T/N: The Haikyuu!! guidebook includes comments by Furudate-sensei about Karasuno.
Tsukishima Kei
“He first appeared in the 2nd one-shot as a cool and clever 2nd-year blocker. His basis remained the same in the serialised version, but I made him a 1st year and gave his sarcasm a power-up. He’s the opposite of Hinata. That’s why - even before getting serialised - he’s the character I most want to draw making a victorious fist pump.”
Name origin: 月島 蛍
“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.”Yamaguchi Tadashi
“His first appearance is in the serialised version. He was completely Tsukishima’s follower at the start and I hadn’t thought about him flourishing like he does in the current arc at all (laughs).”
Name origin: 山口 忠
“He’s 忠 (loyalty) like a loyal dog!”T/N: Furudate uses the word 忠犬, which literally means ‘loyal dog’, but it’s also how you write ‘Hachiko’: a famous loyal Japanese dog. Yamaguchi and Hachiko even share the same birthday, November 10th.
