Is Shoyo Hinata Delusional?

Shoyo Hinata is a tiny boy with huge dreams. He knows that volleyball is a sport dominated by extremely tall players, and yet at just over 5′ 4″ he wants to become a national champion more than anything. However, he has almost no experience whatsoever with volleyball. Still, he’s determined to work his hardest and fight his way to the national stage. Hinata’s seemingly endless enthusiasm, motivation, and perseverance is his most defining as well as his most endearing trait. This boy has proved that he won’t stop or give up, even when the challenge he faces seems impossible. Although some of the other Haikyu!! characters took more time for me to appreciate (I’m looking at you, Kageyama) I fell in love with Hinata’s boundless energy and cheerfulness immediately.

There’s a psychological construct known as self-efficacy, which basically tells us that our belief in our ability to accomplish a task greatly increases our likelihood of achieving it. In short, seemingly impossible challenges can be conquered if we just believe in ourselves. Hinata’s endless optimism is basic self efficacy–it’s what allows him to improve at such a rapid rate. As long as this wannabe volleyball star has faith in himself, we as an audience feel happy and reassured that he can in fact reach his goal. Hinata’s enthusiasm and determination gives us hope.

Or does it? Sometimes, there’s an incredibly fine line between being constructively confident about your capabilities and being unhealthily delusional about them. Delusional beliefs are also psychological phenomenons, and much more dangerous and tragic ones at that. These delusions are said to be present when a person holds an incredibly dogmatic investment in a belief, despite plentiful evidence disproving that same belief. There are many different types of delusions, ranging from  beliefs that you can communicate with aliens to beliefs that a celebrity is secretly in love with you. Delusions are considered a psychotic symptom and are found in several mental disorders, usually along with several other symptoms of psychological dysfunction. However, delusional disorder is an official disorder in the fifth addition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the most widely used manual for diagnosing psychological disorders in the United States. Delusional disorder is a mental illness in which strong adherence to one or more extremely improbable beliefs is the only symptom. There usually little evidence of psychological or functional impairment besides the core delusion or delusions, making it somewhat difficult to diagnose. Although it is usually nowhere near as distressing or debilitating as more severe disorders such as schizophrenia, it can still cause an individual a significant amount of frustration, stress, and harm. It’s not hard to picture all the tragedies that could result when person attempts something believing that (s)he is invincible or has special powers when (s)he clearly does not. Furthermore, imagine how lonely and disheartening it must be to have everyone around you trying to convince you that something you are absolutely certain is real is just in your imagination.

But how do we decide what is a delusion and what isn’t? Some beliefs are viewed in quite different ways according to the societal context in which they appear For example, a person who claims (s)he can talk to God might be labeled insane in one society but hailed as a essential spiritual communicator in another. Furthermore, it can be incredibly hard to tell when an almost impossible belief is an actual delusion or merely an example of extremely biased or overly-positive/overly-negative reasoning. To illustrate, imagine someone who is clearly losing a fight with a terminal disease but is absolutely convinced that (s)he will still be able to reach a full recovery. Is this person clinically delusional or simply extremely optimistic? Furthermore, extreme self-efficacy can be practically indistinguishable from delusion. We know that believing in our abilities increases our actual performance, so it makes sense to maintain a positive attitude in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. However, when does self-efficacy become overblown to the point of delusion? Or, to put it a different way, when does believing in yourself against all odds start to cause more harm than good?

Most of the time, we see an incredibly enthusiastic and energetic Hinata who tells us passionately about his volleyball aspirations with a contagious sparkle in his eye (if that seems like an awful amount of description, it’s because the extremity of Hinata’s demeanor warrants it. This kid is practically radiant.) He always announces his goals with a sunny smile that just oozes positivity and good will. Since his declarations are always made with almost an exaggerated cheerfulness, we get the sense that Hinata is trying to convince himself of his capabilities as well as others. The general impression is that Hinata chooses to remain incredibly positive because he knows that believing in himself will increase his likelihood of achieving his goals. For the most part, he appears aware that his goals are near-unreachable, but also that maintaining a positive, “can-do” outlook is a must if he ever wants to attempt the near-impossible.

We also get to see him break down with nerves before almost every big match. (Remember when he puked all over poor Tanaka’s lap?) These moments of uncertainty tell us that Hinata’s confidence and optimism are like protective armor that he dons to increase his chances of succeeding. He realizes how inexperienced he is, how much he and his teammates need to improve before they are considered a top volleyball team. But, if he doesn’t believe in himself and his team, than who will? It seems clear to me that his overly-optimistic outlook is an attempt to pump himself and others up to increase their team’s performance. In short, his positivity is a tool that he is uses to his advantage.

