Monday, two days after the first day of the Inter-High prefectural qualifiers. That day, we were supposed to have a short meeting before practice, to prepare for the third and fourth round matches over the weekend.
"We fought well last Saturday. Our way of playing works. I think everyone gained confidence in that."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"That said, things won’t go so smoothly from here on out. The other schools now know about us. It’s the age we live in—by now, there’s probably a video of Yuuri’s devastating spike circulating on some social media site. They'll have countermeasures ready, or at the very least, be mentally prepared. We won by a landslide last time, but that was due to the element of surprise. The matches this Saturday are where our true worth will be tested. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Also, Yuuri… seems to have trouble interacting with Japanese men, probably because she’s always surrounded by women at home and at school. Eriko, Hina. As captain and as her older sister, look after her in that area too. I’ll be mindful as her coach and teacher as well."
"Yes, ma'am!" (Ughhh…)
To be honest, since I’m Japanese on the inside, I know full well how to deal with Japanese men. But from Saeki-sensei’s perspective, I’m "a girl who first came to Japan last September, lived with her three older sisters until March, and then started attending a girls' school in April—someone unfamiliar with Japanese men." And considering what happened Saturday, I’m in no position to protest...
"Now then, if we win twice this coming Saturday, we’ll become the B-block representative for the prefectural qualifiers of the Inter-High. Our next opponent, Tsurudome High School, isn’t someone we can afford to take lightly, but if we play like we did against Kurakami High and Kikuboshi High, we should be able to win. The real problem is likely the match after that—against Tamaki Commercial High School. We don’t match up well against them."
"Coach, may I ask a question? What do you mean by ‘don’t match up well’? Our strategy centers around overwhelming the opponent’s tactics with the incredible height and power of Yuuri and Reiko. Matchups shouldn’t matter."
Eri-senpai voiced the same question I had in mind.
"Good question. Let’s review. Our strategy, as you said, is to leverage the tremendous height and strength of Yuuri and Reiko to crush the opponent’s entire game plan. That’s correct.
Now, what kind of opponent does that strategy work best against? Ideally, one like Kurakami High: strong defense but not much offensive power. Yuuri can spike right over the blockers, making their blocks meaningless.
Her spikes are also fast and hard to receive, which neutralizes their strong defense. But for those spikes to happen, the toss needs to be accurate—and before that, the initial receive has to be solid. Our team has weaknesses in defense. If our receive is broken down, we can't do anything.
That said, in our case, we can still make do by simply setting the ball higher, which means the required accuracy for the receive isn’t as strict as it is for other teams. Still, it’s a vulnerability."
It’s common knowledge in volleyball that if the receive breaks down, you’re in trouble. Typically, the setter decides the attack strategy based on a clean A-pass. If the pass is off, it messes everything up.
But our team’s different. We can just lob an open toss to the left side (either me or Reiko), and we’ll make it work. Even if it’s not to the left, as long as it’s an open toss near the net, either Reiko or I can force it into a spike and return the ball.
Normally, such a brute-force approach wouldn’t work. But since our spikes destroy strategies, it’s effective. Honestly, our team kind of denies the very fundamentals of girls' volleyball.
"Okay, so we’ve reviewed the kind of team we match up well against. That means the opposite kind—teams that neglect defense but have high offensive power—are bad matchups for us. Think back to the Kikuboshi match the other day. When did we lose points? Wasn’t it when they broke our receive, and we couldn’t follow up with an attack, so the ball just never made it back to their court?"
…No, I think most of our lost points came from self-inflicted mistakes—like serves hitting the net or spikes going out of bounds. But this isn’t the time to nitpick.
"Coach. That may be true, but we crushed Kikuboshi in straight sets—25–10 and 25–9. Volleyball is a sport where mistakes are expected. Unless there’s a huge skill gap, it’s impossible to play an entire match without a single receive error. And from actual match experience, I can say—we’re not a team with weak defense."
"I agree about our defense. Yuuri and Reiko still need practice on their receives, but they have height and strength. As blockers, they’re outstanding. They blocked spikes multiple times in the last match and even won battles at the net. When they rotate to the back, they switch with the libero, so their receive duties are limited—only when serving or receiving serve themselves. If anyone wants to call me the weak link in defense, I won’t argue… but still."
First Eri-senpai disagreed with Saeki-sensei’s logic, and Yui-senpai backed her up.
"I’m not saying giving up points is bad. Don’t misunderstand. Our strength lies in our offensive power—we can reach 25 points faster than the opponent. It’s not that we’re error-free or a wall of defense.
But if we ever go up against a team like us—one willing to overlook minor mistakes to score 25 points through sheer offense—that would be a bad matchup for us."
"That’s Tamaki Commercial, then? But… in a shootout, I can’t imagine anyone beating Yuuri in spiking power—not even Reiko."
"Height and power aren’t the only ways to score in volleyball. I get it if the first-years don’t know… but even the third-years?"
"We know Tamaki Commercial is strong, but we don’t know why they’re strong…"
Eri-senpai responded, a bit sheepishly.
"Then let me explain. Do you all know what an all-rounder 6 is?"
"That’s the new strategy Coach Nabeshima developed for the All-Japan Women’s Volleyball team, right?"
"Exactly. I’ll skip the details, but basically it’s a strategy that increases the number of spikers even at the cost of defense. Tamaki Commercial has been running a more offense-focused version of that for years.
In fact, even when I was in high school—so about six to eight years ago—they were already known for this ultra-offensive style. Some even called it their signature tradition. So they’ve probably been building teams like that for over ten years now."
