Ritinal's Blog

Anime Relations: Haikyuu!!, Haikyuu!! Second Season, Haikyuu!! Karasuno Koukou vs. Shiratorizawa Gakuen Koukou, Haikyuu!! To the Top

I came upon this idea when I was rewatching Haikyuu and thought about the different agents in the story that are seen as “villains” to Hinata, the central character. I noticed that while other teams are definitely highlighted as antagonists with differing ideologies or just there for the purpose of winning, there is another big “antagonist” that isn’t really brought up but definitely plays a role in the STORY’s narrative. Tsukishima plays another important role as Hinata’s opposite and while the story doesn’t spend a lot of time showing them as rivals, they are pretty much everything but the title. Both the same position, finding how to get better, and even motivate and compete with each other in order to get better (season 2 had a lot of that). Neither really like to spend time together but like to spend time playing together if that means making each other better for the sake of the team.

The feeling of a rival can also be felt by the audience when Tsukishima does great things. Ever since his backstory was brought up and the confrontation between him and Yamaguchi, the audience has known of his desire to find his motivation. The culmination of that desire being season 3 epsiode 4, and really all of season 3. While Hinata does have his moments of greatness and spectacle, a lot of the highlighting is put on Tsukishima as a time to really show what he is made of. This can give him an air of “what I want but you don’t have” to Hinata and vice versa. Hinata the whole show has highlighted how much he wishes he was in Tsukishima’s shoes and that sometimes he feels like he has wasted his potential. It was a hidden rivalry that only really became one once both parties were able to see it for what it is.
From a more story structured perspective, I can’t name another show I’ve seen that has pulled off this idea of having truly multiple antagonists to the main character like this show. Other shows will acknowledge that a main character has a rival, and show them, but not truly let them shine or grow as characters to build that rivalry, just there for shits and giggles sometimes or to try to make the story more diverse that it really is.

I like to think of these moments in a story when the protagonist and an antagonist conflict as explosions in a story, it can really highlight key events in a character driven story and can do a good job of highlighting just how much growth has become of each party. Simpler shows that have singular main character and villains will have only a couple real conflict and while they might be good in their own right, only having those types of encounters can be stale and predictable if not done well. With multiple antagonists in the example of say a villain and rival, there are triple the possible conflicts that can arise from the story, making those key events very different and unexpected (MC vs Rival, Rival vs Villain, and Villain vs MC). Have you ever seen a story that has lots of characters and suddenly two characters that don’t appear together often finally meet, it can sometimes be very interesting because you might not have ever considered what might happen when it does. It does a good job of keeping the audience off their toes.

Are there any more examples of this type of story with multiple involved pieces done well? I would like to know!

Anime Relations: Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen 2nd Season

I finally felt in the mood to catch up with the 5 episodes that are out for season 2 of Ascendance of a Bookworm and so far have been loving it. Even though the only thing about the show that is above average is the writing, I still find myself pulled into loving the plot and the characters involved. If I had to rate everything about this show, Visuals would get a 4, Voice acting would get an 8, and plot would get a 10. This story excels at knowing exactly what it is and not trying to be something else. It’s a deceivingly simple story, but the writers and anime directors have structured it in a way so that the story is introduced as a simple isekai but quickly has evolved into a political fantasy chess match with the Main at the center.

The first season did a really good job at establishing the world and the key roles of the poorer part of society, while also introducing the main conflict of Main’s illness. It didn’t throw the world building in your face and force you to accept it. It showed you the world and how it works slowly through all the different characters. The dad and all the things that deal with the military, the mom and how getting a profession in the world works, the kids in seeing how they go through childhood working and eventually choosing professions. The way they were able to world build so well boiled down to how Main interacted with her net of people and how they reflected back onto her.

Season 2 has repeated a lot of what season 1 had, good world building with how the religion works more internally instead of what they show people, the inner workings of how more noble people in society look upon the class structure the city is built around, and the religion itself, since that has directly shaped the new characters that are introduced.

The only thing that tripped me up was in episode 18 (Ep5 for second season) was the High Priest's secret room. This room is the same room that was in the beginning of episode 1. When I watched it originally for the first time, I thought that was her in her former life and she was being transported to this new world. I didn't realize that the main character looked the same before and after that point for some reason.....After going back to rewatch that scene I see that the story up until that scene is going to have been a recap of the Priest seeing her memories. I can't wait to see what they'll do when they get to that moment because it should be a huge point, the Priest then knowing everything about Main.

Can't wait to see!