very shitty analysis of the dynamics between captain/boyfriend, captain/vice-captain, and captain/setter/ace in haikyuu!!
this may be completely useless information, but when I was in the shower my jet-lagged brain was thinking about the captains squad, and then the setters squad, and I then realized that the setters from the six main schools in the series (karasuno, aoba johsai, shiratorizawa, nekoma, fukuroudani, inarizaki) do not perfectly match up with their captains. and then i thought about it some more, and then i thought about the fact that the teams that i see the most often in fandom are always the six previously mentioned schools. and then i thought about why that was. and then i decided to write this very long post.
what I mean by 'the setters do not perfectly match up with their captains' is that the captains from each team (daichi, oikawa, ushijima, kuroo, bokuto, kita) are all normally paired up with someone in fandom, often romantically (suga, iwaizumi, tendou, kenma, akaashi, aran). but out of those latter six (which I have dubbed the boyfriend squad), only three are setters, and the other three are spikers or a middle blocker (iwaizumi, aran and tendou, respectively). the setter for aoba johsai is oikawa (who is also a captain), the setter for shiratorizawa is shirabu, and the setter for inarizaki is atsumu.
I then started thinking about the dichotomy (or I guess trichotomy?? technically speaking???) between the trio of captain, setter, and ace. I am decidedly very much not an expert on volleyball, given that my only exposure to the sport is through this very dramatized anime that probably glosses over a lot of things, but generally, the most important members of any volleyball team are shown to be the setter (the person who directs the ball to the spikers), the ace (the person that scores the most points), and the captain (the person that keeps their teammates, including the setter and ace, in line). now when we look at the captains squad, the setters squad, the aces squad, and the boyfriends squad, we can start drawing some comparisons between the teams that will probably make no sense to anyone but me.
karasuno has daichi as captain, suga as setter, and asahi as ace. daichi and suga are most frequently paired together, making suga part of the boyfriends squad, while asahi is paired up with nishinoya.
aoba johsai has oikawa as captain and setter, and iwaizumi as ace. oikawa and iwaizumi are most frequently paired together, making iwaizumi part of the boyfriends squad.
shiratorizawa has ushijima as captain and ace, and shirabu as setter. however, ushijima and shirabu are not frequently paired together. instead, ushijima is most frequently paired up with tendou, who is a middle blocker, and shirabu is most frequently paired up with semi, who is a setter/pinch server. this makes tendou part of the boyfriends squad, and shirabu and semi mildly irrelevant.
nekoma has kuroo as captain, kenma as setter, and tora as ace. kuroo and kenma are most frequently paired together, making kenma part of the boyfriends squad, while Tora is paired up with fukunaga.
fukuroudani has bokuto as captain and ace, and akaashi as setter. bokuto and akaashi are most frequently paired together, making akaashi part of the boyfriends squad.
inarizaki has kita as captain, atsumu as setter, and aran as ace. kita and aran are most frequently paired together, making aran part of the boyfriends squad, while atsumu is paired up with sakusa.
now that we have all of this useless data compiled, we can see that:
only aoba johsai and fukuroudani have their roles of captain/setter/ace condensed into two people, with the former mashing together captain and setter and the latter mashing together captain and ace.
shiratorizawa also mashes together captain and ace, but the setter and the boyfriend are not one in the same. I suppose this just means that ushijima gets bitches.
karasuno, nekoma, and inarizaki split up the roles of captain/setter/ace between three people. with karasuno and nekoma, the setter is part of the boyfriends squad. with inarizaki, the ace is part of the boyfriends squad.
this gets more interesting when we take into account the role vice-captains play. vice-captains work alongside the captains, and assist them the maintaining their team. I'll list out the members of the vice-captains squad and note if they cross over with any of the previously mentioned squads.
karasuno: suga is part of the vice-captains squad, setters squad, and boyfriends squad.
aoba johsai: iwaizumi is part of the vice-captains squad, aces squad, and boyfriends squad.
shiratorizawa: oohira and soekawa are part of the vice-captains squad.
nekoma: kai is part of the vice-captains squad.
fukuroudani: akaashi is part of the vice-captains squad and setters squad.
inarizaki: aran is not vice-captain, he is on-court captain when kita is benched, but I'm still counting him as part of the vice-captains squad and aces squad.
the other teams do not have a vice-captain listed.
there are 2 vice-captains that are both part of the boyfriends squad and the setters squad (suga and akaashi) and 2 vice-captains that are part of the boyfriends squad and the aces squad (iwaizumi and aran). based on this information, we can conclude that captains being romantically paired up with their vice-captains is a common occurrence within the six main teams seen in haikyuu, with four out of six teams having a captain paired with their vice-captain.
additionally, i believe that the factor of a team just having a vice-captain is also what makes a team popular in fanon—although i must say that inarizaki's popularity is more because of atsumu, osamu, and suna, not because of kita and aran. if a team has a determined vice-captain, whether that vice-captain is relevant to the shipping or not, the team will have a more varied lineup of teammates as a result, and therefore, more likeability among fandom.
