Haikyuu!!
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.
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
How It Spread
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.