Haikyu!! (ハイキュー!!)

Bring it!

Ushiwaka's amazing...

I'm excited.

All right, here we go!

Well hello, left.

Haikyu!!

Karasuno High School vs Shiratorizawa Academy

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Nice kill, Ushijima!

Be Courageous Warriors

Episode 02: The Threat of the "Left"

Ushijima! Ushijima!

Nishinoya-kun...

Don't mind! Next, next!

Yeah.

Don't mind!

Next, next!

Nice serve!

Out!

Yes!

Sorry!

Nice serve, Taichi!

Kawanishi, one more! Nice serve!

Got it!

Tanaka-san!

Sorry!

My bad.

Don't mind!

Are they nervous after all?

Their movements are stiff...

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Damn it.

We need to hurry up and regroup or it'll be too late...

Calm down!

There's no time to self-destruct!

U-Um...

What the hell are you so nervous about?! The TV crews?

Quit messing around!

Got it! We got it, Suga, so calm down!

Suga-san's scary...

I'm so sorry!

Someone gets far more agitated than the players and it helps calm them down...

I don't care what the circumstance is.

I just need them to score once and build momentum.

Crap... He totally glared at me...

Nice serve! One more!

Got it!

Yes! It went up nicely!

Go!

Nice receive!

Wakatoshi!

All right!

Don't mind! Next, next!

Ushijima!

Ushijima! Ushijima!

Give me three.

I promise I'll get used to it.

Huh? I thought something was weird!

One more!

Their #1 is left-handed?

So that's why he approaches from the right.

Ryu always goes in from the left.

Yeah.

Man... talk about a chosen ace.

Opposite

Setter

Ushiwaka's position is called “opposite,”

and they're diagonal from the setter.

On Karasuno's side, it's where Sawamura is.

Depending on how the player in that position plays,

the way the whole team plays changes.

One pattern is to have a player like Sawamura there,

Got it!

All right!

Nice, Daichi-san!

who's a player that's skilled all-around, and good at defense.

Left!

That's pretty common on high school teams.

The other pattern is to have a cannon like Ushiwaka there.

Nice receive!

They don't serve or receive,

and are always prepared to attack,

from either the front or back line.

A while back,

they were called super aces.

Nice kill, Ushijima!

Ushijima! Ushijima!

I get that Ushiwaka guy is super tall and super strong,

but does the fact that he's left-handed make him that—

Bring it!

All right!

All right!

All right!

Tanaka, nice kill!

Go, go, Karasuno! Push it, push it, Karasuno!

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Go, go, Karasuno! Push it, push it, Karasuno!

We finally got a point in...

Way to go, Ryu!

So, what's so special about the lefty?

Since they go up against people who are right-handed way more often,

playing against someone who's left-handed is unbelievably difficult.

For example, when a single blocker goes up,

they jump up facing their opponent's dominant hand.

Which means they're about a shoulder's width away.

So unless the attack is a very simple one,

Asahi-san, nice serve!

the showdown is over in a moment.

If they jump up in a way their body is used to...

Time difference...

...they'll end up missing, no matter what.

Nice kill, Ushijima!

What the hell are they doing?

Karasuno's blocks are full of holes!

Ushijima! Ushijima!

It's not just the fact that he's left-handed that makes him strong.

Not only is he left-handed, but his strength is also top-tier.

Wakatoshi-kun, nice kill! I see you're as sharp as ever.

Yeah.

That's what Ushiwaka is.

So they already scored four straight points because of Ushijima-kun.

Yeah.

Their setter seems to have solid hands,

Rotate! Rotate!

Right!

and I'm sure he'd like to get some in from the get-go.

Japanese National High School Volleyball Tournament

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Huh? What's that buzzer for?

Oh, this is a technical time out.

Shiratorizawa!

What's that?

Shiratorizawa!

It's a time-out that only happens during five-set matches,

when one of the teams hits 8 or 16 points...

Shiratorizawa!

Apparently.

Shiratorizawa!

Huh...

Blocking all comes down to timing!

Shiratorizawa!

If they get through the top, it'll be difficult to prepare to receive, as well.

Shiratorizawa!

You need to touch the ball, even if you can't stop it!

Shiratorizawa!

Make Ushijima feel that there's a wall.

Shiratorizawa!

Right!

Japanese National High School Volleyball Tournament

Fly

Be Courageous Warriors

One touch!

Damn it!

Wow...

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Ushijima!

Ushiwaka's unstoppable.

Ushijima! Ushijima!

Don't mind! Get the next one!

That's it! Just keep that up!

Keep letting him know that there's a wall there.

Then a path will open up!

Shiratorizawa has Ushiwaka.

Then...

Karasuno has me.

Right.

Stopping all of Ushijima's attacks,

or even picking them all up, is impossible.

But...

Ushijima Block Nishinoya

All you've got to do is make those impossible spikes possible.

Hm?

Total defense.

Ushijima

Block

Nishinoya

Ushijima's really good at angle shots, as we've seen in past games,

so we're going to tighten up our block on those,

and place Nishinoya where the now opened straight path would be.

We're going to set it up so he's hitting to our libero.

Nice timing!

Be Courageous Warriors

Nice kill, Ushijima!

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Ushijima! Ushijima!

If Yu can't pick those up, he's going to be impossible to handle.

I think it's because of the spin.

Hm?

Spiking left-handed means

the ball will spin differently than spiking right-handed.

Volleyball is a sport where you can't hold the ball,

and the space to capture it is extremely narrow.

So the moment you capture the ball,

if the way it hits your hands is even a tiny bit off,

it causes a huge deviation.

Chance ball!

Damn it! I'm sorry!

Our timing was too fast...

Shiratorizawa Karasuno

Nice kill, Ushijima!