Otanjoubi Omedetou, Ibu-kun & Jackal!

Today's the birthday of Ibu Shinji from Fudoumine and Jackal Kuwahara from Rikkai and they are one of the few characters whose birthdays fall on the same day. Let me begin with Ibu-kun first who appeared earlier than Jackal in the anime.

Ibu is one of the two 2nd-year aces in Fudoumine along with Kamio. While the latter is more outspoken and rash, Ibu seems calmer and collected but he has a habit of rambling and grumbling to himself which gets on the nerves of others. In fact, during his first match with Echizen during the district finals, Ibu was reprimanded by Echizen for his rambling as he wanted to finish the match as soon as possible. Subsequently, he appeared in other matches too although not featured in full like those with Yamabuki and Rikkai where his doubles partner is usually Kamio. He has long hair which he never ties up during matches and I wonder why he doesn't feel hot after all that exercise. Anyway, the most interesting trait of Ibu should be his excessive rambling which provides comical relief and yet gets long-winded at times.

Now, for Jackal, he's only been featured in the Kantou final for Doubles 2 against Momo and Kaidou so far but I'm not sure whether he will be in the Nationals arc though unless Rikkai meets Seigaku in the final. Talking about Jackal, his partner Marui Bunta should also be mentioned since he seems to be the one covering Marui's faults or should I say blind points because there are certain shots whch Marui avoids but he knows there's always Jackal at the back to cover up for him. There is a strong trust relationship between the two of them who managed to get to where they are through hard work. Jackal used to live in Brazil and is of mixed heritage so his name is not in Japanese characters. He's the only skinhead in the series and he maintains this hairstyle to remind himself of a senior who helped him a lot in tennis when he was still in Brazil. He's nicknamed the steel wall because of the fact that no shots can get past him.