I’m skipping the intro today because, to be frank, I’m done with Volley-Bu. Not in that I am going to stop covering it, I’m riding this train to the end. But I’m done playing nice and expecting it to change because this episode pissed me off. Up until now Volley-Bu has just been lazy with its writing. Speeding through content, cutting corners, not properly setting things up, etc. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t actively terrible, just mediocre. But this week Volley-Bu has undercut one of its core emotional plot threads in the stupidest way possible. I said in the initial impressions post that exploring suicide and bullying was a brave, tough choice. And that if it could pull it off then Haijima would have a great story worth watching. Turns out though, the suicide was fake.
If you are past the line then you are ready for a rant: That’s right, Volley-Bu faked the suicide attempt. I don’t care about the why, I don’t care about what that means for the greater story, I care for what that does to Haijima and Sota as a character. For Haijima it completely undercuts everything we have learned about him from episode one. It destroys the entire narrative of him pushing his team to far. Of expecting to much, of his arrogance. He still has it of course. But now he looks like a victim instead of someone who must learn to curb their attitude. Who must learn to grow. And this isn’t even mentioning the how this effects the perception of bullying as a whole. Oh the bullied kid was “lying” he just wanted to get out of something, or some other bullshit.
Speaking of Sota, fuck him to. He was a sympathetic character before, someone pushed to far by an overly demanding teammate. Someone who wanted something different out of the sport. Who was told his way of playing volleyball wasn’t good enough. And what is he now? The kid who didn’t have the balls to quit middle school volleyball, so he faked a suicide attempt. And everyone else on the team just went along with it. They not only lied about a serious matter, they not only ruined Haijima’s reputation in school and the area, but they scared Haijima possibly for life had he not returned to learn the truth. In what world is this a compelling narrative? In what world is this a good way to handle a bullying plot thread? I’ll tell you: No world. Volley-Bu fucked up here and ruined what little it had left.
None of this is even mentioning Yuni either, who once again is introduced with a problem and has it solved for him in the same episode. All without him lifting a finger. The episode opens with him in trouble, his team apparently suspended from volleyball, because they think 1 member got into a fight. Ridiculous but fine, its Japan, ill buy it for now. But instead of coming clean about his cousin hitting him, or giving any other reason; instead of getting evidence or solving the problem and coming clean on his own what happens? He goes on a day trip and someone else solves his problem for him. Why even have this plot thread? How does this relate to the faked suicide at all? It’s just filler bullshit to give Yuni an excuse to go to Tokyo, with absolutely 0 impact on his character. Its an artificial problem.
And really that’s what Volley-Bu is. Artificial problems. What few characters were interesting have had all their meaningful problems solved, replaced by artificial bullshit. Haijima no longer has the guilt of driving someone to suicide. Yuni no longer has the anxiety of being inferior in volleyball. The cousin is no longer a disapproving prick causing conflicting allegiances in Yuni. Now its just made up drama bullshit for the sake of faking that this is a serious drama. The long and short of it is that I am done with Volley-Bu. I’m going to watch it, I’m going to review it. But my expectations are no 0. I expect nothing from it because it has proven to me it has nothing. Fuck this show, go watch Haikyu.
In all honesty, I could never buy the concept of faking one’s suicide to begin with. I mean, how would you even be able to pull that off? I mean, there have been cases of people faking their own deaths, mostly to get away from certain situations, and those have happened IRL. But faking one’s own suicide? Have you seen that old movie called Harold & Maude? I had to watch that for a college class and I hated it because it made no sense and I had a hard time buying that one kid could survive the kind of fake suicides he staged. I mean, I haven’t seen this anime, nor did I ever intend to, but your post confirmed I made the right decision to avoid it. Then again, I’m not into sports anime to begin with.
This is the back-pedalling I already ranted a lot about in posts about like 100 other anime before.
Anime have this imo terrible tendency of clearing its MCs of all fault, especially after hinting on their crimes. You know the likeable character that reveals they have actually killed someone.. only to be completely innocent after all, as revealed five episodes later.
In the end such reveals just undo the development and potential a character might have gotten by chickening out due to fear of starring flawed characters. Complex conflicts tend to intrigue the audience too, so some people might feel betrayed watching a show for the conflict and to see the character learning to deal with it, only to learn that there was never a conflict to begin with.
I liked the first episode here because it seemed to have this potential. I could understand Haijima and his wish for the team to become better. But I also understood the others, and the reaction his anger has caused to those who are simply not as good as him. Now his actions have no consequences anymore and there is no real conflict. Plus, as you said, it makes the victim look like the criminal here.
Agreed, anime certainly has a problem with letting its characters have complex histories that might make them even a little unlikable or flawed.
Also agreed on the first episode. I knew 2.43 was never competing with Haikyu on production, but it could easily have done its own thing with the darker focus on Haijima. Sadly this week it just… erased all of that.