He grew up with his grandmother, and her favorite saying is “The gods are everywhere. There is always somebody watching.” It may sound creepy, but what she means is that we should always do our best in everything that we’re doing. Shinsuke does just that. He’s diligent with everything he does, be it chores, training, and even living. He does this so consistently that it’s been dubbed as a ritual by Omimi, another member of Inarizaki High’s volleyball team.

Even though his grandmother subtly reminds him to always do his best, Shinsuke himself denies that he’s doing it for the deities. According to him, he just does that because repetition, diligence, and perseverance feel good. We don’t entirely agree with him on that, but that adds another point to his charms.

In his quest to achieve orderliness, he somehow acquired the skill to pay attention to even the tiniest of details. That means he knows how everyone and everything should normally function, and he can easily figure out what’s wrong once things are going south. When push comes to shove, he knows the perfect words to say to straighten up each and every member of his team in an objective manner. That trait makes him an important, yet underappreciated, part of the team even though his athleticism is nowhere near monstrous.

On that note, you might be thinking he’s got skills similar to Kenma, but that’s not really true. His brain is nowhere near Kenma’s cognitive skills. The only reason Shinsuke knows so much about his teammates is that he has spent numerous hours being with and observing them. On the contrary, that also shows how much he cares about them no matter how coldhearted he might seem.

Doing the same set of routines over and over again every single day sounds more like a description for a well-oiled machine than a human being. Heck, we won’t be surprised if he’s been called that by others. However, there are two scenes that both prove how big a softie he is and why he is such a lovable character.

First is when Atsumu caught a cold. Atsumu being Atsumu, he wanted to continue training despite his condition. When Kita caught wind of this, he coldly (heh) and objectively told Atsumu to go home and rest. Gin, who applauded Atsumu’s love for volleyball, had also failed to escape hearing an earful. We’re already prepared to call Kita a spoilsport, but he just had to give Atsumu a care package with a sweet note telling him to rest. Heck, even that Atsumu got touched by that gesture.

The second one is when we learn that he has never been given a jersey until his third year of high school. At this point, we’re already tearing up. When he finally received his own jersey, he couldn’t stop himself from crying. No, we didn’t cry. It was just raining, that’s all. If you still don’t like him at this point, you’re heartless!