Haikyuu!! is in the air at the Olympic volleyball competitions

polygon.com:

The Paris Olympics has a gymnast with Nintendo tattoos and a runner who brings Yu-Gi-Oh cards to the track. So it’s no surprise that the volleyball tournaments have been chock full ofHaikyuu!! fans. What is a surprise is just how much that love extends: it’s the audience members, the players, and also whoever is in charge of playing the music on court.

And that totally makes sense. After all, Haikyuu!!! is one of the best sports anime of all time. It follows an underdog boys’ volleyball team, centering particularly on Hinata Shoyo, who loves the sport so much that he doesn’t let his short stature stop him from being one of the best players out there.

In the manga, Hinata and Kageyama (along with some other familiar faces that they’ve gone up against in their high school career) do end up joining the Japan Men’s National Volleyball team for the 2020 Olympics. And one of their biggest rivals, Tōru Oikawa, ends up moving to Argentina and playing for the national team during that same Olympics.

So having Argentina and Japan go up against each other was a surreal moment for fans of the series — made even more surreal when some of the Haikyuu!! themes were played. Multiple times!

so they played haikyuu op.....for the japan vs argentina game… pic.twitter.com/mFWJf7GiwE

A post shared by Mel (@tacomels)

Yes, these teams do play head-to-head all the time, but at least two people working at the Olympics are clearly anime fans who are fully indulging in the moment.

what do you MEAN the official olympics account referenced haikyuu pic.twitter.com/r7URq4V40V

Audience members are also showing up in cosplay, holding up banners from the in-show teams, and bringing around their little Haikyuu!!! plushies.

OMG ES VERDAD
OIKAWA Y KAGEYAMA EN EL PARTIDO https://t.co/Leu5N1u3sE pic.twitter.com/TNulwB1rm0

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