| Manabu Takasaki | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Japanese Name: | 高崎学 |
| Romanized Name: | Takasaki Manabu |
| English Name: | Manabu Takasaki |
| First Appearance: | "Nichijou Episode 1" "Nichijou Manga Volume 3" |
| Birthday: | October 20[1] |
| Occupation: | Teacher |
| Affiliated: | Principal Shinonome (boss) Kousuke Oura (vice boss) Izumi Sakurai (Co-worker/crush) Tomioka (Co-worker) Akagi (Co-Worker) Kana Nakamura (Co-Worker) |
| Alignment: | Bamboo Shoots |
| Japanese VA: | Tetsu Inada |
| English VA: | Shawn Gann |
Manabu Takasaki (高崎 学, Takasaki Manabu) is a 26-year-old male teacher at Tokisadame High School who teaches Japanese Literature to students. He takes teaching seriously and presents a collected front, but he can be overly passionate and overwhelmed when his personal affairs become involved.
He has romantic feelings for his colleague Izumi Sakurai. However, he is unable to tell Izumi as he is too shy to admit that he has feelings for her, and thus he becomes extremely anxious and agitated whenever he is in a position to express these feelings or believes that he is being seen while showing them. Due to this he was eventually blackmailed into sponsoring and coaching the Igo Soccer Club after Makoto, Izumi's brother, bribes him with pictures of his sister.
Appearance[]
Manabu is tall, with dark brown hair and angular eyebrows, sporting subtle sideburns. Like other male characters depicted in the series, he is drawn with unique eyes, being more rounded simple, and smaller. As a teacher, he is mostly seen wearing a black trouser, black suit with a white shirt and blue tie with a full-Windsor knot. Sometimes he wears a long-sleeved white shirt without wearing the suit and the tie.
Personality[]
Izumi Sakurai, an easily flustered teacher, is herself a cause of agitation for Takasaki.
Takasaki first appears visually in Volume 3, where he is introduced as the Japanese Literature teacher. He makes further appearances throughout the manga and anime, his most recent English release being Nichijou Volume 11. Despite this, his crush with Izumi rarely progresses or is resolved, leading to increasingly bizarre and extraordinary situations where he's overwhelmed.
Takasaki is usually calm, but he tends to panic in situations where he has too many tasks or when he is overwhelmed. This usually leads to him falling into hysteria, shouting, or otherwise behaving irrationally. This happens most frequently when he is talking to, or is around his crush, Izumi Sakurai. When he panics, his mind crashes and he carelessly talks about things that often just makes the situation more awkward. He also becomes extremely anxious and agitated whenever he is in a position to express his feelings for Izumi or believes that he is being seen while showing them. A lot of the humour from his scenes is derived from his failed attempts to stay calm while increasingly bizarre things happen.
Despite this, his behaviour around Izumi greatly contrasts his usual serious and dedicated demeanor, the contrast again, often being done for comedic effect. Takasaki is an incredibly dedicated and hard-working teacher and usually goes above and beyond to ensure he completes his work to the best of his ability. This is usually noticed by other teachers, most notably in Volume 11, where his enthusiasm for a class excursion drew praise[2] (although this can occasionally conflict with his eventual goal of asking out Izumi, resulting in him haphazardly asking Haruna Annaka to 'draw in' Tsuyoshi Nakanojou's pupils after she found him unconscious[3], not wanting to leave Izumi and Makoto Sakurai out of his sight having been convinced they might be dating).
Regardless, Takasaki is generally a kind and caring individual: He was willing to try to resuscitate Kana Nakamura after he believed her to be in danger, and without hesitation bought a 200k yen chunk of ham for Izumi after mistakenly believing she had been looking at it.[4] He also displays a certain amount of pride, and wants his students to believe he's a cool strong teacher. Despite how he often berates Yuuko Aioi, he does seem to genuinely care about his students and the well-being of the school, even going to the extent of calling back the Principal to prevent Kousuke from shutting down the Igo Soccer Club, after previously refusing to manage the club several times,[5] although this can sometimes take second place to his crush for Izumi. He also appears opposed to checking the heart rate of an unconscious Nakamura, panicking and saying it's a "crime" displaying an awkwardness and lack of experience around women, even passing out after being told he should perform mouth to mouth respiration.[6]
He seems to display a high level of trust in Ogi, and a willingness and ability to follow and execute instructions, following his research on how to prevent the Vice Principal from disbanding the club perfectly despite the absurdity, to the point where Daiku believed he was going crazy.[7]
Coaching Igo Soccer[]
Manabu stands alongside the Igo Soccer Club in Volume 11
Since Takasaki was blackmailed by Makoto Sakurai, who bribed him with pictures of Izumi, he agreed to sponsor and coach the Igo Soccer Club. 
