Kei Tsukishima

Name

Kei Tsukishima

Gender

Male

Species

Human

Height

6’2

Age

16

Occupation

1st Year, volleyball player from Karasuno High School

Volleyball team

Karasuno

Volleyball position

Middle Blocker

Family

Older brother: Akiteru Tsukishima, and a mother

Likes

Volleyball, Strawberry Shortcake, Dinosaurs

Dislikes

Hot-Blooded people

Eye colour

golden-brown

Hair colour

Light blond

Appearance

Tsukishima is very tall and has an incredibly slim build for a volleyball player. Despite being a first-year, he is the tallest player on the volleyball team; standing at 190.1 cm. He has short blond hair, pale skin, 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 matches. He also wears knee pads and white volleyball shoes with green details. He is also the only player on the Karasuno team who wears glasses Outside of matches and practice, Tsukishima wears a black gakuran, the Karasuno male uniform. He is usually seen with white headphones around his neck

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) and sometimes other teams because of his casual smug attitude, taking pride in and relishing when his opponents see him as a nuisance as seen with Tendō and Shirabu. Whenever someone does or says something stupid or silly, he is usually seen snickering in the background. However, he does seem to be intimidated by his seniors, being nowhere in sight when Daichi reprimands Tanaka for antagonizing Aoba Johsai even though he did so as well or backing down whenever Ennoshita calls him out. Despite coming across as arrogant, Tsukishima has low self-esteem and thinks of himself as inferior. This is first noted to be a surprise by Kuroo, who accidentally riles him up by suggesting he'll lose to Hinata, to which he says that he's already below him. After the Shiratorizawa match, despite being the MVP, he's seen calling himself lame for only being able to block Ushijima's spikes once, only adding to how little he believes in himself and his achievements. While he willingly admits his own faults, he does not like it when others point these things out, becoming annoyed and angry when Hinata tried to take responsibility in blocking Ushijima and then when Bokuto called his blocks weak in a sense of strength given how easily he got by him during practice

Personality

Although Tsukishima maintains a persona of someone who shows little interest in anything and wouldn't do something he didn't like or enjoy, he does truly enjoy volleyball. He initially refrained from putting too much effort into volleyball and being too passionate about it out of fear of suffering from the same fate as his brother. However, after his confrontation with Yamaguchi and hearing Bokuto's inspirational words in the Tokyo training camp, he started to take the sport more seriously and finally found his passion and motivation for volleyball when he blocked Ushijima. Tsukishima keeps his cool, for the most part, but he can be seen getting visibly annoyed when people underestimate him or tell him what he can or cannot do and uses it as motivation to prove them wrong. He also says things like "It's not a competition" with Hinata but then immediately proceeds to do something to make him jealous, such as the time difference attack during the Shiratorizawa match. Since blocking Ushijima, Tsukishima has notably become more passionate in stopping powerful spikers by using different methods. According to Akiteru, "Kei is blunt and doesn't show his emotions often, but he is actually a very hardworking and kind boy."

Background

Tsukishima was shown to be a lot more cheerful when he was younger and have a very close relationship with his older brother, Akiteru. He would attend several of Akiteru's middle school matches and seemed to enjoy the attention he received from locals who knew him as the younger brother of the team ace. Sometime in elementary school, he sees Yamaguchi being bullied by several other boys. He doesn't do anything, except call them pathetic; although it is unknown if this was aimed at Yamaguchi and/or the bullies. Shortly after, Tsukishima runs into Yamaguchi again when he was observing a volleyball class. Although he didn't remember Yamaguchi right away, Tsukishima is soon flattered by him when Tsukishima claims that his older brother plays at Karasuno as the team ace, and the two quickly become close friends. Although Akiteru would state to be working very hard during practice and playing as the team ace again, Tsukishima was kept from attending any Karasuno games because his brother claimed he would become too nervous if he was being watched. When Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, and a classmate decided to attend one of Karasuno's games to settle a debate about Akiteru being a starting regular, Tsukishima discovers his brother is not on the team and is instead in the bleachers with the cheer section. Tsukishima's behavior toward his brother and volleyball changed from this point as he began to distance himself from Akiteru and also began to think that putting in so much hard work would only lead to disappointment in the future