Who is Kaede Rukawa?

Kaede Rukawa is a character from Takehiko Inoue's 1990 sports manga Slam Dunk and is one of its most popular characters, ranking 2nd place and 3rd place respectively in the first and second popularity polls conducted on shonen jump way back when. Despite his notoriety being incompatible with my love of obscure and unpopular stuff he still managed to capture my heart. Why and how I still don't know, but maybe we'll find out as I write this shrine's content.

Rukawa is initially depicted as a pretty boy with an unmatchable talent for basketball, described as a 'super rookie' since middle school and is extremely popular with girls, to the point of having his own huge, in-universe, regional fanclub (which also translated to real life in the early aughts with people making fansites and clubs, unknown if physical or online), although he doesn't care at all about grabbing other people's attention. From this initial description he may come off as a huge mary sue (i know its gary stu for guys but lets face it, it fucking sucks). Rukawa actually has a huge people problem and is shown being uncooperative, self-important and often unwilling to show teamwork, instead opting for running one-man games, especially in the first chapters. Rukawa is also extremely lazy, doesn't care about anything but basketball and only puts his full effort and enegy into playing and, whenever he isn't playing, he just sleeps all day , to the point of considering it his hobby. Rukawa's character later evolves and has a drastic change the moment he starts setting goals for himself, becomes more focused and eager to win and is described as ruthless both by his teammates and adversaries on the court. It's also by this gained interest of his that we can clearly see how he changes and becomes more serious, instead of just being a rival or a mocker to Sakuragi, being a character that is there just to drive *Sakuragi* to be better, instead of being a character that wants to better *himself*. Understanding this is also key to understanding Rukawa's purpose as a character, rather than just seeing him as a 'pretty boy for the girl readers'.

So, why do I like him?

When I first met Rukawa, as a Sakuragi guy, I didn't like him of course! First time readers usually tend to be more attracted by Sakuragi's character, since he's the protagonist and we see the world through his perspective. The fact that he's likeable right away for most people, contributes to making readers want to root for him so when introduced to Rukawa, there might be a tendency in disliking him because Sakuragi does or because he's not really a character you understand fully right away.

I think I really started to like Rukawa after seeing The First Slam Dunk. Back then, I had only read the manga once, I finished in February of 2023 and the movie came to our country in May of the same year. After that, I never tried re-reading the manga in advent of the movie's release or doing a quick refresher, so my opinions on Rukawa basically stayed the same. I kept looking at the world with Sakuragi colored lenses (what lol) and during my first read, although I wasn't reading particularly hastily, I didn't really understand Rukawa, in fact I remember him always being at the bottom of my top 5 Shohoku starters. I think seeing the movie flipped a switch for me, suddenly my sketchbook had a drawing of Rukawa here and there occasionally when it previously had none, I kept thinking about him more often, I started thinking that little figure of him that came out for the movie was a little bit cute, cause he looked like he was doing a shy anime girl pose instead of fixing his armband. All regular behavior though, It's not like I was starting to like him or anything. While my memories of the movie get more and more hazy everyday (I got to see it only once unfortunately, It screened at my local theatre for not even a week), I can still remember looking at the silver light of the huge screen, the frames of the intense match alternating to Miyagi's bitter remembrances flashing and animating before my eyes, my thoughts occasionally altering between "the audio in this auditorium isn't loud enough, I need this shit to pop my eardrums" and "I actually liked Rukawa in that scene". Actually seeing with my own two eyes on a screen, animated the way it was always intended to be by Inoue, intense as it was with that raw and powerful soundtrack and feeling as if the court's lights could actually blind me behind the screen if I looked at them too hard, Rukawa's movements, his determination, his drive to win, actually hearing the other characters describing him as unstoppable grabbed my attention in a way I never wanted him to, but felt so spontaneous at the time. Seeing it animated made it feel real, as if I could feel what he was feeling, so that I could finally empathize with him. The most vivid scene to me is actually when the movie's iconic song Dai Zero Kan is playing in a high stakes moment, and during the kinda funny sounding but also cool as hell when you actually hear it in the song, 'Coyote steal the sound' part, I can see Rukawa's full power in action. To this day when I listen to that song, thinking about Rukawa when that part is playing comes automatic.

So yeah, movie good, digital release in Japan on February 28! It's gonna be a year since I first read Slam Dunk actually. I honestly don't know what I'll become when I import it finally. I'll just say I can't wait to see my darling Rukawa again, animated the way he was intended to be and, even if the feelings I felt that first time in a humid movie theater, with the red velvet chairs sticking weirdly to me, with those weird old guys sitting next to my friend who kept spewing stuff about the actual NBA instead of sd, will be unmatched and unable to be recreated with a second rewatch.

But I mean, all this super serious and personal stuff aside, now that I'm reading slam dunk for the fourth time, it's super healing seeing first chapters Rukawa, free from the Sakuragi bias, and seeing how cute, silly and simple he is at the beginning of it all. Which I actually prefer talking and thinking about, but if I did that I think this shrine would only be me saying "look!!!!! he is eepy" a thousand of times and showing silly pictures of him falling asleep in weird places.

Why Kaede Purple?

Kaede Purple is a one-shot manga also by Takehiko Inoue appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump way before Slam Dunk's release, and it's what I named the shrine after! It's considered as a sort of proto-slam dunk, since it recycles some names and almost Rukawa's entire character who, in this one-shot, is the protagonist and captain of the basketball team. I won't spoil it at all since it's super short and can be read in ten minutes at most, but when I read it the first time I absolutely loved it and thought it was quite cute despite its brevity and silly premise. Honestly if more people read this, every Rukawa fan would lose their minds. His design is so much more feminine but is still depicted as a strong and willful character, which is honestly fascinating and makes me raise my eyebrow a little bit at Inoue cause... bro this design is fruity as hell, my guy looking even more queer coded than he already is!!! But yeah, ever since I read it I felt like my relationship with this version of Rukawa was a bit more personal, the discussion on this one-shot is basically unexistent and seeing it for the first time feels like stumbling across the start of an alternate Slam Dunk that never was. Knowing nobody else I know has read it, both irl and online, makes me feel like I was destined to meet with this alternate reality Rukawa more than ever. Oh well, hope nobody else claims him after reading this paragraph! If you really made it this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Don't forget to take a peek into the toybox if you're looking for a souvenir～ And if you're looking for more of my slam dunk-specific ramblings, you can head to the Sakuragi shrine next!