Ten reasons to cherish Ukai Keishin aka the CUTE CUSTARDY HAIRED COACH OF KARASUNO:
Coach Ukai is for sure my second favorite Haikyuu character and although he’s amazing, I feel like his greatness is a bit overlooked sometimes, which is why I was so motivated to write this. Without further ado, here’s fangirl rant number two.
1. He’s the contrast of his partner coach Takeda, who’s an emotional roller coaster. For those of you who are new here, I think that gives you some hints as to how he acts. He’s all about the teams’ play and technique, and the other is there there for guidance and mental support.
2. He seems like a sketchy thug to everyone that doesn’t know him because of his somewhat strange appearance and perhaps low pay job and smoking habit but he’s really just a lazy guy who probably had a lot of punk influences as a kid and has to help out his family business now, so in truth, no reason to be jumpy around him. Unless you’re the captain of Nekoma of course. They better watch out for our “flightless crows”.
3. He looks young but acts like a cranky run down grandparent. Just look at him when he’s working his morning shift or sitting in the store with his feet atop the desk and his cigarettes lit stinking up the room oof as if he has better things to do with his last “decade” or so. And if you’re wondering where the cranky comes in, ask yourself, how many clerks can you think of that’ll stop whatever it is they’re doing just to interrupt high school kids’ antics? Yea, that’s what I thought. But that’s grandpa Ukai for ya, and anime logic.
4. He’s passive, but passionate. At first you might suspect that he only plays because all the guys in his family history did too, but then you realize he’s actually coaching at Karasuno. The lazy, cranky Ukai changed his work shift to an earlier time just to do so. Not only that but in the beginning, he wanted nothing to do with coaching because it involved watching “spoiled” “bratty” high school kids, and now he’s coaching, lecturing, and yelling at em like they’re his grandchildren. All because he was drawn to the team’s dynamic and potential after seeing them play only once. Yea they have unique players, and yea he wants karasuno to beat Nekomas ass, but it’s far fetched to assume that his passion had no part in his decision to stay by them.
5. The devious faces he makes when he meets a coach that he wants to beat the shit out of (only on court, unfortunately…) is the most hilarious thing ever. And when he’s being devious, that’s when you know that shits really gonna go down the next time his team encounters theirs. Not only is it hilarious but it’s hawt .
6. He’s so engaged in volleyball since becoming their coach that it seems like he can’t even focus on his job properly and sometimes he even gets startled by customers like whajnaw it’s his job and he still dont expect it. Why is that so damn cute?
7. He’s not only passionate, but dedicated when it comes to coaching. He wants to lead them to nationals and make them a top school again to the point where he’s willing to drive hinata all the way over to his grandpa in the hills and stay there watching him play until he’s learned something from it. If you ask me it doesn’t really look like he particularly likes his grandpa, but he respects his experience in coaching and wants to learn from it. That’s true dedication right there no matter how you look at it.
8. He probably has no filter and doesn’t plan to anytime soon. The one time he tries to motivate them he relates a volleyball tactic to the feeling you get when drinking beer. Imagine if he tried motivating them all the time. It’d probably look a little something like this.
9. Sometimes his students go to him for personal help, and when they do he’s so terribly awkward and at a loss for words that he eventually ends up shutting them down or stuttering and trying to stray away from the subject.
10. If you can’t tell already, he loves his team like they’re his little grand babies, but he’s obviously too embarrassed to say anything, and you know it because he yells at them with ease, but struggles to verbally compliment them, But internally, he does it pretty often. Both during matches, and practices. And when they made the biggest win of the season he was so touched that he actually said all the stuff that came to his mind, out loud, and face to face with them like a proud overjoyed grandparent whekwkwkkw okay I know I’ve said grand something like 4 times by now but I just can’t help it. Suga and Daichi are the mother and father and Takeda and Ukai are grandma and grandpa and if you arent convinced on that last part then here.
