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Introduction
Ryota Miyagi
Ryota
Name
Japanese 宮城 リョータ
Romanized Miyagi Ryōta
Aliases Ryo-chin (by Sakuragi)
Characteristics
Gender Male Male
Birthday July 31
Age 17
Height 168 cm (5' 6")
Weight 59 kg (130 lbs)
Hair Color Brown
Eye Color Black
Professional Status
Occupation Basketball Player
Team Shohoku High School


Thorne (U.S.A)

Year Year 2 Class 1
Position Point Guard, Captain
Jersey Number #7 (current), #4 (as captain), #17 (freshman)
Personal Status
Relatives Miyagi Kaoru (Mother)

Miyagi Sota (Older brother)
Miyagi Anna (Younger sister)

First Appearance
Manga Debut 050. "The One Who Came Late"
Anime Debut Episode 20
Voices
Japanese Voice Yoku Shioya
Shugo Nakamura (The First Slam Dunk)
English Voice Tim Hamaguchi
Fourth Brilliantes Lee (GMA Dub)
Albie Casiño (ABS-CBN Filipino Dub)
Paul Castro Jr. (The First Slam Dunk)
[v · t · e]
Keep practicing, never let somebody tell you you're too small or too slow

—Ryota Miyagi

Ryota Miyagi (宮城 リョータ Miyagi Ryōta) is Sakuragi's closest friend on the team. After an initial misunderstanding that caused conflict between them (he was fighting Mitsui when Sakuragi and Ayako came around, and he thought she was dating him), both found comradeship in the fact that they had both been unlucky in love, although Miyagi, having only been rejected 10 times, still falls short of Sakuragi's record who was rejected 50 times.

Appearance[]

Miyagi is an Okinawan who has short, curly pompadour dark brown hair with brown highlights that resembles a bowl cut and black eyes. When he was a child and as a pre-teen seen in the movie, his hair is somewhat ragged.

Like Akagi, Kogure, and Mitsui, Miyagi wears a navy blue standard Shohoku winter school uniform and has a white short sleeved undershirt beneath his school uniform. During summer, he only wears a white short sleeve loose polo shirt along with his navy blue pants and black shoes.

During basketball training, Miyagi wears two shirts such as the white and black loose shirt or the yellow shirt with a green trim within his white basketball shorts and wears white basketball shoes. He also has a white wristband on his left wrist. In the movie, he was depicted to wore both black and red wristband. Either White or Red wristband that Miyagi wears is a memento of his late older brother, Sota Miyagi.

His jersey uniform is red and black and its alternate is white and red.

When he was a freshman during his flashback, Miyagi's school uniform is dark blue like the other freshman students such as his basketball teammates, Sakuragi and Rukawa.

Personality[]

Like Sakuragi, Miyagi is motivated to play by his love for a girl: his best friend and classmate Ayako, the manager of the team, whom he refers to as "Aya-chan". He has been known to pose for Ayako during matches. Off-court, Miyagi has a reputation for being a bad boy. He was hospitalized for a while after his fight against Mitsui's gang.

He also shares a similar level of arrogance with Sakuragi, claiming to be the number one point guard in the prefecture, though popular opinion among characters in the series ranks him just behind Shinichi Maki of Kainan and Kenji Fujima of Shoyo.

Since he would be beat up often at first, he learned to fight back and since then gained his bad reputation as a fighter. However, he was a lone wolf and didn't have a gang behind him (unlike other delinquent characters like Sakuragi and Mitsui).

When he's scared or nervous outside of a game, he has a habit of putting his hands in his pockets because they shake.

In his letter to his mom, he addresses her in the highest form of respect, writing "mother" as 母上様 (hahaue-sama), which surprised Kaoru as well.

At the end of the movie following their win against Sannoh, he reconciles with his mother after finally opening up.

Ever since he moved to Kanagawa, he got rid of his Okinawan accent. However, it pops out occasionally, like the time he first met Mitsui, or the time he poured his heart out to his late older brother when he returned to Okinawa.

