Chay

One of the best and most memorable Slam Dunk character analyses I’ve ever read was actually an answer to a question hilariously titled: “How do I marry Sendoh Akira?” (Author: 木子妞 - Link). The first half of the answer was particularly incisive and made me consider things I'd never noticed about Sendoh.

The original is in Chinese but here's an English version of the first half thanks to a nifty translating tool (I've edited for clarity and brevity; parts in bold for emphasis). Let's dive in!

~ Start of translation ~

Question: How do I marry Sendoh Akira?

Answer: 1) MENTAL SPEED

First, you have to be excellent - not in a Mary Sue protagonist way with incredible beauty and tremendous wealth etc.— these aren’t relevant in Sendoh’s eyes. Instead, your emotional intelligence needs to be genuinely outstanding.

Why? Because it’s important to understand Sendoh Akira as a person, and he’s not an easy person to understand. I’m not talking about his interests either; those are secondary; it's mainly about understanding his inner world.

The thing is, Sendoh is actually a very lonely person, and I think this loneliness is not by choice. No one in Ryonan really understands him; they are not on his level and don’t genuinely understand him. Case in point: in the match against Kainan, right at the end of regulation time Sendoh went for a dunk but deliberately went at a slower speed to allow Maki to catch up to him.

Sendoh’s idea of drawing a foul from Maki to turn the shot into a 2+1 would’ve meant that Ryonan would win the match by a point. But in that entire arena, only Maki, Fujima and Aida understood this plan. Even Coach Taoka got excited about getting into overtime without realizing that if the 2+1 plan failed, Ryonan would almost certainly lose.

Sendoh's mind works too fast for most people to keep up with, and his standards are high. He also can’t be bothered to explain more than is necessary and so as a result is forced into solitude. Which is why if you want to draw his attention, you need to be sharp enough to keep up with him mentally — imagine how high your IQ must be for that!

2) IDOLISATION

Second, don’t treat Sendoh like a genius or idealise him too much, and definitely don’t put him on a pedestal to worship. Accept the real him, including his flaws. And there are a few.

For one, Sendoh is quite stubborn. In the aforementioned match against Kainan, Maki at one point said, "Don’t think I'll let you dunk easily." To which Sendoh responded, "I'll definitely dunk to show you. Just once in this match..." And he was as good as his word, pulling off the dunk right at the end of regulation time as part of the aforementioned 2+1 plan.

Sendoh also holds grudges. In the prefecture match against Shohoku, after Miyagi managed to score against him, Miyagi mocked him, saying, "Did you think I'd always wait for you to block?" Later, when Sendoh noticed Shohoku was running into foul trouble, who did he target first? Who did he go after to draw another foul? Miyagi.

Sendoh can also be petty. When Rukawa scored quickly, everyone marveled at the speed of his shooting that even he, Sendoh, couldn't block, and Sendoh responded by scoring right away using the exact same technique as Rukawa.

In other words, the so-called basketball genius/living legend isn’t necessarily the real Sendoh Akira himself. Sendoh the basketball player gets lionised a lot but the real Sendoh actually has a temper.

The main difference that sets him apart from others is that he isn’t as easily bothered by things. Sendoh is more mature than his peers, and he’s able to keep most of his emotions in check or bury them deeper so it's harder for people to notice them.

But if you really want to draw his interest on the romantic front, you’ll need to treat him as an ordinary person. That’s how you'll earn his respect. To be clear, it’s not about playing hard to get; it’s about seeing him with a calm mind.

Because of Sendoh's relatively mild temperament and easygoing nature, when it comes to piquing his genuine romantic interest, Sendoh Akira is the most difficult man to deal with in all of Slam Dunk. Much more difficult than Rukawa.

Rukawa can be lured by some top class basketball intel, but Sendoh Akira has almost no weak points to exploit, precisely because so little gets him worked up. The only seeming weakness is his loneliness.

If you can 1) make him feel understood and 2) do so without needing to say it out loud, then you might have a chance with him. These two points are prerequisites. And if you feel you could pull off both points and truly love him to the point of marrying no one but him, then continue reading for some specific methods, though they're not guaranteed to work.

~ End of translated first half ~

We'll skip the second half since it's not that relevant in terms of character analysis. (But it is worth a read if you are a Sendoh fan. It covers a rather elaborate plan!)

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.

exploring rukawa’s sexuality + rukawa in a relationship

I would like to preface this by mentioning Rukawa’s age. Rukawa is 15 years old throughout the series (as his birthday is January 1, and he’s a first year). At that age, you’re likely not going to be very sure on relationships or even be ready/interested in love. And I think Rukawa’s age is part of the reason why he doesn’t seem very interested in a relationship.

The moment that the anon mentioned is when Ayako was teasing Haruko, and then kissed her as a joke. The whole team reacted to it, including Rukawa.

I was surprised that he reacted to this, but he seemed pretty confused (and curious) about what they were doing.

Rukawa’s thoughts are rarely shown throughout the series, so I feel like it’s hard to deduce whether Rukawa could or could not be in a relationship.

However, I believe that he isn’t interested in one (at least currently). Again, I think his age is a factor to this, and also because of him being focused on his sport. I think that just because he isn’t interested rn, doesn’t mean that he’s not attracted to anyone.

I actually believe Rukawa would be good in a relationship but the problem with him is that he simply isn’t interested in one (as he’s focused on other things). And he isn’t the type that’d get into one just for the sake of it. I think he’d have to be ready for one AND interested in the girl.

Rukawa is shown to invest heavily into things he likes. He has a sony walkman (which cost a LOT at the time) because he likes music, he has expensive Jordans because he likes basketball, he spends all his time playing basketball because he likes it.

I think this can apply to a relationship too.

I think if he was mentally ready for a relationship AND there was someone he was interested in, he wouldn’t treat her bad or anything. I think he would put effort into a relationship, it’s just that he isn’t in the current position for one

In the series, he doesn’t interact with any girls (just Ayako) because they don’t go up to him. He has a fan club, but he doesnt know about it and they haven’t approached Rukawa personally. I think if a girl DID approach him and she wasnt annoying or anything, they could have some conversation.