Mikio Kawata

Mikio Kawata
Name	Mikio Kawata
Kanji	河田美紀男
Vital Statistics
Gender	Male
Height	210 cm
Weight	130 kg
Professional Statistics
Team	Sannoh High
Position	Power Forward/Center
Job	Basketball Player
First Appearance
Manga	Chapter 228 - Pride
Anime	The First Slam Dunk
Image Gallery

Mikio Kawata (河田 美紀男 Kawata Mikio) is the younger brother of fellow Sannoh player Masashi Kawata and a rookie in the team. He is the tallest High Schooler shown in the series. Like other notable freshmen, Mikio can contribute for his team though he is still a rookie.

Appearance

Mikio Kawata is a 6’11 PF/C for Sannoh High, his appearance is quite different from the other players, he has a tank-like build weighing in at over 280 pounds.

Personality

Mikio is portrayed as rather dopey. He always apologizes whenever he makes an error, even when hurting his opponents, such as Sakuragi. His brother always scolds him because of these traits.

Story

He first appears as he substitutes for Masahiro Nobe . He is then matched to Hanamichi Sakuragi , Sakuragi's defense is proved to be useless in stopping Kawata from scoring in the post due to the latter's huge height and body mass. Sakuragi, after being thought by Takenori Akagi to lower his knees, managed to prevent Kawata from positioning himself to the rim to score, also that time Sakuragi finally realizes Kawata's simple way of scoring and so manages to prevent him from scoring completely, he even managed to score over him and then later on blocking his shot.

Skill

The only move he knows is posting up under the basket, then turns around to make an easy basket using his size. But still, he is a rookie so his older brother Masashi has to look after him.

Relationship

Kazunari Fukatsu

to be added

Matsumoto Minoru

to be added

Masashi Kawata

Masashi Kawata is the older brother of Mikio Kawata

Masahiro Nobe

to be added

Eiji Sawakita

to be added

Satoshi Ichinokura

to be added

Goro Domoto

Goro Domoto is the coach of Sannoh High

Etymology

• The name Mikio means "beautiful" (美) (mi), "chronicle" (紀) (ki) and "male, man" (男) (o).
• Mikio's surname Kawata means "river, stream" (河) (kawa) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta).

Trivia

• Mikio weighs 130kg.

• The showdown between Mikio and Sakuragi is another great coincidence in the "Slam Dunk" universe that tied in to real events. In the final match against Sannoh, the Sannoh team substituted one of their players with Mikio, who Sakuragi was then supposed to guard. Eventually, Sakuragi realized that Mikio could only score from under the post, and triumphed over him by keeping him at a distance from the basket, effectively stopping him from making a successful shot.

• On May 19 1996, Sakuragi's counterpart, Dennis Rodman encountered the rookie center Shaquille O'Neal, or just "Shaq" for short, who was very similar to Mikio. Both were giants at around 2.10m tall, had a very large mass that gave them the brute force to dominate under the post and was hopeless at shooting from a distance. Also, A difference between Shaq and Mikio is that Shaq had great footwork, and finesse when in the post, and used it to be called the most dominant player ever. Despite being 15 cm shorter and a great deal smaller than Shaq, Rodman amazingly prevailed against him and managed to defend post, get 21 rebounds and scored 13 points (mostly from tip-ins )  all while suffering from a stomach virus. However, it should be noted that on average, Shaq was better than Rodman. Shaq averaged 27 points, 13.5 rebounds, on 54% shooting against rodman, while rodman averaged 6.2 points and 17.2 rebounds on 39.3% shooting against Shaq. Also, Shaq was 216 cm tall, while Rodman was only 201 cm tall.

• What is interesting to note is that "Slam Dunk" ended in the same year, but the chapters were written before the game on May 19.

Navigation

v - e - t	Sannoh High
Players	Kazunari Fukatsu • Matsumoto Minoru • Masashi Kawata • Masahiro Nobe • Eiji Sawakita • Mikio Kawata • Satoshi Ichinokura
Coach	Goro Domoto