After he took over as the new Captain of Shohoku, it was said that he started to become stricter than Akagi when he was as a Captain, as he always ends up quarreling with Mitsui.

History[]

Ryota's past was first seen in the movie, The First Slam Dunk. He is the middle son of the Miyagi family. His father doesn't make an appearance and is shown to have passed away. Since then, his older brother Sota vowed to become captain of the family, and appointed Ryota as his vice-captain. Ryota shares his brother's love for basketball, and learned basketball from him. One day, his brother left to go fishing, Ryota was upset that he decided to leave after just promising to play 1-on-1 , and shouted rude words to his brother. It's later revealed that his brother passed away that day at sea. Ryota continues to play basketball, which unfortunately causes friction with his mother, Kaoru, who is reminded of her eldest son when she watches his matches. After Ryota's loss at a basketball game, he goes to his brother's room to wear his shirt and look through the basketball magazines stored there. Kaoru suggests Ryota to change his jersey number #7, which was the same number his older brother had. She also starts packing away Sota's things, which Ryota tries to stop her from doing. They end up having a big argument, showing that the two were still unable to deal with the grief of their loss.

Once they move to Kanagawa, Ryota gets beat up on his first day in school, to his shock. To deal with his rough day at school, he goes outside to practice dribbling, but is told to go away by a neighbor because of the loud noise. He goes to a public basketball court where there are other kids already playing. They decide against inviting him to play despite being one player short, because they assume he wants to be play alone. This is where he meets Mitsui for the first time, who mistook him for an elementary school student. While they played 1-on-1, Ryota is suddenly reminded of his older brother and pauses. Mitsui tells him that his skills will go to waste if he plays alone. He is called by his friends and invites Ryota to play 1-on-1 again in the future.

In his 1st year of high school, he joined the basketball club. He is scolded by Akagi to speak up more while playing and communicate with his team more. He's told by a 3rd year to just ignore Akagi like the rest of them do, but Ryota responds to Akagi on why he made that sort of pass. After training, Yasuharu tells Ryota that Akagi expects the most out of him. Ryota then bumps into Mitsui, who has now grown long hair and is a delinquent. Mitsui doesn't recognize him, but Ryota does. Having overheard what Yasuharu said, Mitsui taunts Ryota by implying that no one expects anything from a chibi, and that height is important in basketball. Ryota responds saying he'll do 1-on-1 with him anytime, and that he should shave his hair bald if he loses. Both he and Yasuharu run away once Mitsui's gang chases after them.

At a basketball match, Ryota is on the bench and impatiently wants to be put in the court to play. Unfortunately he could only watch as his team loses, due to the players not wanting to pass to Akagi. At the locker room after, a 3rd year senior says that Akagi's dictatorship will begin next year, and that the first years won't survive. He specifically points out Ryota, and calls him a "problem child". He claims that Akagi and Ryota would definitely not get along. Akagi stands up and says that Ryota can pass.

During winter, Ryota is called up to the rooftop by Norio and the others. There, Mitsui is waiting for him. They taunt each other, which led to Mitsui punching Ryota in the face. Ryota retaliates and a physical fight ensues. Since it was a 4 on 1, Ryota focused on only beating up Mitsui, who he deemed was the head of the group. In the midst of the fight, Mitsui touches his knee (the one that was previously injured), and notices Ryota's basketball shoes on the floor. He kicks them away and continues to beat Ryota up.

Ryota goes home with blood and bruises on his face, and ignores his mom who worried about him. He goes to his room to seal up his basketball shoes in a box to put them away.

Later on, Ryota is riding his motorbike and curses to himself. He speeds up and remembers all the struggles and losses he's had in his life. He enters a tunnel and sees a bright light at the end of the tunnel. He then escapes the tunnel and sees a beach. Ryota shows a face of relief before the screen goes white. The next scene shows Ryota at the hospital with severe injuries. The bright light he saw was apparently a truck he crashed into, and it was reportedly a miracle that he survived. He claims to have seen Okinawa, which confused his mother and sister. Kaoru yells at him before leaving the room to cry.

