| Spoiler Warning! "Haruhisa Kuribayashi" contains spoilers for the character and the series! Please proceed with this knowledge.
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Haruhisa Kuribayashi (栗林 晴久; Kuribayashi Haruhisa) is a supporting character in Ao Ashi. Kuribayashi is one grade above Ashito Aoi, and he plays as an offensive midfielder in Tokyo City Esperion FC's senior team. He is also a member of the U-20 Japan national team. Kuribayashi is the first player in Esperion to be promoted to the senior team before the completion of the three-year period as a member of the youth team.
Appearance & Personality[]
Kuribayashi is a tall, slim though fit, teenage boy with dark black hair styled upwards and short around the sides. He is considered a football genius, a prodigy when it comes to being on the field. Due to this, he is hard to read for other players and he is constantly thinking about football. His ambition is limitless, since he aims to be the best football player in the world.
Plot Overview[]
Early Life[]
Ten years before the start of the story, Kuribayashi moved to Barcelona, in Spain, due to professional duties of his father. During his time there, Kuribayashi was recruited by Robert Schreier, one of the scouts of Barcelona FC, to participate in the tryouts to join the team. During the tryouts, he met Demian Cant, and Kuribayashi beat him, due to Demian's lack of physicality and technique with his right foot. After that, Schreier invited him and his father to watch the match between Barcelona and Sabadell. Kuribayashi was greatly impressed by the stadium Camp Nou, and as a consequence of that experience, he decided that he wanted to devote his life to football.
During the match, Kuribayashi was fascinated by the football of Tatsuya Fukuda, who back then was playing as an offensive midfielder for Sabadell, and scored two goals for a final result of 2-2. At the exit of the match, he met again with Demian Cant, who challenged him, this time being Kuribayashi completely detroyed. Kuribayashi realises that in a matter of hours, Demian had assimilated Fukuda's playstyle. Kuribayashi strained his wrist during the challenge and was healed by a Japanese girl.
After one year in Barcelona, his father had to go back to Japan and Kuribayashi could not join Barcelona FC, despite the will of their scouts. Back in Japan, he joined Esperion, and five years later, at the age of 13, due to his immense talent, he got the chance to practice with the senior team. Akitaka Shiba offered him a valuable advice about focusing on improving his technique and to change his way of thinking.
Main Story[]
When Ashito Aoi arrives to Tokyo, Haruhisa Kuribayashi is observed training with the senior team of Tokyo City Esperion.
He is also seen secretly observing the match between Esperion's Youth B-team and Seikyo High School. That evening, he makes his debut with the senior team against Tosu. In his first play, he assists to Tamotsu Deguchi but he misses the shot. Later, he shoots to the post and assists again to Deguchi for him to score his second and last goal of the match. As a key player in the match, he is chosen to be interviewed by the press, alongside Deguchi.
A few days later, he finds one of Ashito's meal plans prepared by Hana Ichijo. He is impressed by it and asks Nagisa Akutsu about Ashito's whereabouts to ask who prepared the meal plan. They both discuss about Ashito's recent switch of position from forward to full-back. He does not manage to talk to Ashito. However, he finds out that Hana was the one who prepared the meal plan thanks to the Esperion's cook. He asks her if she can prepare a meal plan for him too, request to which Hana agrees with the condition of him giving advice to Ashito.
A few weeks later, Kuribayashi plays in the Asian Champions League in Vietnam, in the city of Hanoi. After the match, Katsumi Mito, Esperion's senior team's head coach, informs him that Tatsuya Fukuda has requested him to return to the youth team, and that his presence in the senior team will be temporarily suspended. He reunited with other youth team members, such as Yoichi Kiriki, Taira Nakamura, Eita Takasugi, Kenta Yoshitsune, Enshin Akiyama and Nagisa Akutsu, as well as coach Fukuda. The latter tells him that the reason of being called back to the youth team is because he wants Kuribayashi not to lose sight of the situation because of the newly acquired popularity, to help him to relax and to tell him to make sure not to get injured.
Kuribayashi watched the first practice of Ashito, Eisaku Otomo and Keiji Togashi with Esperion's Youth A-team, accompanied by Miyako Tachibana, Anri Kaido and her butler. Later on, the four of them went to take dinner at Hinomaru's Eatery, where they joined Ashito, Otomo, Kanpei Kuroda, Yuma Motoki, Taira, Kunitaka Matsunaga and Osieck Mino.
Kuribayashi was chosen as a reserve player in the match between Esperion's Youth A-team and Kashiwa. He entered in the pitch around minute 75 in the second half with a partial result of 1-0 for Esperion and in his first play, him and Yoshitsune created a shot opportunity for Yuma for him to score the second goal. Soon after, Kuribayashi assisted to Yutaka Yamada but he missed his shot. At the end of the game, he received a long pass from Ashito and assisted to Akutsu for the latter to score the third goal for a final result of 3-0 for Esperion.
A few weeks later, Kuribayashi was guided by Ryuichi Takeshima to find Ashito in a bus stop. There, he fulfilled the promise he made to Hana about giving advice to Ashito, and offered him his notes, with all the information he has collected in the matched about football tactiques. He also reveals to Ashito his goal of becoming the best football player in the world.
Kuribayashi was called up again with the senior team by the time of the match between Esperion's Youth A-team and Tokyo Vans, match he could enjoy as an espectator. During the half-time, he talked to Yoichi Kiriki, who has having a very bad performance in the match, and urged him to do something about his passes not being well-received by his teammates.