in a brief flashback its revealed Takasaki was once an MVP of Igo Soccer in an unnamed school. In spite of this, he seems to initially have zero interest in the club and only joins unwillingly after being given the aforementioned picture of Izumi, and threatened with the exposure of his crush, although he later goes to great lengths to protect the club and he exhibits a high level of skill in Igo Soccer.
Relationships[]
Izumi Sakurai[]
Takasaki has a crush on Izumi. He likes everything she likes and will lie to her to pretend he dislikes what she does (he even expresses a desire to become a leek after discovering Izumi bought some while out shopping)[8] Takasaki can usually be seen imagining his future with Sakurai whenever she is with him. He is also completely incapable of holding a conversation longer than a few words with her and will often panic and ask her embarrassing questions, such as asking her if she was dating anyone. On the other hand, Izumi is usually completely oblivious to Takasaki's advances, and is typically polite and kind to him, resulting in Takasaki simply becoming more smitten.
Makoto Sakurai[]
Initially, Makoto was alerted to Takasaki having a crush on his sister when Takasaki accidentally asked him if Izumi had a boyfriend. Although he wouldn't understand why he liked Izumi, he would later take advantage of this to blackmail Takasaki into being the advisor for the Igo Soccer Club, which he was opposed to on the grounds of it being too much work.[9] He first tries to blackmail him by threatening to tell everyone about his crush, and later by giving him a picture of Izumi when she was in high school. Takasaki doesn't seem too annoyed by this however and later becomes very invested into the club.
Yuuko Aioi[]
Due to Yuuko always forgetting her homework he often forces her to stand out in the hall and berates her when she is late to class.
Kana Nakamura[]
Although they don't interact as often, he has accidentally bumped into her more than once and unintentionally embarrassed Nakamura, drawing particular disdain for interrupting her attempts to study Nano Shinonome. Although later, she becomes incredibly flustered when Takasaki calls her 'cute', and it's heavily implied she has a crush on him. She refers to him as 'sideburns', however like Izumi before him, Takasaki seems oblivious, both to her assumed crush and nickname, creating a bizarre love triangle. She mistakenly also believes Takasaki has a crush on her (mostly due to him lying when caught by Izumi, and saying the picture he had of her was of Nakamura)
Principal Shinonome[]
Takasaki would accidentally catch the Principal wearing a wig when he went to ask to be the advisor of the Igo Soccer Club. This would lead to an awkward situation for both, however they seem to have a friendly working relationship overall.
Etymology[]
- The name Manabu means "study, learning, science" (学).
- Manabu's surname Takasaki means "tall, high" (高) (taka) and "cape, peninsula" (崎) (saki).
- Takasaki is a reference to Takasaki City, the largest city in Keiichi Arawi's home prefecture, Gunma.
Trivia[]
- He gardens and reads books in his spare time. Specifically, he maintains a kitchen garden, implying he doesn't have much living space.
- He seems to have a fondness for mushrooms: He initially wants to invite Izumi to go mushroom hunting[10]
- His entire net monthly income, according to Chapter 202, is two hundred thousand yen. This is actually below average compared to the salary of a typical Japanese teacher.
- He has apparently never been close to a woman's face before, nor has he ever held a girl's hand. 
- He apparently has a lot of pet theories about what a teacher should be
- He talks to his eggplants[11]
Quotes[]
- "The wind's blowing in favour of our excursion!!"
- "I just want to invite her to go mushroom hunting...."
- "Draw them in"
- "NO FUTURE!!!"