I was somewhat hoping Nikuman would actually beat Chihaya, but then choose to join anyway. But what I actually liked the most was that despite being a substantially large character, Nikuman is actually very athletic. Chihaya, athletic herself, was surprised at how good at tennis he was despite how much he was stuffing his face earlier.

Though he didn't really have the endurance to play a long tennis match, which was why he was quitting for the day in addition to being distracted by Chihaya. He was clearly the type, like Taichi used to be, who would quit something once they started to not be extremely good at it. But he also loved karuta the same what Chihaya and Arata do. He's a nice in-between character.