Kei Tsukishima

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“	Uselessly hot-blooded people irritate me...	”

Template:Character Infobox (Major)Kei Tsukishima (Japanese: 月島 蛍, Tsukishima Kei) is a first year at Karasuno High School; he is a middle blocker in the Karasuno High Volleyball Club and is the younger brother of Akiteru Tsukishima.

Appearance

Tsukishima is very tall and has a slim build for a volleyball player. Despite being a first year, he is the tallest player in Karasuno High, standing at 190.1 cm. He has short blond hair, thin eyebrows and golden brown eyes. He is often seen with a frown or a condescending smirk on his face.

After joining the Karasuno volleyball team, Tsukishima wears the standard Karasuno volleyball uniform (black, orange, and white uniform with the number 11 on the back) during games. In addition, Tsukishima wears knee pads, and white volleyball shoes with green details. He is also the only player on the Karasuno team who wears glasses. Since Chapter 109, Tsukishima began wearing prescription sports glasses (a gift from his older brother, Akiteru) in matches.

Outside of matches and practice, Tsukishima wears a black gakuran, the Karasuno male uniform, and white headphones around his neck. The brand of these headphones seems to be "Somy", which is a play on the real name brand "Sony."

Personality

Tsukishima is very blunt and will sometimes rile his teammates up due to his antagonistic nature (most notably being Hinata, Kageyama, Nishinoya, and Tanaka). He finds a "pure and straightforward" attitude "annoying" due to past experiences, where he watched his older brother suffer for those exact traits. The second years thought of him as someone with a warped personality, and Hinata felt like he was "wasting his talent" as he did not take full advantage of his height until he found his passion for volleyball.

While he originally didn't want to put in much effort to volleyball because he felt that it wouldn't get him anywhere, Tsukishima has since begun to apply his clever blocking to matches and has become Karasuno's blocking playmaker, thanks to encouragement he received from various people at the Tokyo training camp, particularly Kuroo, Yamaguchi and Bokuto.

Despite his outward nonchalant attitude towards volleyball, inwardly, he has taken the sport seriously hence his participation has been slowly increasing. He also does not like someone telling him that he is unable to perform a feat such as blocking Ushijima Wakatoshi, a power spiker. This is a major contrast from his previous outlook on volleyball. He even went out of his way to join practice matches with his older brother's neighbourhood team.

Statistics

High School Statistics
Power		2/5
Jumping		3/5
Stamina		3/5
Game Sense		5/5
Technique		3/5
Speed		3/5

Tsukishima is shown to be immensely proficient at blocking primarily because of his height. It has been said by Kenma that Tsukishima is a calm and collected blocker who thoroughly analyzes his actions, quite contrary to Hinata's behavior. His ability also allows him to perform split-second feints to surprise and put his opponents off-balance. After the final training camp before the spring tournament, he is able to match the power and speed of an adult, whereas before he couldn't even hold the block.

As of mid-November:

• Fingertip Height: 248 cm
• Jumping Reach: 334 cm (spike) / 325 cm (block)

Tokyo Expedition Arc

While at first he shows very little passion or interest in improving his blocking, he comes to request further advice from Coach Ukai, who redirected him to Tetsurō Kuroo, whom is known to be a veteran in blocking. He was given blocking advice by Kuroo and Bokuto and practiced with them throughout the summer during the Tokyo training camp. As a result of his training, by putting power into the very tips of his fingers and extending his hands out in front of him instead of above him, he learned to be exceptional at doing a "kill block." In addition to being on par with opponents with his height and power, he also learned to match the timing of his opponents' spike and back them to a corner with a "conclusive" block.

According to Akiteru, Kei isn't the sort of player who moves on instinct. He doesn't trust in his own strength, nor in the senses he's honed. The only thing he trusts is the "information" in front of him.

Later, during their match with Shiratorizawa, it is shown that Tsukishima is truly a man that can "read block." Asahi notes that he has become the team's blocking playmaker, directing other blockers in his line based on his observations. Hinata also thinks his skills has become on par with Takanobu Aone of Date Tech High.

It is also shown that Tsukishima begins to actually care about winning the game against Shiratorizawa when his right hand gets injured while blocking one of Ushijima's intense spikes. He shows annoyance when it causes him to be switched out at such a crucial moment in the game, even telling Hinata to buy him some time while he is gone. Hinata responds to Tsukishima through saying that the team will be at nationals by the time he returns. The fact that he entrusted Hinata shows how much their relationship has grown, it is not perfect but certainly better than in the beginning of the series. When he went out because the part connecting his pinky and ring finger was torn, he was angry with himself to be out of the game, but the both teams bought him enough time to return with Karasuno down 14-15 in the final set.

After he returned, his reflexes and read-blocking improved, since he has been following the ball when he was on the court, and he never tried block by pure guesswork.

Trivia

• Favorite Food: strawberry shortcake.
• Current Concern: Upon entering high school, he once again has to put up with various people asking how to read the character for his first name.
• Tsukishima wears white gym shoes with green accents.
• His star sign is Libra.
• He is usually seen with his Sony (Somy in anime, to avoid copyright issues) headphones around his neck whenever he's not practicing or playing.
• Tsukishima appears to be good at studying, as he belongs to Class 1-4, known to be a college preparatory class.
• His birthday falls upon the day of the Harvest Moon–which is when the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, on the Chinese calendar is celebrated in September 2015. Coincidentally, the first character in his name means "moon". In addition, Tsukishima was often seen with a crescent moon symbol on the back of his hoodies and jackets as a child.
• He keeps toy dinosaurs on a shelf above his desk. Whether he actually likes dinosaurs or not is unknown, but it can be assumed that he does, as is demonstrated in a Let's! Haikyuu!? chapter.
• Tsukishima is often referred to as the moon while Hinata is the sun due to their surnames and opposing personalities.
• In a poll conducted by Charapedia, a Japanese anime and manga character database, that asked which anime characters would they choose as the basis for their children's name, Tsukishima came in 9th with 98 votes among female respondents.
• In Haikyū!!: One Shot, Tsukishima was a second year while Hinata and Kageyama were first years. He was also only 184 cm.
• Furudate picked Tsukishima's name because “His last name has ‘moon’ (月) to contrast Hinata’s ‘sun’ (日). But I named him ‘firefly’ (蛍) because he can emit light on his own.”
• Nomenclature:
  • Kei (蛍) - Firefly
  • Tsukishima (月島) - Moon Island