Mystery Behind Hinata’s Jump?!

**Sunny Kim (ISB G11)**

In love with the *Haikyuu!!* franchise, Sunny Kim, a Staff Writer and Editor at *Buddy! ,* tries to find an explanation to the most spirited orange-haired boy’s supernatural ability to jump.
In this article she delves into how such a smol boi can lift his feet so high off the ground.
Hint: physic’s involved!

Mix orange hair, a short height, and a painfully optimistic personality together, and you have Hinata Shoyo, the protagonist of the anime/manga Haikyuu!!. Usually mistaken for his first name, Hinata is, in fact, Shoyo’s last name: the reason why we all call Hinata by his last name is that it is usually disrespectful to call someone by their first names in Japan unless they’re family. In Haikyuu!!, Hinata goes to Karasuno High School and is part of their volleyball team. To overcome his disadvantageous height of only about 163 cm (about 5’4”), he jumps especially high. But exactly how high does he jump? Is he humanly possible, or is he like every other manga character — fictional?

To calculate how high Hinata can jump, I analyzed two scenes from Haikyuu: the first episode of season 2 and the last episode of season 4. In the first scene, Hinata goes to Tokyo and bumps into Ushijima, one of the best high school volleyball players in the nation. In this scene, he jumps up to catch the rebounding volleyball at Ushijima’s high school. To calculate how high Hinata jumps in this frame, I compared Ushijima’s height to the height Hinata jumped. We already know how tall Ushijima is, so we can write a ratio: Ushijima’s height: pixels he jumped = Hinata’s position(x): pixels from the ground.

From this equation, x=333, which means that according to the still, Hinata’s head was 333 cm off of the ground. If we subtract his height, we get around 170cm, which is the distance he jumped. With this number, I determined that Hinata’s jumping abilities were too “hyped up” because Hinata’s height is only 163. It seems too unrealistic that a person could jump more than his height in real life.

For the purpose of analysis, I went along with this value and calculated his hang time – or how long he can be in the air. Luckily, we can rely on our good old kinematic equations, assuming air resistance is negligible. Since Hinata moves in a symmetrical motion, the total time will be double the time he lifts off and reaches his maximum height. In this case, we already know that Hinata’s maximum displacement (s) is 170cm, velocity (v) at maximum height is 0m/s, and acceleration (a) is -9.8m/s/s, so we can use to find the initial velocity (u) and then time (t). Two equations are needed here: v^2 = u^2 +2as and v=u+at. Plugging in the numbers to the first equation, we get

Then, substituting these numbers into the second equation, we arrive at half of t.

Since 1/2of t is 0.59 seconds, Hinata’s total hang time would be approximately 1.2 seconds. Given that the basketball legend Michael Jordan’s hang time was 0.92 seconds, Hinata’s hang time of 1.2 seconds seems unrealistic. After all, Jordan was a professional basketball player, while Hinata is only a teenager.

In the second scene (above) from the last episode of season 4, Hinata performs his “Bam” jump, a newly developed jump in which he takes off from the ground with a “bam” – hence the name. His “bam” jump is more forceful than his original jumps, which is why I decided to analyze his upgraded version. In the screenshot above, Hinata’s head and a little bit of his shoulders are over the net. Using the pixel method, I found out the total length of his head, neck, and shoulders in real life from the previous scene, which was approximately around 34cm. Since the height of the volleyball net is 2.40 meters, we can see that Hinata jumps about 274cm in this jump. This means that his is vertical jump is 111cm (we needed to subtract his height). This is a more realistic value because the highest NBA jumps were recorded at about 48 inches (122cm) by Will Chamberlain, only about 10cm more than Hinata’s jump. While this a vertical of this calculated height is achievable by a human being, we also need to consider that Hinata is only a high schooler and is much shorter than Chamberlain (the vertical of an athlete increases as their height increases because they have more power).

Using the same method as before, we can also calculate Hinata’s theoretical hang time. This time, it was 0.95 seconds — a slightly more realistic value. Once again, the longest hang time recorded was 0.92 seconds by Michael Jordan, so Hinata’s theoretical hang time of 0.95 seconds doesn’t seem possible. Hang time depends on the distance the person jumps, but also on the movement that person makes in the air, so if you’re curious why Hinata’s theoretical hang time is longer than Micahel Jordan’s, we treated Hinata as an inanimate ball in these calculations.

“Karasuno’s motto “Fly” also reminds them to jump higher — to reach higher, not only for their volleyball, but also in their lives.”

Thus, we can conclude Hinata’s jumps most likely cannot exist in real life. Despite this heartbreaking conclusion, Hinata still tells us the story of overcoming difficulties. He always gives his all for volleyball and is forever looking for ways to challenge himself. Karasuno’s motto “Fly” also reminds them to jump higher — to reach higher, not only for their volleyball, but also in their lives. Hinata and his motto make us realize nothing is impossible and that everything is only a matter of dedication. Seeing his orange hair fluttering in the wind, his sincere passion for volleyball, and his strong will to succeed, we also ignite a flame of the same orange hue in our hearts that transcends cultures and reality.