Makoto Shimada

Makoto Shimada
Kanji	嶋田 誠
Rōmaji	Shimada Makoto
Character Info
Gender	Male
Status
Age	26
Height	177.7 cm (5' 10")
Occupation	Shimada Mart employee
Teams	Karasuno High (former) Karasuno Neighborhood Association
Number	11 (former)
Position	Wing Spiker Pinch Server
Background Information
Home town	Miyagi Prefecture
Home country	Japan
Debut Information
In the Manga	Honest Feelings
In the Anime	A Toss to the Ace
Seiyū Information
Voice Actor	Tomoaki Maeno
English Actor	Kregg Dailey
Image gallery

Makoto Shimada (Japanese: 嶋田 (しまだ) 誠 (まこと) , Shimada Makoto) is a wing spiker on the Neighborhood Association Team and Yamaguchi's mentor.

Appearance

He has straight, silky black hair that is parted evenly into two sides. His eyes are gray and he wears brown-rimmed glasses. He appears to be quite thin.

Personality

Shimada is a bit immature at times, as shown when he brags after doing a jump float serve that the opponents fail to receive. Despite this, he has a mentoring personality and is a good teacher; when Yamaguchi failed his jump float serve in a match, Shimada comforted him and helped him pick himself back up.

Background

Shimada performs his first service ace ever in a match during high school.

He is an alumnus of Karasuno High School and was the pinch server for the volleyball club. Now, he either owns or works in Shimada Mart. He also plays on the Neighborhood Association team with Takinoue and Ukai.

Plot

Karasuno High Team Formation Arc

The members of the Karasuno Neighborhood Association Team introduce themselves.

Shimada is one of the players on the Neighborhood Association team that's called in by Ukai to play against Karasuno High School. During the match, he performs four successful jump float serves, taking points for his team; however, the fifth one gets received by Daichi, breaking Shimada’s streak. In the end, Shimada's team wins. After the game, Shimada and the older players give advice to the Karasuno Team.

Sometime later, Shimada's persuaded by Takinoue to go with him to watch the Nekoma vs Karasuno practice match.

Tadashi Yamaguchi is impressed by Shimada’s serves and asks the latter to teach him the technique. Shimada agrees and during the time before the Interhigh starts, Yamaguchi goes to Shimada Mart to learn.

Interhigh Arc

Shimada watches Karasuno’s matches from the bleachers with Takinoue and cheers them on. During the Karasuno vs Aobajōsai match, he helps Takinoue explain volleyball tactics to two girls on the bleachers. When Karasuno's doing badly, Ukai looks over and spots Shimada and remembers Yamaguchi’s new serve technique. He subs Yamaguchi in but Shimada's against it, stating to Takinoue that Yamaguchi can only perform the serves successfully by chance and hasn't mastered them yet. Like Shimada says, Yamaguchi fails his serves and Shimada sadly watches his student get subbed out. After the Interhigh ends, Yamaguchi goes to Shimada Mart after closing hours and vents his anger and disappointment in himself to Shimada. The latter then tells his student how he used to feel the same way. When he was in Karasuno, he would watch his teammates play, wanting to be on the court with them; eventually, after hard work, he mastered his jump float serve and finally used it in a match. His story inspires Yamaguchi to keep practicing until he can one day do the same.

Spring High Preliminary Arc

Shimada comforts Yamaguchi after his failures during the Interhigh.

He goes with Takinoue to Karasuno’s matches again. Before the first match began, he meets Saeko Tanaka and throughout the game, he and Takinoue explain volleyball tactics to her. During the Karasuno vs Wakutani South match, when Yamaguchi's called up to serve, Shimada states to Saeko that he feels nervous about the outcome, but his student manages to pull off a net-in. However, Yamaguchi doesn’t do another jump float serve on his next turn. Shimada comments that if Yamaguchi’s only weapon is his serve and if he turns away from it, he will be left with nothing.

When Karasuno makes it to the finals against Shiratorizawa, Shimada and Takinoue gather up as many people as they can to cheer for Karasuno. However, Shimada's soon overwhelmed by the much larger audience Shiratorizawa has, which even includes cheerleaders.

When Coach Ukai comes to watch the match, Shimada, Takinoue, and Akiteru bow as a greeting. The coach notes how the three of them used to jump at the ball without thinking, unlike what the current Karasuno's doing right now, and they look away sheepishly as Takinoue hastily explains that they just had too many other factors to think about during matches.