After recovering, Ryota returns to his hometown in Okinawa. There he passes by familiar locations, such as his old school (which seems to have been shut down), his old house (which is occupied by another family), and the basketball court where he used to play with his older brother. It starts to rain so Ryota runs to the hideout cave that he and his brother used to frequently hide in. There he finds a bag of items that used to belong to his brother. He finds an old basketball magazine that featured Sannoh, then reminisces an old memory of Sota wanting to defeat Sannoh one day as Okinawa's representative ace. He also finds Sota's red wristband, the sight of which leads Ryota to talk to him. Blaming himself, he crouches and breaks down. Crying and shouting, finally letting out all the emotions he's pent up inside for 8 years. Ryota seems to have come to a resolution afterwards, staring at the sea. He starts to train his body again to get back to shape after all the time he spent in the hospital, so he can return to the basketball club, which is where the audience is first introduced to him in the manga.

Abilities[]

Miyagi is one of the best point guards in the Kanagawa Prefecture. Despite his small build, he was able to keep up with Kenji Fujima of Shoyo and Shinichi Maki of Kainan because of his speed and on/off court awareness. Because of his incredible speed and skills, he was nicknamed as 'Lightning Flash Ryota' by some other players. His abilities as a point guard were so great that many players such as Sendoh of Ryonan and Maki of Kainan even quoted that he is a player not to be reckoned with.

Physical Ability
 
7/10
Technique
 
8/10
Stamina
 
9/10
Mental Strength
 
9/10
Special Ability
 
9/10

In the series he is often pitted against taller point guards (Toyotama's Daijiro Itakura, for example, spent nearly the whole match picking on his height as an attempt to sap his focus away) but he is able to beat them with his incredible speed. Miyagi becomes the captain of the team after Akagi and Kogure leave the team for college exams.

Even as a small player, Miyagi was able to beat players taller than him like Sakuragi, Hanagata and Hasegawa with his speed and his signature "fake shot" despite not actually being a spot-up shooter. He also has the ability to break up a double team, as seen in the match against Sannoh when he was being double teamed by Fukatsu and Sawakita using a shallowed dribble.

His speed even surpasses that of most players like Sendoh, Fujima and even Fukatsu as he was able to run back and forth the court despite oncoming pressures of the defensive side.

Miyagi is also an excellent defender, as seen in the latter halves of the series. He was able to steal the ball from players like Maki, Fujima and even Sendoh.

Another underrated aspect is his stamina and his discipline. Only Sakuragi and him have never been exhausted after playing a full game, but Sakuragi has been ejected due to foul troubles until the series progress.

At the end of the manga, he took over the role of the new captain of Shohoku after Akagi has retired.

As a fighter, he utilizes his leaping abilities to start attacks with jumping leg kicks, before putting opponents down with ground-and-pound attacks, since most other delinquents are not grapplers or have ground defense like anyone from the judo club.

Relationships[]

Love interest[]

Ayako[]

Like Sakuragi for Haruko, Miyagi was motivated to play basketball in order to earn Ayako's affection. He is shown to care deeply for her, and even went mad when one of Mitsui's gang slapped her, causing him to beat the man in rage. Unlike the dense Haruko, Ayako is very aware of Ryota's feelings for her, yet she doesn't give too much attention to them, maybe due to her status as the manageress of the team. The relationship between the two started somehow to improve during the Inter high championship; before the match against Sannoh, Ayako was trying to give him confidence after he began to feel nervous about his crucial match. During the Sannoh match, Ayako wrote the "number one guard" in Miyagi's hand to keep him focused; showing that she has faith in his potential as Kanagawa's best point guard.

