Character · Slam Dunk
Kaede Rukawa
Sleeps through class, cycles to school with his eyes closed, and is still the best first-year on the floor.
In Otakana the clue reads: Sleepy rookie ace who cycles to school asleep
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Slam Dunk
- Letters
- 6 · Hard
Rukawa says almost nothing. He arrives at Shohoku already good, plays one on one because passing has never occurred to him as a first option, and sleeps everywhere else. A fan club forms within days and screams his name at games, which he does not appear to notice. Sakuragi hates him on sight, partly for the talent and mostly because Haruko likes him.
The series takes its time turning him into a teammate. He can beat almost any single defender, so he tries to, and the matches where that stops working are the ones that change him. His ambition is to play in America, stated flatly, with no explanation attached, and nobody in the story treats it as unreasonable.
Takehiko Inoue draws him as the opposite of Sakuragi in every line: still where the other is loud, economical where the other flails. The two of them refuse to speak civilly for the entire run and win games together anyway.
Spelling RUKAWA
RUKAWA opens with the Japanese tapped R, which English ears file somewhere between R and L, so LUKAWA sounds every bit as correct and fits nothing. Six letters, three of them A, alternating consonant and vowel throughout. The characters mean flowing river, and the given name Kaede means maple. The board wants the surname, as it does for every Slam Dunk player.