Yaegashi Kensuke

Yaegashi Kensuke (八重樫 剣介) is an idol under TSUKINO TALENT PRODUCTION. He is a member of the unit Growth.

Official Character Introduction
''A young man with a frank, refreshing, and handsome personality! A capable person who even managed to get along with the hard-to-approach (at first glance) Eto Koki! Because of his personality of judging people without being swayed by rumours and gossip, he has a ton of friends. Because he’s a late-bloomer, he’s the type to play more with male friends than girls. That part of him is what makes him cute!''undefined

Appearance
Kensuke is a young male of average height, with dark blue hair and teal-green eyes.

For his appearance in the second SOARA live action movie, I will. -Kimi ga Mirai o Aruku Toki-, his hair was changed to a brown color rather than dark blue so as to look more natural for the movie's setting.

Personality
Kensuke is a young man with a very friendly and outgoing personality. He's a lot more outspoken compared to his friends Koki and Ryota. Though outspoken, Kensuke has been revealed to be a person who's good at reading the atmosphere and offers advice or comment that's appropriate to the situation such as when they first reunite with ZIX in the second drama CD. He's also not the type of person who outwardly says his dislike for someone else, tending to keep it quietly to himself and with the other members only.

Typical to a young man his age, Kensuke likes challenging himself with new things even if it doesn't yield any favorable results at first.

Kensuke treasures his fellow Growth members a lot and will try to help them out as much as he can. He's closest to Ryota but is equally protective (although slightly less than Ryota) of Koki. He idolizes Mamoru's music a lot, too.

Kensuke is shown to have little care for his character image though he admits that he wants his fans to think of him as cool but he won't force himself to change just because of what others might think about him.

Kensuke's sort of a pacifist when it comes to conflicts or arguments that happen between the members such as when he tried to calm down Ryota after they found out that Koki was originally invited to be a member of ZIX. Though he can tend to be a little petty sometimes such as when he found out about ZIX's fortune-telling segment on TV, which he and Ryota laughed at.

Plot
2015 = Much like with Ryota and Koki's backgrounds, Kensuke used to be a part of an agency called "Sun promotion entertainment"undefined where he and the other two were working hard on their individual jobs in hopes of getting a formal debut. They continue with their daily routines until Koki tells Kensuke and Ryota about Mamoru.
 * Age: 18
 * Height: -

Kensuke is skeptical of Mamoru at first but just like Ryota, he warms up to Mamoru in no time after hearing his music and spending a little time with him, though he still teases Mamoru.

All was going well until Koki finds out that their former agency has decided to make a new unit debut with members that were younger than they were and who were with the agency for not so long a time yet. The unit is called "ZIX" and is revealed that they debuted because of their connections with the former agency president.

Koki tells the both of them that he plans on quitting the agency and Kensuke follows suit. Mamoru then shows them a flyer for a TSUKINO PRODUCTION audition which will be held soon. Koki asks the two of them to join him in a unit, with Mamoru composing the songs. Ryota suggests that Mamoru should sing, too, and that marks the beginning of their unit. 2016 =
 * Age: 19
 * Height: -

2017 = Kensuke, now a full-fledged idol under TSUKINO PRODUCTION, continue his activities with Growth, doing lives, TV appearances, radio shows, etc. Kensuke aims to achieve greater heights and continues to pursue things that are a little bit new to him (i.e. appearing in hero/tokusatsu shows, etc.)
 * Age: 20
 * Height: -

In the anime; Growth, together with the other three units (SOARA, SolidS, and QUELL), are aiming to hold a wonderful performance at the Budokan to showcase their music. 2018 =
 * Age: 21
 * Height: -

2019 =
 * Age: 22
 * Height: -

2020 =
 * Age: 23
 * Height: -

2021 =
 * Age: 24
 * Height: -

2022 =
 * Age: 25
 * Height: 177 cm

Growth
Eto Koki - Though he's not shown to interact with Koki as much as he does with Ryota, Kensuke is very protective of him all the same. He showed the same amount of concern as Ryota when Koki first took in Mamoru. Still, Kensuke respects Koki a lot and is shown to admire Koki's talents to a point.