But there are a few times where Haikyu!! shows us a Hinata who is a little more helpless, a little more tragic, and a little more delusional. It’s just for a moment, but we start to worry whether his optimism may be unrealistic to the point where it is dangerous. If maybe Hinata’s unwillingness to give up is not something to admire him for, but something to pity him for.

Let’s flash back to Haikyu season 1, episode 1. In his last year of middle school, Hinata somehow manages to convince some of his friends to form a volleyball team so that he can enter his “first and last” junior high tournament. Hinata is beyond excited to play in his first ever official volleyball match, and is ready to take his best shot at becoming the top team. Never mind that he has extremely limited experience with volleyball, and his teammates have literally none. Never mind that he is the only one on his team that believes they have a chance of winning, or even has enthusiasm for the sport. Never mind that their first match is against one of the most formidable and hard-to-beat junior high volleyball teams in the area. It’s undeniable that his team’s chances of winning are practically nonexistent. Yet, Shoyo Hinata remains positive and confident, ready to attack the tournament with everything he’s got.

For most of the episode, Hinata’s sunny cheerfulness gives the impression that he is attempting to use the principle of self-efficacy to his favor–although his chances of winning may be incredibly slim, but they will become even slimmer if he gives up on himself and his team. Furthermore, we get to see him shaking with nerves before the match, which lets us know that he is well aware that failure is a very probable outcome. In short, he is portrayed as aware of the impossibility of the challenge he is facing, but is choosing to put on a brave face despite that knowledge.

Inevitably, though, Hinata’s team struggles. A lot. The opposing team is crushing them. When the score is 24-7, one of Hinata’s teammates approaches him, basically asking him to withdraw the team from the tournament. “Um…We don’t want to get injured,” he says nervously. “We’re out of their league to begin with…Why must you do this?”

Hinata is quite perplexed by his teammate’s request. “Um…what? Huh? I don’t know what you mean,” he says with genuine confusion. “But..” he adds, as his gaze and speech turn uncharacteristically void and robotic, “we haven’t lost yet.”

“We haven’t lost yet.”

Hinata is always bursting with energy, and at least some kind of emotion. This boy turns everything he does up to eleven, and has absolutely zero chill. Thus, to see him so blank and empty, especially about a sport he is so incredibly passionate about, is frankly quite disturbing. He looks and sounds like a robot, mindlessly repeating a phrase that it was programmed to say. More importantly, Hinata’s lack of emotion suggests that, in his mind, there may be no other option than winning. He appears either unwilling or unable to consider an alternative outcome, otherwise he would probably be showing determination, frustration, or at least some level emotion.

A similar moment happens durning season 2 when he encounters a player from his rival team. “We’re going to win and go to nationals!” he shouts as a passionate challenge to the other player.

“Don’t make going to nationals sound so easy!” retorts his opponent.

“Huh? But I mean it,” Hinata pouts.

The rival player begins to form an insult for Hinata, but falls silent in shock when he see’s Hinata’s face.

“I’m gonna beat everyone, and go to Tokyo.”

“I’m gonna beat everyone, and go to Tokyo,” Hinata says, in the same emotionless, robotic tone from the first episode.

Hinata’s incapability to consider the possibility that he might not accomplish what he believes he can is more suggestive of a delusion than of motivational optimism. It’s one thing to not be able to handle the disappointment of losing a match, but it’s another to not even be able to entertain the possibility that your team might loose a match. In this moment, you could argue that Hinata’s optimism and unwavering faith in himself has gone too far. It’s developed from a conscious state of mind into a mindless mantra that he recites robotically out of mere habit. His optimism is no longer empowering for him because he’s lost control of it. But is Shoyo Hinata really delusional?

Most likely not. I definitely do not think that he can be diagnosed with delusional disorder. Furthermore, while I do think that he holds very strongly to his beliefs, I don’t think that he does so to the degree where it becomes unhealthy and detrimental. The brief moments where a mindless, robotic Hinata’s appears unable to comprehend the possibility of failure are few and far between, and afterwards he always snaps back to his energetic, cheerful self. Furthermore, he continues to become considerably nervous before each match, which demonstrates that he is fully aware of how difficult the challenge he faces is. Perhaps most importantly, he is showing rapid improvement in his volleyball skills, suggesting that his aspirations may actually have been more realistic than they first appeared back in middle school.

But still, I think these chilling moments that suggest a delusion are incredibly important for Hinata’s character. They tell us that sometimes Hinata’s optimism, belief in himself, and unwillingness to give up are all he has. When everything is falling apart around him, he knows that the only thing he can do is to keep on hoping, keep on dreaming, keep on believing. Forget his super powerful jump: Hinata’s willingness to believe in his own capabilities is his single greatest strength as an athlete. After all, if he doesn’t believe in himself, who else will?

Shoyo Hinata is not clinically delusional. But he shows us that sometimes, letting ourselves become a bit deluded is the only thing that will help us achieve the impossible.