled person than for the average able-bodied person and seeing hinata break free of these chains and go from being entirely reliant on kagiyama's setting to being a deserving starting member in his own right is beyond heartening he constantly says that he needs to be able to do everything to learn how to do everything and haikyuu by virtue of being fiction provides hinata with the possibility to become self-sufficient as well as succeed in an environment where his success is unlikely because he was allowed for space to develop without those constraints pinning him down it is incredible seeing a contextually disadvantaged character treated like an actual person he's not babied because of his height or an experience he's repeatedly shown to fail both on account of his own mistakes and barriers out with his control that are pushing him down but he manages to cling on to opportunities to be himself to not have to conform to what's expected of him and when he does this he shines it represents how much disabled talent and ability and potential lies underneath the surface and will never be discovered because of rampant inaccessibility yet haikyuu reflects an alternative perspective where those barriers can be dismantled showing us that the inaccessibility we assume to be unassailable and unchangeable may one day improve haikyuu is the only time i've ever watched and read something so true to my experiences as a disabled person and it also has the benefit of being a story that has a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't the cringiest you could imagine i've been waiting for this my whole life and i can't tell you how good it feels to have finally found it okay now i'd like to speak about another character albeit more briefly than what we just had hinata is the main character of haikyuu and the most relatable in the context of what this video is about but he actually isn't my favorite character that would be kurai hushyumi arguably the most all-around talented player in the entirety of haikyuu up to this point of the anime i want to speak out hoshumi now because it kind of relates to what i ended with in that previous section hoshumi is a mirror of hinata they are both short and fighting an uphill battle and trying to play volleyball at a high level but the real difference is that hushumi represents what hinata could have been with consistent support and resources despite this though hushumi faces an entirely separate subset of challenges which are much more to do with how others perceive him as opposed to hinata's more personal and internal struggles one of the most memorable lines in the story is what hoshumi says when interviewed after his first game at nationals the one hinata watches and gets all starry-eyed about i'm gonna go with the manga translation here instead of the anime it's much better in my opinion he says being short is a disadvantage but it isn't a sign of incompetence this is the quintessential quote to sum up life with disability disability is so often a drawback an inconvenience and a disadvantage and it's refreshing to see that addressed but as he says it is by no means a sign of incompetence and it's not something to be pitied for it's so gratifying to see this idea expressed in media and it's even better with the context of the moment that precedes it pushy yumi initially calls out the interviewer for focusing on him because he's short and then goes on to say his piece about height being inconsequential and that you can be good at something regardless of any other external factors i love this because it's the most blatant example of height cue disregarding that whole inspiration porn idea from before even despite hoshumi's overwhelming skill he still gets asked about how it feels being so short people can't see past his physical appearance and his abilities are always in spite of his height not because of or thanks to or even completely unrelated to this is why hoshumi is so shocked when kagiyama expresses almost no bewilderment at the fact that he's both short and talented on account of his experience with hinata it's new for him to have his talents taken at face value and he doesn't really know how to process that this is a totally different representation of the disabled experience than what we're used to with hinata but one that's equally realistic hinata can be seen as an example of the internal and structural issues faced by disabled people whereas hush yumi can be seen as an example of how disabled people are often viewed by others having both of these perspectives exist in the story really enriched the experience for me and having two short characters at totally different points of their journey was an absolute master stroke of storytelling both from a simple character development perspective and from the very specific and targeted way i'm approaching it however that was pretty much the last point i had to make about this kind of thing that doesn't start encroaching into manga spoilers so if you're not up to date please use the timestamp at the start of the description to skip to the final part of the video i'll give you another few seconds so you have time okay if you're still here let's assume you're totally up to date on haikyuu pretty amazing where it goes after inarizaki right i just have two more things i wanted to bring up before we start winding the video down both to do with the match against kamomedai the first of these things is actually to do with coach washijo and relates to what i said when i introduced hoshumi hoshi umi is what hinata would have been if he had the support and resources from a younger age coach washi joe is representative of what it would have been like for hinata and hoshumi if they'd never received any support or resources at all you see the outright and brutal way he was rejected on account of his height in a flashback during the shiratorizawa match and you learn how he convinced himself over time that height makes right this manifests in the way he