Sakunami: the Handler
Sakunami Kousuke has the most thankless job in the world.
Can you imagine being the libero for Datekou? The team that is know for its blocks? Plus: he is just the smallest little dude, in the tallest team, wtf.
Protect him!
And the thing is, he is an incredible libero. In one of the later chapters in the manga, we learn that when the players can’t block, they have to at least make it so the libero can *see* the ball coming his way. Otherwise it’s almost impossible for him to catch it. And this particular libero is behind the biggest wall in the prefecture. He can’t see shit. The fact that he even gets the job done speaks for his skill and it makes a lot of sense that he is highly respected by his team mates and by his coach.
You can see this in his assigned role in the spring tournament. Poor kid is basically Koganegawa’s handler. Again: super thankless job. Since Koganegawa isn’t exactly the most experienced setter, Sakunami is asked to ‘steer’ him, to give him nice easy balls to toss. He’s not just supposed to catch the balls that make it through the Iron Wall, no, he has to put them in a specific place.
That says a lot for how much his coach assumes he can do. Sakunami is in the same class as Koganegawa. He’s also a first year, but he’s already shown himself to be fairly good at this stuff. The manga makes it a point to mention he deserves credit for that one spike.
Compared to the Iron Wall, he’s tiny, but he’s trusted. And, certainly at the beginning, it seems like Koganegawa doesn’t *get* that. To me, there’s a big reason why the anime shows Sakunami right beside Aone when he talks about height not being the only dangerous thing in volleyball. For Aone, Hinata is a big deal, obviously, but I also like to imagine that he’s trying to point the very existence of this little libero out to his oblivious Giant Setter.