Shohoku[]

Hanamichi Sakuragi[]

During their first meeting, Miyagi beats Sakuragi after he mistakenly thought he was dating Ayako, which caused the 2 to engage in a fight. During their first time on practice, the two were often fighting for trivial reasons. After Sakuragi found out about his crush for Ayako, Miyagi ends up telling him the main reason he started to play basketball, he also told him how he got rejected by 10 girls in one year, which left Sakuragi emotionally shocked, reminding him of himself. Sakuragi in return ends telling him that he was rejected 50 times, which emotionally shocked Miyagi as well, realising how sad Sakuragi is. Realizing that both of them are unlucky in love, Miyagi started to get along with Sakuragi, and latter became his closest friend on team, surprising Akagi, Kogure, and the rest of the team, with Ayako noting it as a miracle. He even taught Sakuragi the most important techniques of basketball such as fakes, finger rolls and no-look passes, while Ryota learnt to use his speed and leaping ability to perform chase-down blocks on layup attempts, and the two would always teams up to score points in a match.

Hisashi Mitsui[]

Miyagi and Mitsui seem to have known each other one year before the current timeline, when Mitsui's gang came to beat Miyagi. Miyagi succeeds in beating Mitsui, knocking his frontal teeth, while the rest of the gang beat up Miyagi, leaving the two hospitalised for quite some time. After Miyagi returns to the team, Mitsui along with his gang and Tetsuo, an expericenced fighter came to the gym to have revenge on Miyagi and forces the team to be disqualified by forcing them to fight his gang. After the fight ended thanks to Sakuragi and his gang, Miyagi was surprised to learn that Mitsui was once a basketball player who quit basketball due to his leg's injury. It was also revealed why he picked on Miyagi so much, as Miyagi possesses something that he doesn't have which is basketball. After Mitsui clearly denies his interest about basketball, Miyagi tells Mitsui that he is the one who couldn't get over his past. After Anzai arrives in the gym, Mitsui felt remorseful for what he did, and confesses that he really wants to play basketball. Since the incident, Miyagi started to get along with Mitsui, respecting him as his senior and teammate.

In the First Slam Dunk during the movie, it was revealed that Mitsui was the one who briefly challenged Miyagi to a one-on-one basketball match during their first year in middle school when he was practicing basketball, alone.

After Miyagi succeeded Akagi as a captain, Miyagi started somehow to become more strict, which isn't appreciated by Mitsui, as the two would always end up quarrelling, though it isn't considered as an antagonistic relationship.

Quotes[]

  • To Sakuragi Hanamichi: "Don't think basketball is just about height, red-head."
  • To Hanamichi Sakuragi: "I want to make the basketball team strong... To win the match... If this is able to make her happy, then I'll be satisfied."
  • To Hisashi Mitsui: "The one who stayed in the past... is you."
  • To Daijiro Itakura (after itakura purposely pushed him): "Don't forget to buy your tickets. You are going home tomorrow, right?"

Etymology[]

  • Ryota's surname Miyagi means "imperial palace" (宮城).

Trivia[]

  • Miyagi is likely based on former NBA player Spud Webb with both players share the same position and height at 5'6", but ability to use his quickness to get by his defenders. Unlike Webb, Miyagi can steal the ball left-handed, and has a more accurate left-handed layup despite shooting right handed. Unlike Miyagi, Webb can actually dunk.
  • His sneakers, Converse Conquest Mid with Air Jordan I's color scheme, are also worn by Akagi (high-top version). This was a very popular brand in the '80s and early '90s, worn by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, Julius Erving, Bill Laimbeer and Isiah Thomas. His Jordan-like characteristics are based on his ear studs and the Air Jordan I color scheme on his sneakers.
  • He is considered to be one of the troublemakers along with Sakuragi, Rukawa and Mitsui due to their fighting history.
  • In both the English and the Filipino Dub of the anime, Sakuragi calls his given name "Ryota" instead of "Ryo-chin".
  • In the 10 Days After, Miyagi is seen reading a book about types of leaders. When he read about the strict type of leader, he applied it to himself, becoming stricter than Akagi. However, this was not well-received by Mitsui and the two would fight and is hard to separate.
  • In the Filipino dub, he and Sendoh are voiced by the same voice actor, Fourth Brilliantes Lee, as he provides Miyagi's voice to match Yoku Shioya's performance in the Japanese dub.
  • Despite being a side-character and Sakuragi being, of course, the main character, The First Slam Dunk movie mainly centers around Miyagi as the new mc, showing his backstory
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