Sakuraba Ryota - Ryota is easily Kensuke's best friend since they have known each other since they were 11 years old, possibly even longer. Though he's fully aware of the fact that Ryota likes to tease him, he doesn't pay it any mind most of the time. Kensuke is able to tell what Ryota is thinking most of the time. He's sometimes Ryota's voice of reason for when the latter is faced with more serious problems.

Kensuke's also the first person who found out about Ryota's fear of bugs and is the one who's mostly the target of Ryota's lectures about cleanliness. Kensuke was the one who revealed that Ryota's ears go red when he's shy and Kensuke's the first one that Ryota goes to when he's scared.

Fujimura Mamoru - Mamoru and Kensuke's relationship is akin to that of siblings. They make light-hearted fun at each other, such as Kensuke teasing Mamoru about being an "old man" a lot, but they're always there when the other needs support. Kensuke is also the one who thought of giving Mamoru a fan letter to cheer him up when Mamoru was in a slump after seeing Mamoru's reaction to Koki and the others getting fan letters.

Kensuke respects and loves Mamoru's music just like the other two, and they seem to be close enough that Mamoru can recognize Kensuke's handwriting.

Mochiduki Minato - He and Ken actually befriended each other some time before Minato was assigned as Growth's manager; both play an online RPG game wherein they would often message each other. However, since Minato goes by a pseudonym in the game Ken didn't realize his online friend and Minato where the same person for quite some time.

SOARA
SOARA and Growth consider each other as friendly rivals as well. Koki, Ryota, and Kensuke admire SOARA's music a lot, saying that it's refreshing, lively, and special as it captures the liveliness of being high-school students.

Kagurazaka Soshi - Kensuke has talked about wanting to be friends with Soshi who plays drums. In the anime, it's shown that they are on pretty friendly terms with each other and have even led a live broadcast show together, with him and Soshi hosting said event.

ZIX
Sugai Makoto - Though Kensuke noticeably bears dislike towards Makoto, he's not very vocal about it. He does show concern when Makoto tells Koki that he hates him.

Hishida Mitsuru - His dislike towards Mitsuru is much more obvious, however, when he joins Ryota in teasing him. Though, as time went on, they have now considered each other as friendly rivals.

Etymology

 * The name Kensuke means "sword, blade, saber" (剣) (ken) and "forerunner, herald" (介) (suke).
 * His surname Yaegashi means "eight" (八) (ya), "multilayered" (重) (e) and "evergreen oak" (樫) (kashi/gashi), which literally means "heavy oak" altogether and it fits Growth's theme of having trees/flowers in their names.

Trivia

 * His catch phrase for 2021 is "Everything's gonna be alright."
 * Kensuke can't handle the cold.
 * His sister loves idols so she made him audition.
 * His likes include music, dance, playing with friends, mountains, oranges, hamburger, and math.undefined
 * Similar to Ryota, Kensuke's first love was also his kindergarten teacher.
 * He's had a girlfriend before, but they broke up. The reason for this was that Kensuke, at some point, figured out that he wasn't specifically in love with the girl, but rather the concept of being in love. The breakup was mutual with Kensuke and the girl still being on good terms with each other.
 * Kensuke has a driver's licence, but he can only drive automatic.
 * When several of the TSUKINO idols were discussing their favorite songs by other units, he said SOARA's LIFE IS AMAZING was one of his. He calls it a very "strong" song that he loves a lot, saying that if you feel a bit sluggish listening to it will make you feel invincible.
 * While he doesn't mention it much, Kensuke appears to be fond of, and quite good at, video games. In particular, he's quite adept at the online RPG game "MOON Forest Fantasy".