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.