#furudate kinda hilarious by creating this minor character half-way thru their story that portrayed the main messages of said story lol

[beldaroot]

kita shinsuke is kinda the minor character of all time and singularly embodies the main themes of haikyuu perfectly.

you have this kid who was benched the entirety of his middle school volleyball career but a high school coach saw his diligence and discipline on the sidelines and recruited him to his team. and then made him captain of the team three years later. and even as the leader of the team, kita still wasn't a player that frequented the court regularly during official matches; he's put into the game in a pinch, as a way to control the other players around him. kita is strict and unreadable, but he reads his teammates like a book and knows how to bring out the best from each of them. he doesn't achieve this by yelling or hitting them, but by adding the pressure for them to do better. he simply humbles them: not just in their rowdiness but also their talent. as someone who is top of his class and never cuts corners, he actually shows that there is no such thing as geniuses. he as a character personifies the concept of "practice makes perfect." he's not mad at the miya twins for copying kagehina's quick move, he believes if they practiced it more, and with against the right opponents, it would've been more successful. it's the tiny things that you routinely do every day that build up to victory.

he understands that he's a mere mortal to the monsters on the court - but not because he's less "gifted," but because while he's practicing what's expected of him, these players are doing that and more and trying something new as well. he likely doesn't like inarizaki's motto of "who needs memories" because he's trying to make a legacy; to show off that he was lucky to be invited to play with these monsters. he's strange, aloof, and intimating enough to be a monster himself, but he's also a healer, a prankster, and now the provider of the main ingredient to feed the hunger of these monsters. he's got it all!