chooses his teams and also in the way he seems to initially lash out at hinata during the ball boy arc but there's always been the slightest inkling of who he really is deep down who he could have become if he'd been afforded the opportunity at the end of the shiratori's hour match he self-reflects asks saito if hinata is about the same height that he is and later down the line near the climax of the match against kamomedai you get the moment where his steely facade totally breaks down upon seeing hinata holding his own against the best blocking team in the country and he finally acknowledges and laments the past he longed for but couldn't ever have he talks about how he was convinced that if you didn't have height you had to find ways to fight without it but hinata is fighting with hype on the same stage as everyone else because he was given the chance to washi joe is representative of the lack of equity in every part of society how unfair treatment can lead to bitterness and his consequent perpetuation of the very same barriers that blocked his path this metaphor works both in the context of volleyball itself and the parallel disability allegory we've been running with this whole time there aren't really any villains or evildoers in haikyuu but washi joe up until this match is probably the easiest character to dislike he's cantankerous and inflexible but he's also evidently a product of systemic neglect the kind of systemic neglect that almost every disabled person encounters on the regular it kind of plays into what i said earlier about the importance of seeing hinata constantly failing seeing another kind of disability adjacent character this one a product of being undervalued and passed over someone who's had these negative feelings stew and simmer for over four decades is amazing because it's an accurate representation of the multiplicity of disabled life media often paints disabled people as one of three things inspirational pitiful or evil you'd never come across characters who represent ideas so close to disability like washi joe does who are bitter and irratible yet simultaneously relatable and empathetic that don't just end up being caricatures for example one of the links in the description that i mentioned when i first brought up inspiration porn is about how often villainous characters are given physical ailments in order to illustrate their wickedness it's lazy but commonplace that's not realistic representation and can genuinely be harmful but someone like washijo and what he symbolizes is a brilliant example of how to write a disadvantaged character realistically because not all disabled people are easy to categorize some can be acerbic and cruel but what haiku makes clear in how he reacts to hinata and hoshumi's battle is that the real antagonist here isn't washi joe at all but instead it's the inequity and unfairness of the environment that shaped him which is to blame it's really cool to see this idea finally proliferated throughout the mainstream moving on the last thing i want to talk about and thank you for sticking with me up to this point by the way is what happens near the end of this competition between hinata and hoshumi hinata's fever in the match against kamomodai felt almost uncomfortably real for me every chronically ill person understands the experience of having that overwhelming slump after feeling all right for a while and overdoing it because it isn't too often that you feel alright and you invariably end up taking yourself completely out of action hinata lets the momentum of this occasion override his common sense and he overdoes it out of his desperation to grasp at the success that's always seemed so far away and unattainable and puts the opportunity in front of him in a position of higher priority than his health my normal life is slightly less high stakes than it is for hinata at this moment but i do this all the time even though it makes you feel worse because when you get the moments in which you feel like you can actually do something in a life that is predominantly pain and restriction you're gonna take it ten times out of 10 despite the consequences and like high q shows you will feel the fallout it was really nice to see this idea represented in the story and especially from hinata's perspective where most of the allegory lies anyway and it was particularly lovely seeing how the story dealt with the aftermath of this both in the sense of hinata receiving unconditional support as well as he himself coming to understand his limitations more and figuring out how to look after himself better it's heartening to see that despite the depressingly relatable low point in the specific game it's only part of the whole journey and is not what ends up defining him okay if you skipped ahead to this point welcome back just a few more things to discuss before we start finishing up the video hinata's story is one of patience and resolve of passion and desire yet one in which he is held back by bodily limitations he never asked for and haiku tells the story of his successes and failures without ever resorting to banal platitudes despite being blessed with some natural talents his body does not allow him to make full use of them and he is surrounded by people who do not share in his struggle who despite their best intentions just do not and cannot understand hinata expresses this idea to kagayama in one of their first practice matches telling him that he's tall and doesn't understand what it's like it's painful loving something so much putting your heart and soul into it and being held back by a cruel twist of fate but what makes it so emotional when viewed in retrospect is that by the end hinata isn't held back anymore he's learned how to hone his skills into the sharpest weapons he can and find ways that he can battle using his hype not ways that he can battle in spite of it i mean the way the story is told even outside of any disability perspectives is really first class but it feels particularly