"What kind of playstyle is that exactly?"
"I'll show you now."
With that, Saeki-sensei pulled out a large tablet. Saying how convenient the modern era is, she showed us a video of a high school volleyball match. The upload date was last Saturday. So it’s from this year.
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"Coach, about Tamaki Commercial’s uniforms... they’re all wearing the same color."
Reiko was the first to notice the oddity during the pre-match greeting.
"Of course they are. Tamaki Commercial doesn’t use a libero. Liberos can’t spike, after all."
Huh? They’d rather drop the libero just to have more spikers? But only one person can spike at a time, right?
This is a hyper-aggressive tactic that would make even an all-rounder 6 player pale in comparison.
And then… the match begins.
What the heck is this?
Do these guys not have any concept of player positions? It’s a total denial of the modern, specialized style of volleyball. Everyone is casually setting and spiking like it’s normal…
Sure, players in the back row mostly act as setters, but not always. Sometimes even front row players take on the setter role...
Wait, seriously, what happened to the concept of player positions? (Again.)
They definitely lack height. The tallest regular might not even be 170 cm. But their attack strategies are wildly diverse. No—since they’re so vibrant, maybe I should say it’s like a field of blooming flowers? Quick attacks, broad attacks, time-delayed attacks… they even pull off complex combination attacks like spreads.
How the hell do high schoolers get this good? Honestly, each individual play isn’t that polished. But with such a variety of attacks, they confuse and neutralize the opposing blockers.
Ah. In terms of neutralizing blocks, they’re doing the same thing we are.
They’re not without errors. Sometimes they mess up a toss when attempting a quick attack. But they don’t seem fazed. I get it now—Tamaki Commercial also plays “score 25 first, losing 10 or 20 points is fine” volleyball.
Wait, what!? That last play was straight out of a manga!
"Coach, what was that thing just now, when all the spikers suddenly rushed forward at once?"
"That was a five-man quick attack. Normally in volleyball, the limit for confusing blocks is a four-man quick—three in the front, one in the back. But…"
"Um, this time they had two players doing back attacks, right?"
"Exactly. Since Tamaki Commercial doesn’t use a libero, they can have one extra attacker in the back. That gives them five total spikers to mess with the block. So here’s the question—if there are five spikers, who do you mark and block?"
"...You guess and pick one to mark, maybe?"
"That’s right. Jumping to block based on a guess is called a ‘commit block,’ but it carries a big risk if you guess wrong, so it’s not the mainstream strategy anymore. However, trying to watch all five spikers and the toss, then jumping to block after the toss is made—so-called ‘read blocking’—is extremely difficult. So even though it’s out of fashion, commit blocking might actually be the better call. Especially because we haven’t trained Yuuri or Reiko to receive hard spikes well. They wouldn’t be much help in the back. So committing might be our best bet."
Ugh... So you want me to guess which one of those flying spikers is the real one and block that? I’m the kind of guy who got totally fooled by feints in that basketball match against the basketball club, you know?
"Or, instead of watching the toss, it might be better to watch a specific player. This year’s Tamaki Commercial revolves around her."
Saeki-sensei paused the video and pointed to one player. A total ikemen…
No, seriously, a real heartthrob. Like one of those male roles in a Takarazuka revue.
Sharp, striking features—definitely handsome.
Judging by the height compared to the net, she’s about the same height as Eri-senpai.
"Ichikawa Makiko, third-year, team captain. Officially listed as a setter, but she’s their cornerstone—attacking, blocking, receiving, doing it all."
No, no, calling her a setter doesn’t feel right. She’s an all-rounder, plain and simple.
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After watching the Tamaki Commercial video, our unanimous impression: “This is bad.” They really might score 25 points on us first.
"Even including today, we only have six days left. You’re not going to suddenly become amazing at volleyball in that time. Tamaki Commercial is definitely strong. But when they look at us, they’ll think, ‘Matsujo (Matsubara Girls)’ is strong,’ too."
"I showed you this video today so you won’t panic or lose your heads during the actual match. Focus on doing what you can now, one step at a time. In the end, that’s the fastest path to victory."
Saeki-sensei really knows how to say the right things.
Now that I think about it, Tamaki Commercial’s videos were on social media this year, but... are there any videos of us online?
"...There are. I don’t really want Yuuri to see them though..."
"Huh? Why not?"
"If you search for ‘Matsubara Girls’ High School’ and ‘volleyball club,’ the first thing that pops up is a video of Yuuri slapping a male high schooler.
The slap was in response to him groping her, so the school requested the video be taken down—but once something’s on the internet, it’s hard to erase completely."
Coach Saeki said this with a grimace like he’d bitten into something bitter.
Personally, I don’t really care if videos showing the truth get out, as long as they’re not manipulated. It is true that I slapped the guy and made him faint.
Still, with Hina too… I feel like people are too harsh on guys. That slap was kind of an overreaction, wasn’t it?
I said that once—and Hina got more furious than I’ve ever seen her. The other first-years scolded me too. Even the usually mellow third-years tore into me.
They said stuff like: “Even though Yuuri’s the victim, if people only see the slap, they’ll think she’s the aggressor,” “If you don’t protest immediately, it just escalates,” “Initial response is critical,” and also, “You really need to look in the mirror more.”
Incidentally, regarding the deletion of that slap video—because requests came from Matsubara Girls' High, the boy’s school, and the tournament committee, it was officially gone from the internet by Monday night.
That’s why we didn’t know—during that commotion, even the footage of our matches got wiped from the web.
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