Some kinda random musings on Oikawa’s path, or why him changing his citizenship fits his character and makes me admire him even more.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first, seeing mild discourse on the topic, so I ended up thinking about it a lot, and I just wanna share whatever that resulted in. Still, bear in mind that it’s nothing but my own interpretation.

One of the things that came to me were Oikawa’s words about letting your talent bloom, and how it might happen tomorrow, when you’re 30, or maybe even never. That, in turn, reminded me of Furudate’s words: “I don’t know if I have talent, so I draw to find out.”

There’s quite a few parallels that can be drawn from what we know about Furudate and Oikawa, and I feel like essentially, “looking for a chance to make his talent bloom (to see if he has it)” is one of the things Oikawa is relentlessly doing.

We also had him say that following Blanco was his initial plan, Argentina was unexpected but even welcome to an extent, because it actually gave him a chance to get to his goal quicker (also, remember the stab from the Olympic commentators, we’ll come back to it).

Another parallel with Furudate is the concept of fun — Furudate noted that drawing the manga was only 10% fun, and we see this concept of striving for those rare moments of joy wonderfully illustrated during Oikawa’s and Hinata’s meeting in Brazil.

As much as winning matters, as much as he wants to crush his opponents, it’s the fun that draws Oikawa back every time volleyball gets too rough. Fun is the main reason he can’t give up the sport.

And now we move onto the most sensitive part — potential complications. I’ve seen many people go, “But shouldn’t he have proven that he can do it by making it to his own national team? Isn’t that basically him running away?”.

That is the point. Knowing Oikawa, he would, at least to some extent, feel like that, and, what might be worse, once his name gets out there, people would also think that, and you might be underestimating how terrifying that can be, ESPECIALLY if he does well at the Olympics.

I’m no expert on the volleyball fans, but we had a story in the Russian figure skating fandom where a famous skater simply switched coaches and moved abroad to train (KEPT her citizenship), and she was literally mixed with dirt by “fans”, called a traitor etc.

While Oikawa likely wouldn’t have it so bad, still, changing your citizenship is a scary, brave move which I think can be explained by Oikawa’s unadulterated love for the sport that he wants to keep playing no matter what, along with his greed, or hunger.

So no, it couldn't have been a simple “oh well Japan already has Atsumu and Tobio, might as well go to another country”. Which brings me to another point — being realistic and practical, and also having common sense ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I actually saw someone say, “I felt like Oikawa wouldn’t go pro because he seemed like someone who could accept his limitations.” First of all, lol no, but then again, there is still ~something~ to those words.

Remember the jab from the Olympic commentators about Oikawa not making it to Nationals? Of course there’s Kageyama and Atsumu being top-tier setters, but Japan was possibly not making it easier with that attitude.

Another real-life example — a South-Korean short track athlete, Viktor Ahn, pretty much abandoned by his own federation (despite already having won Olympic medals) and later offered a Russian citizenship, winning in Sochi after that.

While Oikawa’s situation was certainly not as dire, with him not having made it to Nationals and having Kageyama and Atsumu up and coming, it’s entirely possible the Japanese federation simply didn’t see many reasons to bother.

Finally, if offered a chance to a) play in his idol’s team, b) play in a team ranking HIGHER than Japan's 𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙤, c) beat the shit out of everyone he wanted to OFFICIALLY, like he wanted to do with Tobio back in high school, why the hell he should even pass up on it?

I was just looking for frames, but also this? “Another challenger”, “he’s exactly the kind of guy to do something crazy like that”, ringing a bell, no?

(Also, idk if things work in the same way, but he might’ve been offered a citizenship directly by the government (like Ahn, whose order was signed by the president), which makes the entire process easier and faster.)

All things considered, the “worthless pride” narrative feels almost ironic, because imo, while it might seem so to some, changing your citizenship to keep doing what you love best at the highest level, despite what others OR you might think, is far from worthless or petty.

i'm sorry cause this is kinda random and not well organized, my brain has been literally haikyuu brain rot for a few days now and it's hard getting my shit back together OTL