Kōshi Sugawara

Kōshi Sugawara is a third year at Karasuno High School; he is a setter in the Karasuno High Boys' Volleyball Club. Sugawara is shown to be average in height with a slender build. He has light grey hair and hazel, brown eyes with a birthmark or a mole under his left eye. He is usually seen with a gentle smile on his face. Being the vice captain, he has a soothing and gentle personality for his teammates and acts as a pillar of support for them. Even though he isn't Karasuno's official setter anymore, he doesn't dream of giving up on playing in general.

As such, he encourages himself and all of his teammates not to give up, no matter how rough the situation might be. Sugawara's dedication to volleyball is clear when he decides to continue club activities even when most third years choose to retire to focus on their futures. In a meeting, his teacher asked Sugawara why he's so determined to continue playing even though he's not a starting member, and Sugawara replied that he doesn't want to have regrets in the future. He is also quite perceptive as he noticed how Tanaka asked for the key to the gym (back during the first years's 3-on-3 match) even though he always comes in late. He is also intelligent as he can come up with helpful tactics during games that his team members can use. An example of this is when he came up with the idea of saying "bring it" and "send it to me" for Kageyama and Hinata's combo. Suga also came up with the hand signals over night while his teammates were sleeping.

While on the sidelines, Sugawara pays close attention to the way the other team plays, often able to give his teammates advice on how to beat the other team. On the off-chance that Sugawara is put in the game, he can carry over what he learned from watching on the sidelines in order to rally the team and score a few points. However, he quickly gets stressed out by the heat of the game and starts to over-think things too much. Because Sugawara rarely plays in official matches, he's an unknown element. When he is called into games, the other teams, who may have had time to study up on the usual starting line up, don't typically know what to expect from Sugawara, thus working to Karasuno's advantage. Since the summer training camp arc, Sugawara has been mostly responsible for the team's synchronized attacks. He also practiced spiking during that time and now uses that to confuse opponents in matches. During the Karasuno's Spring High match against Aobajōsai, Sugawara showed off two new strategies. The first was acting as a pinch server in order to force Kentarō Kyōtani into receiving the serve from the front line, thus slowing him down and making him unable to spike. The second was Calculated One-Point Two-Setter - a synchro attack with Sugawara as the setter and Kageyama as a spiker, giving Karasuno five (as opposed to four) available spikers.