the misunderstanding of kaede rukawa
- The two main characters of Slam Dunk are characterized as opposites; with Hanamichi Sakuragi being a boy with a loud and flamboyant personality, while Kaede Rukawa is a polar opposite, being rather quiet and asocial. Rukawa is considered by Sakuragi to be unlikable and rude, and this is true to an extent. However, I want to discuss aspects of Rukawa’s personality aside from him being basketball-centric. While his other qualities are shown rather subtly throughout the series, I do think he has some depth and development as a character.
- When Rukawa is first introduced in Slam Dunk, he is portrayed to be “mean”; telling Haruko to leave him alone and that she was being annoying. He is instantly deemed as unlikable to Sakuragi, but I believe that Rukawa’s actions and attitude was justified. He had simply been sleeping and minding his business, but he was jumped out of nowhere and had to fight some randoms. That would make anyone irritated— and then Sakuragi was picking a fight with him as well. While what he said to Haruko was harsh, I think that he had already been bothered enough and he just wanted some peace.
- I also want to note that when Sakuragi and Akagi had their one on one, Rukawa’s specifically shown to think “Sakuragi’s not bad”. I think this shows that even though him and Sakuragi weren’t on good terms, he acknowledged skill when he saw it.
- I wouldn’t say he went out of his way to be friendly to Sakuragi, he didn’t instigate first either. When Sakuragi was struggling with doing a lay-up shot and “apologized” to Rukawa and asked him to demonstrate, he did it. He could have easily told Sakuragi “Nah” and went off to do his own thing (me personally I would have done that if the dude that tried fighting me did that), but he didn’t. I think that showed Rukawa has some maturity.
- While him and Sakuragi didn’t initially get along well, their relationship did develop over the course of the series. I think that as Sakuragi got more serious about basketball, Rukawa noticed that too. He still didn’t go out of his way to be nice to Sakuragi, but he did “praise” him from time to time (such as when he said that he didn’t do bad for an idiot), or when Rukawa told him that Shohoku losing against Kainan wasn’t Sakuragi’s fault and that he played as well as everyone expected him to. I believe that shows Rukawa didn’t necessarily hate Sakuragi, and that he had some care for him as a teammate.
- Their biggest moment in their relationship was when Rukawa passed the ball to Sakuragi in the last few seconds against Sannoh. While I wouldn’t say Rukawa never passes (as he is shown to pass to people when he believes they can score, such as Akagi or Mitsui), he isn’t going to pass to someone just for the sake of it. He’s only shown to pass when he believes that the other person will score, and Sakuragi isn’t necessarily his #1 pick. I believe that his pass to Sakuragi shows his belief in Sakuragi’s skills.
- The first time Rukawa was outwardly “nice” towards Sakuragi was during their high five, which I think happened in the heat of the moment, as they switched up their attitudes right afterwards. However; it showed how close they had gotten.
- I also want to mention how Rukawa and Sakuragi talked on the beach. Rukawa was just going on a run — he could’ve just ignored Sakuragi and kept running, but he chose to go up to Sakuragi and show off his shirt. I think that shows that Rukawa now views Sakuragi as someone he’s close to, though he would never directly admit it.
- Rukawa was also fairly respectful towards his other teammates. He had respect for Akagi, referring to him as “captain”, and him and Ayako appear to be on good terms.
- I don’t think Rukawa was on particularly good terms with Miyagi and Mitsui (due to the latter’s gang fight with the basketball team, and the former being similar to Sakuragi), I believe he grew to respect both of them as teammates.
- Though Rukawa isn’t outgoing with his teammates, he does grow closer to them: one of the biggest moments of this being him asking them to do that “we are” thing to hype them all up. I believe that showed his care for them as he wanted them to get their spirits up.
- Also, with Haruko, I think Rukawa just isn’t interested in girls since he’s devoted to his sport. But I do think he can interact with girls, since him and Ayako talk and they have friendly interactions. I feel like if Haruko had approached Rukawa if he was in a better mood (aside from when she approached him when he got injured), they could have talked more. Rukawa doesn’t seem annoyed when Ayako talks to him, and he responds to her. So I think depending on Haruko’s approach, they could have been friendly with each other.
- In addition, I think two other things that showed other aspects of Rukawa is his music taste and his love for cats (something I have already posted about).
- On Rukawa’s commutes to practice/school, he’s shown with a Sony Walkman, listening to songs by Prince. The two songs Rukawa is listening to on his commute are Diamonds and Pearls and New Power Generation , both made by Prince. Diamonds and Pearls is a love ballad, while New Power Generation is more upbeat. These songs seemed surprising to me, since I didn’t think Rukawa would be the type to listen to them. But I think that this showed he was multifaceted, even if his thoughts weren’t shown much in the story.
- When Rukawa is walking back home after watching the Kainan vs Ryonan match, he sees a black street cat. While I expected him to just look at it and keep walking, Rukawa got on his knees to try and pet it. The one he encountered was just some street cat he could’ve chosen to ignore, but he seemed to want to pet it. He also seemed reactive when the cat didn’t want to be pet, and this surprised me since he’s usually unbothered and he normally doesn’t want attention from anyone. I believe this and Rukawa’s music taste portray him to have more depth than what is shown on the surface.
- Rukawa’s lack of thoughts being shown in the story (with his thought bubbles often just saying “…”) make him come off as “mysterious”, as we rarely know what he is thinking or feeling. This leads to Rukawa coming off as not having much substance on the surface, and is what made Sakuragi label him as boring and unlikable. However, I believe Rukawa is very misunderstood, and that he isn’t what Sakuragi makes him out to be.
