Who is Kenma in Haikyū!!?

Kenma Kozume was a Nekoma High second-year student. He is one of the side characters in the series and is close friends with Shoyo Hinata (main character), whom he met by chance. Professionally, Kenma was a setter for the volleyball team during his school days. At present, he has multiple occupations.

Kenma’s Life

Kenma was his parents' only child when he was born in 1995. He was a quiet child who only ever made friends with Tetsurō Kuroo, who was about the same age and lived in his neighborhood. Even though Kenma wasn't much into sports, Kuroo got him interested in volleyball, which he found to be kind of entertaining. Eventually, Kenma joined the junior high volleyball club and then the Nekoma High volleyball squad.

Though they were on different teams, Kenma and Shōyō Hinata, a first-year student at Karasuno High, became close friends during their sophomore year of high school. Kenma was most excited about volleyball when he was looking forward to playing against Hinata's team in a real match.

Kenma began studying college in 2014, having worked in a number of wealthy jobs in addition to his high school education. Among his responsibilities was starting Bouncing Ball Corp., his own business. Hinata was funded by the corporation to participate in a volleyball competition. In addition, Kenma launched the Kodzuken YouTube account.

Kenma’s Skills

Kenma's brilliant strategic mind and amazing ability to create complex strategies against his opponents have earned him the nickname "brain" of Nekoma. Because he worries excessively about what other people think of him, he is naturally perceptive of other people's behavior. This enables him to pick up on even the smallest facts about his rivals, such as their routines and personalities, and to take advantage of them.

Before devising a detailed plan for his teammates to carry out, Kenma would assess the skill set of his opponents. The majority of his schemes are subtle at first but gain more impact with time. It is therefore often too late for his opponents to understand they have stepped into his trap.

Although Kenma is a great strategist, he lacks physical stamina and is not athletic. Put another way, the receivers' ability to cleanly return the ball to Kenma allows him to make use of his skills. Rather than depending only on his teammates' flawless receptions, he has started to be more aggressive lately and would look for offensive opportunities. He is nimble and adept at both receiving and digging the ball, just like the rest of his squad.

Here are a few of Kenma’s skills:

• Ball Control: Kenma has excellent ball control as a setter. He can set with little movements and a crisp technique, making it difficult for opposition blockers to figure out his intentions. Additionally, he has shown his ability to quickly match his toss to a spiker.

• Court Awareness: Kenma is a keen observer who constantly tracks events on the court. He can predict his opponents' movements and comprehend the formation of swift players. With this skill, he may modify Nekoma's defense appropriately and create strategies that constrain particular players. He continually examines the formation for openings and aims the return ball to put his opponents in a challenging situation.

• Glance Feint: Kenma uses a kind of deception where he pretends to look toward a spiker before attempting to deceive the opposition blockers. He would throw to a different spiker, usually in the opposite direction of his sight, after the blockers reacted. Kenma moves so little that every little activity gets more distracting. Because blockers can't help but read even the smallest motions, this makes his glancing feint much more potent.

• Dump Shot: Similar to his group, Kenma is an excellent receiver. He can be seen making saves with one or both hands and occasionally diving for the ball if no one else can stop it.

• Blocking: Players have targeted Kenma because of his shorter height than some of his colleagues, hoping to spike over his lower block. Sometimes, Kenma can compensate for this by moving to a different position with a taller blocker, giving them a better chance to block opposing spikes.

• Serves: Even though Kenma doesn't have a strong serve, he can use it to target particular players or regions to force the other side to break formation or prevent a player from attacking. He is particularly famous for doing this against players who, if allowed to attack, would be dangerous.

• Strategic Thinking: Kenma's biggest suit, which is probably a result of his love of video games, is his ability to create carefully thought-out and deceptive game plans. He has proven time and time again that he can recognize what the other team is trying and quickly come up with a plan to outsmart them.

• When it appears that Nekoma is growing accustomed to their present strategies, Kenma can also detect when the other players may begin to change their own tactics. As a result, Kenma is frequently trusted to guide the team throughout a game, and the group always obeys his directions and supports his judgments.