The fourth season of the hit Weekly Shonen Jump volleyball anime adaptation Haikyuu!! is just around the corner at the early start of the new year. As such, fans (at least those that were not already familiar with the manga series that has been serialized since February 20, 2012) have gotten to be invested and learn about many of the characters on display throughout these first three seasons fairly deeply.
They know their biggest motivators, assets in terms of volleyball and what they bring to their respective teams, and, of course, their weaknesses. Because, ultimately, that is the beauty of this series. It's about a group of young, imperfect people making their way through their lives and driving their passion for the sport forward. While speaking of strengths and weaknesses, let's dive into Shoyo Hinata's five biggest strengths and weaknesses.
10 Strength: His Incredible Stamina
As expected with athletes of most sports, one has to have great stamina. However, Shoyo Hinata, Haikyuu!!'s main protagonist, does not simply just have the minimum amount of stamina required to play sports in general, let alone volleyball. Shoyo has arguably the best rate of stamina on Karasuno High School's volleyball team.
Part of what helps build his stamina and maintain himself as the player with the most stamina on the team is the fact that he commutes to school on daily basis just riding his bike and not to mention regular exercises during volleyball practice.
9 Weakness: An Overall Lack Of Experience
This is something that can obviously be fixed with more time, but it is definitely a weakness of his at the moment. Being one of the younger members of the Karasuno High School volleyball team means that he has less experience than his seniors, namely the third-year students Daichi, Sugawara, and Asahi.
Shoyo does not even have as much experience as his same-year teammate Tobio Kageyama who has been playing since elementary school. But, again, while having that exposure and early experience like his peers would have bolstered his talents to explosive levels, this is something that he can gain with more time. This isn't an easy fix, of course, but the only fix nonetheless.
8 Strength: His Jumping Ability
Shoyo Hinata's source of power when it comes to his jumping ability is similar, if not then it is the same, to his source of great stamina. All that peddling on his bike and regular exercise in and out of volleyball practice must have something to do with it.
This is without a doubt one of his greatest assets to his volleyball game and arguably the biggest compensation for his short stature (more on that later). Combined with great speed--which stems from his stamina to an extent--he can control how high he jumps with his run-ups before the jump. In addition, thanks to his great mobility and control over his body he can jump diagonally to help to get out of the way of blockers.
7 Weakness: Overly Dependent On Kageyama To Shine
Another fault in Shoyo Hinata's overall volleyball prowess is the fact that a lot (some could argue too much) of his game largely depends on Kageyama playing at his best or at least close to it. While, of course, volleyball is a team sport and everyone should be complementing each other's talents, there is a certain degree of individuality, just like in every sport.
Each person is their own person with their own skill sets to bring to the team and, therefore, Shoyo needs to be able to play at or close to his best with or without Kageyama there.
6 Strength: Kageyama Shows What His Potential Is
On the flip side of the last point made, Kageyama and his strengths are also (partly) Shoyo's strengths. While it is certainly true that you can't fully depend on one other person for someone, in this case, Shoyo, to play at their best, there is nothing wrong with having someone in a team sport to help show to yourself and others how strong you can truly be.
That is exactly what happens what Shoyo and Kageyama are capable of doing for each other when they play at the same time. Thanks to Kageyama's tosses and controlling of the offensive plays, Shoyo can show to everyone how far his potential can take him once he learns to have a little more individuality in technical ability.
5 Weakness: Lack Of Technical Ability
Tying into the earlier entry on his general lack of experience compared to his older teammates and Kageyama as well is his overall lack of technical ability. This weakness is also a culmination of his lack of experience, a high amount of dependence on Kageyama to be near or at his best, and even how his potential begins to show when he is playing with Kageyama.
While, as the series goes on, Shoyo definitely learns a few more techniques and tricks to implement into his regular volleyball play style in actual competitive games, it still is not as much compared to other players on Karasuno's team (namely the third-years) and of course all over the prefecture and Japan in general. However, like the lack of experience, this can be solved with more time training.
4 Strength: A Constant Drive And Passion To Be Better
Like with any activity, sports included, each individual person must have a drive, hunger, passion or any combination of those things and more to be able to play and participate at a high level. Especially if this sport is the cornerstone of these characters' lives, which it is. And for Shoyo Hinata, this is no exception.
He lives, breathes, and eats volleyball and that drive to play and be better and be the next "Little Giant" for Karasuno High School is an exceptionally strong foundation for being an overall better player and keep up the pace with his peers. He will definitely need to keep this up if he wants to develop an identity as a player separate from Kageyama.
3 Weakness: His Small Stature
Out of all the weaknesses Shoyo Hinata has in terms of volleyball on and off this list, this one is definitely one of the most glaring. Unfortunately, there is nothing he can do about this one and can blame nothing but his genes. Volleyball is a sport in which height is a deciding factor depending on the position you play, much like other sports.
Shoyo is noticeably shorter than the average player on his team but is surprisingly not the shortest. Nishinoya is actually shorter than Shoyo, but thanks to his position it does not matter as he plays libero (a purely defensive position). Thankfully, Shoyo's other assets make up for this.
2 Strength: Shoyo And Kageyama's "Quicks"
For sure one of the most prominent strengths of both Shoyo Hinata and Tobio Kageyama is their use of "quick" offensive plays. This attacking play, and the several variations of which that they both learn, is a big part of the offense on Karasuno and, of course, what makes both Kageyama and Shoyo shine on the team in games. This is also important to Shoyo's crucial role as the "ultimate decoy" which lets him, and those around him, play best.
When they first discover how to do this, Shoyo has to do it with his eyes closed, trusting Kageyama will toss it to the exact point of impact but, with time, Shoyo gets more skilled and knows when to strike without--literal--blind faith.
1 Weakness: The "Decoy" Role Can Be Read By Skilled Opponents
As mentioned, Shoyo Hinata's most important role on the team is that of the "ultimate decoy." At first, this didn't seem very flashy to Shoyo. However, with regular use, it shows Shoyo how important it is to the team and actually gives him many opportunities to spike the ball and score points.
It is a very important role for both Shoyo and the team and they consistently use it in games. However, it is certainly not perfect. As we've seen in the climactic match against Aobajohsai, it can be read by skilled players like Oikawa.