special on a personal note seeing the realistic development of a character whose experience feels so parallel to your own and it's made even more special by the fact that the journey was so bumpy and brutal and unfair it's comforting and eye-opening to see the entire experience represented not just the highs or just the lows but instead an honest portrayal of what can be achieved against the odds off the back of countless failures and disadvantages again calling high q disability representation isn't strictly accurate i know that because i'm pretty confident that in creating it furidate had no intention of making haikyuu a story about disability but good disability representation in modern media is so rare so hard to find which is bizarre given that disability is not that uncommon although the scope of disability possibly plays a role there as to why disability representation often falls flat because there's no such thing as a catch-all for us disability is a gigantic spectrum and even within smaller subsections of that spectrum the variance can still be enormous speaking from experience and my own disease it's very likely that i am alone in my symptoms everyone with syringomyelia presents differently because of the nature of the condition the specific dimensions of the cysts in your spine causing different symptoms with varying severities it's impossible to represent all people with only my disease through one piece of media let alone the entire disabled community but that's why i think i ended up gravitating towards haikyuu so much what seemed to be the main drawback of finding disability representation because of the huge spectrum ended up being its biggest strength haikyuu feels like it was written with me in mind and me alone it isn't i know millions of people the world over love this as much as me but the feeling of experiencing a story which resonates with you so strongly especially when you've never had that before is genuinely indescribable and life-affirming after seeing so much of my own experience in hinata's journey and watching the way in which he truly comes into his own it genuinely made me feel a certain degree of hopefulness about my own life and that despite my own bodily limitations and the hurdles i face on a day-to-day basis that maybe there's something special i can offer that no one else really can i've always felt very isolated and alone in my disability but this is the first time i've ever really seen a parallel of myself and it makes me wonder if there's also some sort of way i can leverage my unique experiences to do something fulfilling perspective is hugely impactful if you're chronically ill and iq has helped me to harbor a degree of optimism i never really had before that i'm not just gonna be consigned to a life of near achievements brought down at the last minute by suffering out of my control i can't tell you how relieving and freeing it feels to be shown that one final thing i decided not to bring this up right until the end just for emphasis really but if there was any part of you that doubted the importance of representation of seeing yourself depicted think about the first few minutes of haiki the whole catalyst for this show boils down to the fact that hinata saw someone like him on tv someone succeeding in the most unlikely of arenas and that fleeting moment stuck with him forever it completely changed the course of his life haiku is a story that understands the power of representation the importance of being able to feel truly seen and acknowledged and the multitudinous ways in which that can occur the power of media cannot be overstated i mean it may sound hyperbolic to say but having the opportunity to experience haikyuu genuinely changed my life how i perceive the things around me and i can't express how refreshing it is after a life of feeling alone in my illness thanks to haikyuu i don't feel as alone anymore and anyway there we go that's us done i can't think of a way of ending this video well at all so that's gonna just have to do it was kind of challenging writing a video about such a personal matter considering that's not what any of my other videos are like and it's not something i have loads of experience doing but i really wanted to talk about haiku in some capacity and this seemed like the best way to do it i mean there's so much good stuff to say everything about haikyuu is just amazing but i've never seen anyone else discuss this angle on the story before so i really hope that it was easy to get where i was coming from and above all else that you enjoyed it if you did enjoy it please consider liking the video leaving a comment sharing it around all that stuff if you liked it enough to consider supporting the channel in another way please check out my patreon account in the link below and see if that tickles your fancy you can get benefits like being able to vote on future video topics shout outs and videos things like that speaking of i'd like to give a huge thank you to my top tier patrons cloud 3514 genetic gen conuna ryan teague and the greenhorn lowborn i really cannot express how grateful i am for your support what else is there you can find a link to my twitter in the description below if you want more frequent updates from me for whatever reason and i think that's about it thank you so much for watching and hopefully see you next time

Channel: Ludiscere

Views: 21,283

Keywords: ludiscere, ludi scere, xenoblade chronicles 2, ff series analysis, final fantasy series analysis, final fantasy series review, mythology behind hades, supergiant games, the mythology behind hades, xenoblade sexualisation, hades game, haikyuu, hinata, haikyuu!!, haikyu, haikyuu disability, furudate, haruichi furudate, volleyball, why i fell in love with haikyuu, shoyo hinata, hinata shoyo, korai hoshiumi, hoshimui korai, aleczandxr, hiding in public, harshreviews, harsh reviews, washijo

Id: qS6zbSx4uhU

Length: 28min 8sec (1688 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2022