Umetarou Kabashima

**Umetarou Kabashima** (椛島梅太郎, *Kabashima Umetarou*?) is a third-year student at Kirisaki High School and the president of the Kyudo Club.

## Appearance

Kabashima is a short, dark red haired boy with a clear forehead and brown eyes. His looks are somewhat similar to that of Kaito, with a slightly darker skin color.

For kyudo, at school, he wears the Kirisaki uniform composed of a dark *shitagi*, navy *keikogi* tied with a purple *obi*, and dark *hakama* with plain white *tabi*.

For official competitions he wears a different color of *keikogi*, changing it to a white version.

While outdoors, he wears a dark jacket with sides in white, and purple sleeves with wide dark stripes. On its back the the school’s name is written in white. He also wears brown sneakers.

## Personality

Short tempered, Kabashima is straightforward, often speaking his mind to people, especially when he is angry or annoyed. He demonstrates respect for the seniors, such as when he shows concern for them being left out of the tournament, since it was their last year.

## History

When he was a second year at Kirisaki, he felt slighted when so many first years got on the starting line up. For a while, he took Manji's place while he was recovering from his target panic, and eventually gave the position back to him.

## Story

### Kirisaki High School Prefectural Tournament Selections

During a kyudo practice, Kabashima yells at twins Senichi and Manji Sugawara for shooting at each other's targets intentionally. He threatens to ban them from standing before the targets if they do it again. The twins apologize.

A few days later, the Kirisaki Prefectural Tournament selections begin. Kabashima misses a shot in the first round, while the twins and Shuu Fujiwara are the only first-years to not miss a shot.

During the break, while the three first-years are eating lunch in the courtyard, Kabashima and another boy approach them. He scolds them for not having the tact to be considerate of the third-years, for who this will be their last official high school tournament. Shuu responds, wondering if that would not be rude to their upperclassmen instead. Kabashima snaps that first-years should not be giving advice to their upperclassmen, then when he sees the twins not paying attention to him, shoves Manji's shoulder and causes the strawberry that he is about to eat to fall down. Manji tells him to apologize, calling him "red hippo," the nickname he and his brother gave him when he yelled at them. Kabashima scowls at them, calling them rude and the shame of Kirisaki. He tells Shuu that if he had just ignored them they would have left the club a long time ago. Shuu defends them, saying that while their behavior is not excellent, they never missed club and did preparations properly. He states that he thinks upperclassmen who encourage match-fixing to lower the dignity of the school and of kyudo. Kabashima tells him not to disregard his upperclassmen and teachers and give advice to others, before leaving with his companion. Shuu speculates that he was venting his anger.

Kabashima ends up hitting with all of his arrows in the second round, concluding the selections with nine hits. He is qualified to be part of the Kirisaki team for the Prefectural Tournament. Shuu, Senichi, and Manji have also qualified. However, when Hiroki Motomura and Daigo Sase, the club president and vice-president respectively, invite the chosen members to dinner, he declines to come.

## Shooting Technique and Ability

Kabashima is a strong and reliable hitter, and the current president of the club.

## Relationships

### Senichi Sugawara and Manji Sugawara

Kabashima frequently gets after the twins for being disrespectful. They call him the Red Hippo.

### Kaoru Yushima

He is friends with Kaoru as the two are always seen together. Karou usually has to reel in Kabashima's temper.

## Trivia

* Kabashima was originally introduced as a third-year student in the first book, but was changed to a second-year in the second book and in all subsequent printings of the first book.