Tsukushi Tsukamoto

**Tsukushi Tsukamoto** (柄本 つくし, *Tsukamoto Tsukushi*) is the main character of Days. He is the son of Nozomi Tsukamoto, a freshmen at Seiseki High School, the next door neighbor/childhood friend with Sayuri Tachibana and a close friend of Jin Kazama who joined the football club, despite being a beginner, whose squad number is # 17.

## Appearance

Tsukushi's character designTsukushi's anime visual
Tsukushi is a skinny boy with blue eyes, untidy dark hair, and rosy cheeks. An idiot acting boy but has more potential than anyone else from the team.

Outside of training and matches, Tsukushi's clothes are ordinary and he often dresses in simple T-shirts and shorts. His training gear consists of school training shirts, sports shorts and Jin Kazama's old training shoes.

When playing for Seiseki High School, Tsukushi wears Seiseki's black home kit or yellow away kit with black boots.

## Personality

Tsukushi is a very timid boy at first due to the incessant bullying he received, but he is still extremely polite and he is very honest about his feelings, almost to the point of stupidity. He tries his best to work for the team even though he doesn't have the necessary skills and always strives to be better to ease the tension of his senpais and classmates. However, after the last match at the Inter-High Prelims against Saku High, he became more confident and started orienting his goal to get better for himself and not for others.

Although very diligent, he is not that academically smart, being average at most. He will never hesitate to get the ball even when the team is in a pinch. He is very determined at finishing the plays that he has been entrusted with and although he has no other spectacular qualities, he can run for the life of him. In terms of pinch running, he is Seiseki High School's best. One of his only redeeming qualities as of now.

He also has the tendency to overreact when stuff abnormal, to him, happen. He is greatly identical to Seiseki's team Captain, Hisahito Mizuki, in the sense that both of them were not born talented and Mizuki had to work his way to the top. They both also only started playing football the first year of high school.

According to Yuuta Usui, Tsukamoto's grades are decent compared to his fellow freshmen, so he is still an asset to help out in the study group in the future once the seniors graduate, and may even be a decent teacher due to his perseverance.

He is very non-competitive, so he feels uneasy to be in competition between teammates, even when it is healthy and a necessary part of life in general. But as time goes on, he heaped a lot of pressure on himself to improve in all aspects of his game.

If his skills develop well, then he has the potential to be Seiseki's Fourth Arrow.

## History

Tsukushi has been raised by his mother Nozomi Tsukamoto for the most of his life. She has greatly influenced his personality, due to being in a wheelchair and teaching Tsukushi to be considerate to people.

## Plot

In the match against Ryouzan High School, Tsukamoto came on in the second half and saved Seiseki High School from getting knocked out by the champions , surprising Ryouzan with his plays and even assisting Hisahito Mizuki and Jin Kazama for Seiseki's comeback from losing 0-3 to winning 4-3.

## Skills

* **High Pain Tolerance:**Tsukushi can handle a lot of pain and injuries, a lot more than should be the norm. Even when an injury does leave him knocked out for some time, he never takes more than a handful of hours to bounce back.
* **Ball Recovery:** Tsukushi has become extremely good at keeping the ball from going out at the last second, either chasing after it until he overtakes it, throwing himself in its way, or, more recently, predicting its curve to jump at the right moment and catch it in time. His timing and technique are increasingly getting better.
* **Dodging:** Later on, Tsukushi also learns how to shake off his mark by waiting for a moment when they aren't looking at him and move out of their line of sight to reappear behind them or wherever else he's needed on the pitch, unnoticed thanks to the higher presence of the other forwards.

## Relationships

### Jin Kazama

Tsukushi and Kazama are friends at first sight and quickly become inseparable. Neither had a lot of close friends before (or, in Tsukushi's case, any friends at all aside from Sayuri Tachibana), but they click almost instantly, with Kazama being moved by Tsukushi's tenacity and Tsukushi being awed by Kazama's coolness and grateful for his kindness. Tsukushi almost instantly becomes extremely loyal to Kazama as a result, struggling to meet him for a futsal match against all adversity including bad weather and a gang of bullies, and decides to pick up soccer because of him. He and Kazama adore each other a great deal; they spend a lot of time together and look out for each other, with Tsukushi trying to defend Kazama when he overhears a few people trash-talking him despite his usual shyness, as well as revealing his injury in the match against Seikan because he values his well-being over any trouble he might get into for telling on him. They're very open in their affection towards each other; Kazama is very cuddly with Tsukushi, and Tsukushi once describes Kazama as "cool-looking, dependable and funny, someone who brightens everything around him and is gentle, and a real soccer genius." The two have promised to always be friends, soccer or no soccer.

## Etymology

* Tsukushi's surname **Tsukamoto** means "design, pattern, build, nature, handle, crank, grip, knob, shaft" (柄) (**tsuka**) and "base, root, origin" source (本) (**moto**).

## Trivia

* Tsukushi is the shortest member of the Seiseki soccer club (including Chikako Ubukata), as well as the second shortest player in the entire series.
* Tsukushi's special skill is perfectly removing pudding from its packaging.
* In Chapter 28 of the manga and Episode 11 of the anime, Tsukushi is revealed to be wearing red boxer shorts with white polka dots.
* Tsukushi likes milk and dislikes crowds.
* Tsukushi's favorite word is "orderliness".
* When Tsukushi is asked about a girlfriend in his character sheet, he states he'd be happy just making someone else happy in the future.