looking at the other minor teams in haikyuu, we can see that:
dateko has moniwa as captain and setter, with captaincy later being transferred to futakuchi as captain and ace. koganegawa later becomes setter. I guess this makes aone a member of the boyfriends squad? technically? this is the only team where captaincy is seen being transferred during the events of the series.
johzenji has terushima as captain and some guy named futamata as setter. there is no ace listed on the haikyuu wiki. there is no boyfriend, once again affirming that terushima gets no bitches.
nohebi has daishou as captain, sakishima as setter, and numai as ace. the latter two I have never heard of in my life. daishou is the only person actually canonically dating someone, making mika part of the boyfriends squad. I am one hundred percent down for this.
inarizaki has kita as captain, atsumu as setter, and aran as ace. kita and aran are frequently paired up together, making aran part of the boyfriends squad, and making inarizaki the only team where the roles of captain/setter/ace are evenly split among three people and where the ace is also part of the boyfriends squad.
itachiyama has iizuna as captain and setter, with sakusa as ace. iizuna is mildly irrelevant, while sakusa is most frequently paired up with atsumu, who is not even on his high school team.
kamomedai has suwa as captain and setter, with hoshiumi as ace. I had never heard of suwa before making this post (I also haven't finished the manga yet), so I would also say that suwa is also mildly irrelevant. hoshiumi is most frequently paired up with hirugami.
mujinazaka has kiryuu as captain and ace, with usuri as setter. given how the most popular ship involving kiryuu is kiryuu/usuri (with 20 works on ao3), I guess this makes usuri part of the boyfriends squad?
wasn't able to find a better place to mention this, but I also wanted to point out how varied (???) shiratorizawa's team is. the captain and ace are one person, but the setter is one person, the vice-captaincy is shared between two people, and the boyfriend is one person. this contrasts the other five main teams, where the four roles of captain, vice-captain, setter, and ace are relegated to either two or three people. I wouldn't put it past furudate-sensei to make this an intentional difference, as shiratorizawa is meant to be a team made up of a lot of players that are meant to be very individual, and not very functional as a cohesive team.
and now for statistics, because we all love statistics:
number of captains that are setters: 4 (oikawa, moniwa, iizuna, suwa), ~30.77% of all captains
number of captains that are aces: 4 (bokuto, ushijima, futakuchi, kiryuu), ~30.77% of all captains
number of captains that are neither: 5 (kuroo, daichi, terushima, daishou, kita), ~38.46% of all captains
number of boyfriends that are setters: 4 (akaashi, suga, kenma, usuri), ~44.44% of all boyfriends
number of boyfriends that are aces: 2 (iwaizumi, aran), ~22.22% of all boyfriends
number of boyfriends that are neither: 3 (aone, tendou, miwa), ~33.33% of all boyfriends
number of vice-captains that are setters: 2 (suga, akaashi), ~28.57% of all vice-captains
number of vice-captains that are aces: 2 (iwaizumi, aran), ~28.57% of all vice captains
number of vice-captains that are neither: 3 (oohira, soekawa, kai), ~42.86% of all vice captains
number of ace/setter pairings: 3 (iwaizumi/oikawa, bokuto/akaashi, kiryuu/usuri), ~33.33% of all pairings. this one surprised me—I was under the impression that ace/setter was a much more common trope in haikyuu, but I guess not. I think that's because of how prevalent kagehina is as a ship, but I didn't count it because high school hinata is not yet an ace in haikyuu's events.
so. uh. what did we learn from this? honestly, I have no fucking idea. I guess the takeaway from all this yapping is that furudate-sensei is very good at structuring different teams and different dynamics between captain/boyfriend and setter/ace? no idea. maybe this will be helpful to someone? maybe?
anyway, one final thing (which is the thing that I've been building up to say this entire post). karasuno is the only school where the captain/setter/ace trio is regularly and frequently depicted as a trio: daichi, suga, and asahi. this might be because karasuno is the team we're supposed to be rooting for since the beginning, but karasuno also has the only captain/setter/ace trio where all three members are of the same grade and where all three members are friends outside of volleyball. henceforth, I consider daichi, suga, and asahi as the golden trio for captain/setter/ace.
(we are ignoring the fact that nohebi's captain/setter/ace trio are all apparently third years. I do not care about nohebi enough to care).
anyway to solidify my point that daichi, suga, and asahi are the golden trio for captain/setter/ace, did you guys know that their jersey numbers literally correspond to the three touches of volleyball: daichi's #1 corresponds to a receive, suga's #2 corresponds to a set, and asahi's #3 corresponds to a spike. truly the best friends ever. okay great post i'm gonna go to sleep now feel free to correct me on anything or say anything in replies.