Thanks to an agreement between Fukuda and Hernán Garulla, Kuribayashi was called back to the Youth team to play specifically against Funabashi. When Taira Nakamura revealed his plans to retire after Funabashi's match, Kuribayashi, Kiriki, Takasugi and Akiyama met to discuss about the importance of winning to honour Taira's career in Esperion. Kuribayashi was chosen as a starter against Funabashi. With the aid of his teammates, Esperion implements successfully the five-lanes strategy. He assists to Takasugi in the first goal of the match. During the half-time, Kuribayashi asks Ashito why in the last play (which resulted in a counter-attack) he did not send a cross to Toji Kobayakawa. He suspects when Ashito says that he did not see him. He feels at unease during the second half, since he does not understand how Ashito is playing. He tries to help him anyway, and the next play ended up in a counter-attack. Trepone Rufin scored and Enshin Akiyama got injured after clashing with the post while trying to save it. After Trepone the second goal in a penalty kick committed by an Ashito who saw a red card in that action, Kuribayashi's spirit did not fall, and was able to drag with him Akutsu and Takasugi. The three of them made a play that ended with Takasugi assisting to Akutsu, who scored the last goal for a final result of 2-2.
After Funabashi's match, he was summoned by Tatsuya Fukuda and Jun Kase, who handed him his professional contract. Kuribayashi was going to be promoted to Esperion's senior team one year before the end of his three-year period in youth. He was surprised by seeing in the contract that it was expiring as soon as Kuribayashi was 18. Kuribayashi realised that this meant that Esperion would get no transfer fee after him going overseas. Fukuda tells him that he wants Kuribayashi to open a path for others and Kuribayashi is Esperion's bet. The first person Kuribayashi told about this was Taira and he met with him to ask him why is he retiring. Soon after, he has a press conference regarding his recent promotion to the senior team.
Two months later, already in the senior team, he had already scored four goals and produced six assists in the J-1 League.
Kuribayashi assisted in the funeral of Chihaya Akutsu, Nagisa Akutsu's mother, by petition of Jun Kase. He thanked Chihaya for having a son who became such a good center-back.
Due to his fatigue, he did not participate in the first training day of Ashito Aoi and Yuma Motoki with the senior team. He watched it alongside the journalist Aoi Kaneko, who was covering for it. He explains Kaneko how does it feel to be in the senior team, comparing it to putting a puppy in a group of wolves. That evening, the two of them went for dinner and were lately joined by Ashito. Kuribayashi talked about Ashito's decision of sticking to Akitaka Shiba, commenting he helped him too in his first days in the senior team, and revealed his plans to go overseas in two years, specifically to Spain. The day after, he met Ashito and Hana, and revealed that in the past he lived in Spain and that he can speak Spanish. He also comments to Ashito that he is not involved in any kind of romantic relationship with Hana. He did participate in the third day of training of Ashito and Yuma with the senior team.
Esperion's Youth A-team won the Takanadonomiya Cup against Ganon Osaka and this allowed the team to participate in the Alkass Cup in Qatar. After knowing that Esperion was going to cross paths with Barcelona FC, he asked Jun Kase to ask Garulla to let him play with Esperion's Youth in, at least, that match. After being negated that, he forced Midorikawa Koichi, a member of the public relationships' department to put him in contact to Garulla himself. He managed to be put in contact with Garulla, and was allowed to participate in the match against Barcelona. Akutsu witnessed Kuribayashi talking to Garulla about Demian Cant and both met in a coffee shop to talk about Kuribayashi's past.
After his arrival to Qatar, he watched the first match of the tournament between Aspire Qatar and Real Madrid, where he saw Akutsu.
He was chosen as a regular in the first match against Barcelona FC's Youth team. Esperion was overwhelmed in the first minutes, but Kuribayashi took charge of the situation and alongside Kiriki and Ashito, they started to counter Barcelona's midfielders with their playmaking. They managed to create an opportunity for Kuribayashi that was aborted by Sino Ascari. At the end of the first half, Kuribayashi intercepted a shot from Kiriki, and used the ball to score. This goal tied the game 1-1.
Skills[]
Abilities[]
Trivia[]
Etymology[]
- The etymology for his first name, Haruhisa, means "clear weather" (晴) (haru) and "long time" (久) (hisa). His surname, Kuribayashi, means "chestnut" (栗) (kuri) and "forest" (林) (hayashi/bayashi).
Statistics[]
Tokyo City Esperion[]
| Vs | Games | Goals | Assist | Chapters | Scoreboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 6 | 1 | 1 | ||
| x | J-league 1° Match | 1 | 1 | ||
| Hanoi Sc | LCA Match | 0 | 0 | 118 |
Japão Sub-20[]
| Vs | Games | Goals | Assist | Chapters | Scoreboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | |||||
Tokyo Esperion A[]
| VS | Games | Goals | Assist | Chapters | Scoreboard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | |||||
| Kashiwa Business High School(5°) | 7° Match Premier League U-18 | 0 | 1 | 126- | W(3-0) |
| Soleil Kashima | 10°Match Premier League U-18 | ? | ? | 147 | W(3-0) |
| Shimizu SC | 11°Match Premier League U-18 | ? | ? | 147 | W(2-0) |
| Baramgare Sapporo | 12°Match Premier League U-18 | ? | ? | 147 | W(3-1) |
| FC Tosu | 13°Match Premier League U-18 | ? | ? | 147 | W(1-0) |
| - |