Tsukishima Kei ୭ ̊. ᵎᵎ

Tsukishima Kei is a first-year at Karasuno High. He plays as one of the starting middle blockers on the boys' volleyball team. He is the younger brother of Akiteru Tsukishima. 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. Since Chapter 109, Tsukishima began wearing prescription sports glasses that were given to him by his brother. Outside of matches and practice, Tsukishima wears a black gakuran, the Karasuno male uniform. He is usually seen with white headphones around his neck. The brand of these headphones seems to be "Somy", which is a play on the real name brand "Sony". He has been seen wearing various shirts with crescent moons on them, which plays on his name "Tsukishima" with tsuki meaning "moon". 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. 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 (a rival school) 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. 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. 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. According to Akiteru, "Kei is blunt and doesn't show his emotions often, but he is actually a very hardworking and kind boy." 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. Tsukishima is shown to be close friends with Yamaguchi, who calls him by his nickname Tsukki. When they were younger, Tsukishima helped save Yamaguchi from bullies by saying that they were pathetic, although it is unclear if intended to help him or just insult the bullies. Because of this, Yamaguchi later began to stay close to Tsukishima, yearning to be as cool as him. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima are rarely seen apart and are both often portrayed making fun of others together. However, as time went on, their relationship began to drift apart in terms of training and wanting to improve. While Yamaguchi persevered in working on his jump float serve, Tsukishima did not exert more effort than needed. This worried Yamaguchi and some of the other members, but they didn't say anything at first. Later on, during the summer training camp, Tsukishima still refused to put any effort into his training because he did not see why he should. His behavior angered Yamaguchi who, for the first time, yelled at Tsukishima and asking him what more motivation he needed than pride. This changed Tsukishima's way of thinking and impressed him; he even called Yamaguchi "cool" for the first time. Tsukishima started working harder, and their relationship returned to normal after this event. Tsukishima initially had a rather antagonistic treatment towards Hinata. He has voiced his dislike of the latter's hot-blooded and energetic nature towards volleyball despite his lack in height; even going through the lengths of trying to crush Hinata's spirit during their 3-on-3 match at the start of the year. This was later revealed to have been because of his brother's past with playing volleyball at Karasuno and Hinata's idolizing and desire to become like the Small Giant. During the summer training camp, Tsukishima was discovered to have considered himself inferior to Hinata's skills, as noted by some of their teammates and Kuroo. After finding his own love for the sport, Tsukishima has started to have a bit more of a competitive rivalry with Hinata and has become determined not to be outdone by him. Tsukishima and Kageyama had an incredibly rough start when they first met to the point where it nearly led to violence. Tsukishima would use Kageyama's past as a terrible teammate to insult the latter and often calls him 'King/Your Majesty' which angers the setter. When Kageyama began his change, Tsukishima was at first surprised by it as the setter has begun to send him the tosses he wanted as he had stated he did not want Kageyama to control things. Since then, their relationship has improved and the two began to view each other as teammates. While they still tend to bicker with one another, they work well together during a match but often refuse to complement each other. As far as his relationships with his teammates go, they vary though he holds a few members with disdain. This disdain mainly applies to his second-year senpais Tanaka and Nishinoya, who are hot-blooded and loud most of the time, traits he found irritating. However, he does respect the two and recognizes their incredible skills. Tsukishima holds respect for his third-year upperclassmen Daichi, Sugawara, and Asahi but probably on the account that they are more mature and levelheaded, although he is shown to be wary of Daichi when the captain is angered and sometimes keeps his distance from Sugawara as he finds the vice-captain as terrifying as Daichi. Unlike the majority of his teammates, Tsukishima is not attracted to Kiyoko nor does he have as much interaction with her. Similar to Daichi, Tsukishima is respectful yet cautious around Ennoshita as he too recognizes the second-year as the next team captain and is seen being anxious of what Ennoshita is capable of. While Tsukishima appears to get along well with Yachi, unlike Hinata and the rest of his teammates, he doesn't fawn over her and her nervous tendencies. Nevertheless, he respects her as a manager of the team and can occasionally be seen having a casual conversation with her. Tsukishima first became acquainted with the Nekoma captain during the Karasuno vs Nekoma practice match where he dismissed Kuroo's suggestion of needing to relax more. During the summer training camps, Tsukishima would actively seek out Kuroo's guidance to improve his blocking once he started to become more invested in volleyball and began learning how to best utilize read blocking and proper hand and arm placement; thus becoming known as Kuroo's pupil. Much of Kuroo's help and advice would help Tsukishima during critical moments in matches. Despite this, Tsukishima feels that he wouldn't be able to beat Kuroo alone in a match and admits that Kuroo's skills are far above his own. Tsukishima highly respects Kuroo but does show annoyance when the captain occasionally teases him. When Tsukishima was starting to struggle to find motivation to put more effort into volleyball, he learned from Bokuto that he can become completely hooked when he experiences "that moment", something that he would feel during the match against Shiratorizawa. Bokuto often calls Tsukishima by his nickname Tsukki, something that Tsukishima has tried to get him to stop but has not been successful. Regardless, while Tsukishima can be annoyed by the ace's energetic personality, he respects Bokuto as both a person and as a fearsome opponent. While their interactions are not often shown, it is clear that Tsukishima has formed a friendship with Akaashi. Through the setter, Tsukishima would gain better insight of Bokuto as well as practicing new attacks during the training camp that he would use during the match against Shiratorizawa. Akiteru is Kei's older brother. During his childhood, Tsukishima greatly admired his brother for being the ace player of his middle school and it appeared his source of interest in volleyball was due to Akiteru. The two were incredibly close and Tsukishima would often ask to go watch his brother's matches once he began attending Karasuno but was always asked not to. When Tsukishima discovered his brother's deceit, their relationship became incredibly fragile and Tsukishima would begin to distance himself from Akiteru. After Tsukishima attended the training camp in Tokyo with the rest of the team, the brothers finally had a meaningful talk and are beginning to rebuild their relationship. Since then, Akiteru would continue to help Tsukishima by inviting him to join practice with his team. Even though Tsukishima would tell Akiteru not to attend his matches, Akiteru would still go to support his brother, but Tsukishima was always able to see through his disguise if he wore one in an attempt to not be noticed.