Fidelity: could ‘fit’ the existing universe and/or canon of the source. In simper terms, ‘fidelity’ is used to show that a certain fan work based off an original has possibility to exist in the same world as the original. Yes, I know that any online dictionary would produce a different result. This is just how the word ‘fidelity’ would translate to in media. Getting back on topic, fidelity is a fan-fiction where the events of that fan fiction could happen in the same world as the original media.
An example I would like to present is the manga Haikyuu.
Haikyuu is a manga/anime by Haruichi Furudate with over 300 chapters and continuing. It is a hit sports story that revolves around the protagonist’s team, the Karasuno Male Volleyball team. More specifically, it mainly revolves around its main protagonists, Hinata Shoyo and Kageyama Tobio. Together, these two form a dynamic duo and will work together to reach the top in the sport of volleyball. The other protagonists are the members of the Karasuno Volleyball team with their own fair share of screen time through flashbacks, development, and content as expected of a shounen manga.
As expected of a huge work, many fans adore it in many ways. Those ways can vary from fan-fictions and such. But the subject of this blog is post is the concept of ‘fidelity’ in terms of media. One example that I brought is a manga called ‘Haikyuu-Buu!’.
Haikyuu-Buu! is a spin-off manga by Kyouhei Miyajima. The world the manga takes place is the world of Haikyuu as expected. In fact, the main characters of the Haikyuu-Bu is not the Karasuno volleyball team but the rival teams in actuality. It is pretty much a story about the adventures, antics, and activities of the rival team characters from their perspective. Sometimes the chapter is from the perspective of just the characters of one team. Sometimes there is a crossover of two or more teams.
The only rule for the casting of the story is to exclude the Karasuno team no matter what. The mangaka is very dedicated to making a story about nothing but the rival characters. That is pretty much the summary for Haikyuu-Bu. This is where the concept of ‘fidelity’ comes in though.
What makes Haikyuu-Buu qualify as a work of fidelity is the fact that the manga is approved as a work of canon by the original creator Furudate. Not only that, there are cases where Miyajima has been credited in the original manga for helping create certain chapters of Haikyuu. In other words, thanks to the approval of Furudate, the events, parodies, and stories of Haikyuu-Buu are completely true for the world of Haikyuu itself.
That is how Haikyuu-Buu! is a work of fidelity.
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