Karasuno High volleyball team members from Haikyuu!! posed together in navy and orange uniforms on an orange background

Haikyuu!!

2012anime / manga fandomclassic

Published August 27, 2026

Haikyuu!! is a sports shonen manga and anime about a short high schooler chasing volleyball greatness, created by Haruichi Furudate in 2012. What started as a Weekly Shonen Jump serial grew into one of the most quoted, gif-farmed, and joke-riddled anime fandoms of the late 2010s, spawning inside-joke phrases and volleyball-convert memes that spilled far beyond the anime crowd.

anime manga fandom shipping memes tumblr memes catchphrase memes sports memes

Overview

Haikyuu!! follows Hinata Shoyo, a short but hyperactive first-year at Karasuno High School who wants to be a volleyball ace despite being shorter than almost everyone he plays against1. The series pairs him with a prickly setter, Tobio Kageyama, and turns their fights, tosses, and rivalries into the backbone of a long-running sports story published under license in North America by Viz Media2.

As a meme object, Haikyuu!! is less a single joke than a giant grab-bag of in-fandom quotes and character bits: Bokuto's owl-like "oya oya oya", Kageyama snapping "boke Hinata boke", Oikawa's milk-bread obsession, and endless riffs about the Nekoma cats, Fukurodani owls, and "you should've come to Shiratorizawa"3. Fans on Tumblr and Twitter turn nearly every match beat into gifs, ship art, and reaction shots, which is why the series is often described as one of the most "memeable" anime running3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Weekly Shonen Jump (manga) / Tumblr and Reddit (fandom spread)
Creator
Haruichi Furudate
Date
2012

Haikyuu!! was written and illustrated by Haruichi Furudate and first appeared as a one-shot in Shueisha's Jump NEXT! before being picked up for serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump, where the first chapter ran on February 20th, 20123. The story is set at Karasuno High, a once-famous volleyball school trying to claw its way back to nationals1.

Production I.G. adapted the manga into an anime that premiered in April 2014 and went on to produce multiple further seasons, with the fourth season airing its second cour in October 20203. The English-language manga has been published by Viz Media, which handles the North American release of the Weekly Shonen Jump title2.

How It Spread

The anime hit strong review numbers early, sitting at 8.68 on MyAnimeList and 8.6 on IMDb, while the manga cracked the top five in Japanese manga and light novel sales in 201414. That commercial success fed a very online fandom: the r/haikyuu subreddit was created in September 2013 and grew past 126,000 followers, while Tumblr became a hub for gifsets, fan art, and shipping culture around the Karasuno, Nekoma, and Aoba Johsai squads53.

Haikyuu!! is also credited by fans with turning anime viewers into actual volleyball watchers. YouTube channels like Power Volleyball attached highlight reels of real matches to the series, and jokes about suddenly caring about rotations and receives became a running fandom bit3. On December 27th, 2016, voice actor and comedian ProZD posted a sketch parodying how obsessive people get about volleyball after finishing Haikyuu!!; the video passed 3 million views and became one of the go-to references outside the core anime community6.

Beyond the screen, the property expanded into radio dramas and stage-play adaptations in Japan, keeping the Karasuno cast in circulation well past any single anime season1.

How to Use This Meme

Haikyuu!! memes typically pull from specific character quirks rather than a fixed image template. Common conventions include captioning volleyball or workplace clips with Bokuto's "oya oya oya", using Kageyama's "boke Hinata boke" as a stand-in for calling someone a lovable idiot, or slapping "you should've come to Shiratorizawa" on any regret-about-a-choice post. Ship art and gifsets of iconic plays, especially Hinata and Kageyama's quick attack, still circulate on Tumblr and Twitter.

Frequently Asked Questions