Taisuke Ōtsubo (大坪 泰介 Ōtsubo Taisuke) was Shūtoku High's third year center and captain. After the Winter Cup, he retired along with the rest of the third years.
Appearance[]
Ōtsubo is known for being very tall and especially large. His hair is black and stands upwards. He has thick eyebrows and dark eyes.
He wears the white, orange and black Shūtoku High jersey with the number 4.
Personality[]
Ōtsubo is a responsible and motivated captain who cares for his teammates and can successfully lift their spirits when times on the court gets tough. He attaches much importance to good sportsmanship as after he dunks over two opponents and are knocked off to the ground, he helps them get back up.
Story[]
Interhigh preliminaries[]
Ōtsubo is seen leading his team to the match of the fourth round of the Interhigh preliminaries. During warmup, Shintarō Midorima asks if he can play this time. Ōtsubo agrees, since their coach asked Ōtsubo to forgive three of Midorima's whims a day. He warns Midorima not to pull that more than two times or he'll get mad. He concludes by saying that as long as Midorima scores, there's no problem.[1]
During the match itself, Ōtsubo is seen as the center pillar of his team, receiving passes from Kazunari Takao and laying it in. He later strongly catches the rebound and dunks over two opponents. The players fall on the ground and Ōtsubo helps them up, while the Seirin High players in the audience comment on how unstoppable he really is.[2] He and his team win the match by a tremendous margin or 153 – 21.
Pre-Winter Cup[]
Ōtsubo is seen practicing for the Winter Cup with Shūtoku High.[3]
Winter Cup[]
Ōtsubo is seen watching Seirin High's 1st round against Tōō High along with his team and coach. In their own matches, they have won everything easily, round 1 to 3 and the quarter-finals.
Semi-finals[]
For the semi-finals of the Winter Cup, Shūtoku High is set to play Rakuzan High. Ōtsubo leads his team to the court and jumps for the tip-off against Eikichi Nebuya. Ōtsubo wins it and Kazunari Takao gets the ball, Shintarō Midorima eventually scores a three-pointer. At the end of the first quarter, Ōtsubo is beaten by Nebuya under the basket. When the second quarter starts and Kiyoshi Miyaji passes Kotarō Hayama and forces Nebuya outside, Ōtsubo gets the ball and he dunks it. But it proved to be difficult dealing with an Uncrowned King for him as Nebuya managed to get him out of his usual game.
When Seijūrō Akashi starts to hold off Midorima, Rakuzan quickly gained the upperhand widening the gap to 16. However, Midorima refuels his spirit and started to make a play with Takao in order to counter Akashi's Emperor Eye. Ōtsubo also strengthens his resolve and retaliates against Nebuya, managing to block, outrebound, and even dunk over him.
But when Akashi threatens to gouge out his own eyes as a morbidly sincere motivation to his team, Rakuzan decides to play more seriously, finally sealing their victory. Even though they lost, Ōtsubo still held his head high and tells his team to lineup to thank their audience for cheering for them.
Skill[]
Physical Ability | 9/10 | ||
---|---|---|---|
Technique | 8/10 | ||
Stamina | 9/10 | ||
Mental Strength | 9/10 | ||
Special Ability | 4/10 | ||
Ōtsubo was noted to have overwhelming offensive skills, being Shūtoku's main scorer before Midorima joined the team.[4] He is very tall and muscular, so he usually gains strong position in the post. According to Hyūga, Ōtsubo is one of the tallest centers in Tokyo. A typical occurrence in games is that Ōtsubo grabs a rebound and executes a put back dunk. Other times, he is thrown the ball in the post, where he out-muscles his opponent to score a basket. It was shown a few times that Ōtsubo could grab rebounds over multiple players.[5] His rebounding prowess is strong enough to compete with Teppei Kiyoshi. Nebuya pointed out Ōtsubo's ridiculous stamina as he is able to dunk even around the end of the match. On defense, he is capable of blocking shots.
Etymology[]
- The name Taisuke means "peaceful, calm, peace, easy, Thailand" (泰) (tai) and "forerunner, herald" (介) (suke).
- Taisuke's surname Ōtsubo means "big, great" (大) (ō) and "unit of land measurement, two-mat area, ‾36 sq ft" (坪) (tsubo).
Trivia[]
- On the first character poll, Ōtsubo ranked 25th, with 78 votes.
- In a light novel story about Shintarō Midorima's unlucky day, it is shown that Ōtsubo is quite skilled at knitting.
- Ōtsubo is a fan of Mamirin from an idol girl group.[6]
- According to KUROFES:
- His motto is: "Learn from the past."
- His favorite food is Apple Pie.
- His hobby is cleaning.
- His special skill is knitting.
- His best subject is Physics.
- He's apart of the library committee.
- He has a father, a mother, and one younger sister.
- He dislikes cockroaches.
- His best (low-post) move in basketball is a front turn.
- His type of girl is a sincere person.
- He spends his free time playing with his little sister.
- He started playing basketball during club solicitations.
- The player he has his eye on is Iwamura.
- Ostubo works as a part-time librarian at school.[7]
References[]
[]
v - e - t | Shūtoku High |
---|---|
Players | Shintarō Midorima • Kazunari Takao • Yūya Miyaji |
Former players | Taisuke Ōtsubo • Kiyoshi Miyaji • Shinsuke Kimura |
Coach | Masaaki Nakatani |