As the game progresses, Shimada would boast every so often about Yamaguchi's successful jump float serves, much to Takinoue's annoyance. Shimada also notes that despite the imbalance of the scores, Karasuno can still win as long as they keep pushing Ushiwaka to his limits. However, he and Takinoue worry about Karasuno's stamina because they have to play five matches, something they've never tried before.

Nearing the end of the match, Karasuno begins to tire out, and Saeko starts a round of cheers for the members. Shimada eagerly joins in, but they're soon overwhelmed by the louder audience Shiratorizawa has. After Ushijima makes a mistake, one of the elderly men behind Shimada comments on how it messed up Shiratorizawa's rhythm. Quickly cutting in, Shimada explains that Ushijima's powerful spike was effective in scaring the opponents. Playing as riskily as he did takes a lot of bravery, something that could help Shiratorizawa win.

In the end, Karasuno wins and advances to the Spring Cup. Shimada and Takinoue are seen cheering in the bleachers with Saeko. Afterward, he, Takinoue, Takeda, and Keishin Ukai go out to drink. Shimada gets too drunk and falls asleep on one of the cushions.

Tokyo Nationals Arc

To support Karasuno's advance to nationals, Shimada sets up a donation box in his store. He also goes to Tokyo with Takinoue to watch and support the players in their games.

Statistics

High School Statistics
Power		2/5
Jumping		3/5
Stamina		3/5
Game Sense		4/5
Technique		4/5
Speed		2/5

Jumping Reach: 300 cm

Jump Float Serve

Shimada is good enough at the jump float serve to be the pinch server for Karasuno High back when he was on the team. During the practice match against Karasuno, he hit four successful ones in a row.

Relationships

Tadashi Yamaguchi

Shimada acts like an older brother to Yamaguchi, often encouraging and cheering him on, and he often calls the younger boy by his first name. He taught Yamaguchi the jump float serve and continues to help the boy improve. Whenever Yamaguchi felt down because he failed the serve during a match, Shimada would comfort him. During the Shiratorizawa vs Karasuno game, every time Yamaguchi succeeded with his float serves, Shimada would brag about it to the people around it.

Yūsuke Takinoue

Shimada often attends Karasuno's matches with Takinoue and they would explain volleyball tactics to the people around them. Shimada and Takinoue were both on the Karasuno volleyball team at the same time; in a flashback, when Shimada succeeded for the first time with his jump float serve, Takinoue rushed over to him excitedly.

Keishin Ukai

Shimada plays on the Neighborhood Association Team with Ukai and they went to Karasuno High School together. Since high school, they've been playing volleyball together and often go out to drink with Takinoue.

Karasuno High

Like most alumni of Karasuno's Volleyball Team, Shimada shows a certain level of respect and fear towards the original Coach Ukai. Ever since the practice match against the Karasuno members, he has grown close to them. He attends most of their matches and would grin in pride whenever any of the members pull off incredible moves.

Trivia

• In Haikyuu's first popularity poll, Shimada placed 18th with 1,488 votes. In the second, he dropped to 22nd with 2,363 votes.

Quotes

• "Volleyball, more than anything, is a sport where you keep jumping continuously, so I believe it's also a battle with gravity -jumping as decoy, jumping to block, and jumping to spike. As the rally keeps going, fatigue sets in and your mental faculties decline. To be honest, you want to skip the blocking, and I've had times where I hoped someone else would spike it." (Season 1 Episode 23)
• "Relying on your team is most of volleyball. Serving is the only time you're alone. Everyone will be looking at you, and you've got all the pressure." (To Takinoue, Season 1 Episode 23)
• "That one shot [from the Pinch server] has both the game's momentum and their pride riding on it, and Tadashi messed up, but this chance to feel this regret and his own helplessness will definitely make him stronger." (Season 1 Episode 23)
• ""To enjoy competitive activities, you need to be good." Coach Ukai, I mean, his grandfather -he used to say that to me all the time. Of course, I wasn't the ace, or even a starting member. Practices were tough, and I thought about quitting, but...the first time I managed a service ace at a match, I thought, 'Man....How many hours did I practice just for this one shot? If I can savor this one shot, this one moment, again, I can survive those tough practices. " (To Yamaguchi, Season 1 Episode 25)
• "There's just something about blocking... Nailing one right back in the opponent's face is like a super move that can instantly give the whole team an emotional high." (About Satori Tendō, Volume 18 Chapter 156 )
• "Even though scoring impresses the audience the most, in order to score consecutive points, the hardest and most crucial task is to respond to the opponent's attack." (Volume 20 Chapter 172)
• "However, there's value in the act of stepping up to the plate and playing like you have nothing to lose." (Volume 21 Chapter 186)