Hello and welcome back to Favourite Character Praise Friday!
This is one of my absolute favourite posts to write and I hope you enjoy my
picking apart of my favourite characters enough to stick around while I examine
my next victim, I mean, character. Don’t worry, I do not rank these characters
in a particular order, it just so happens that some characters are better worth
sharing praise for at a different point in time to others! Remember, every
fifth instalment is Least Favourite Character Praise Friday, so keep an eye out
for me probing at characters I can’t stand and raving about how well they were
written in order to evoke such a reaction.
So, who is the subject of my next Favourite Character Praise
Friday?
Shintaro Midorima from Kuroko No Basket / The Basketball
That Kuroko Plays!
Warning: This will contain spoilers!
For those who aren’t the most familiar with this series, it
follows a group of basketball prodigies that were all on the same team in
middle school, that all decided to split up and attend different high schools
for their own benefit. The main character Tetsuya Kuroko is the sixth former member
of this powerhouse team, who just wants to continue to play his favourite
sport. Meanwhile Taiga Kagami has just joined a new school and is looking to continue
playing his favourite sport as well. They, both being enrolled at Serin High
School, join their club and Kuroko, having recruited Kagami, seeing him as a
person with enough potential to overpower his previous teammates: Kise,
Midorima, Aomine, ((arguably, also Momoi)),
Murasakibara and Akashi begin their mission to face each of them on the court.
Kuroko has the goal to bring back forth the honest and genuine personalities of
his friends that have been consumed by their immense potential and subsequent
egos. Kagami’s goal is to beat each member of this powerhouse team and become
the best player in the High School circuit.
This is a show I didn’t initially expect to get invested in.
But after watching the characters learn and grow throughout the first two
seasons, I was on the edge of my seat, counting down the three months between
my watching it, to the new season.
The first thing that drew me to Midorima was how drastically
different he was from his previously-introduced Generation of Miracles
counterparts, Tetsuya Kuroko and Ryota Kise. While it made sense for Kuroko not
to care much about the esteem that came from being a member of this powerhouse
team, Kise’s ego was much more understandable. It was made out that each of the
members would be prideful from the get go. What I hadn’t expected was for
Midorima to take himself so seriously and yet still present himself in such a
ridiculous manner to ensure victory. Midorima is a religious believer in the
power of horoscopes and lucky items. He believes in divinity and a higher
power, feeling that he has been given such a great power in a field he is
passionate about and is adamant he uses it. Midorima, therefore tapes the
fingers of his left hand to keep them from being hurt during daily tasks and
also carries a lucky item, each and every day, regardless of how random it
might be. When he is first introduced, he approaches his former teammate, Kise
after he lost a practice match to Kuroko’s team. He’s wearing his school
uniform impeccably, without a speck of dirt on him, with his fingers taped,
holding a ceramic frog that he has affectionately named Kerosuke or, even Mr
Froggy in some translations! He carries himself as above other people, rigid in
posture and cool and collected in tone and disposition.
The next reason I adore him would be how diligent he is to
his sport. He understands that he has gained a great skill in basketball, with
a range that expands across the entirety of a full-court match. He respects his
own limits and does his best to learn how to expand them. Midorima is a
hard-working player and strives to better himself and improve. When the team in
middle school began to break down, with members refusing to attend practice due
to already being the best of the best, with or without excessive efforts,
Midorima is shown continuing to practice and hone his skills. During middle
school, he unlocks what is referred to as his full potential, when he shoots
his first basket from the opposite basket, and when he lands the shot, he
realises that he needs to master this incredible skill.
The last reason I’d like to discuss here is how he feels
about Takao. This isn’t a post about romantic dynamics, despite being a huge
fan of them as a pairing. No, this is about what is canonically expressed in
the source material – Midorima trusts Takao more than he was shown to have
faith in any other character. When he and his team originally lost to Serin in
Season One, he realised something, what Kuroko was trying to teach his former
teammates. You cannot be the best player in Japan without having complete and total
faith in your teammates to assist you. After all, without a team, nobody’s
going to pass the ball to you. He understands this and from that point learns
to interact and socialise with his teammates and learn to trust their own
abilities playing. This leads to the ultimate tactical move, constructed solely
to keep Akashi, the most destructive player from the former team, where Kazunari
Takao would acquire the ball and throw it to Midorima, who was already jumping,
ready to receive it, and shoot. It gave them a great chance of beating him. And
after he thwarted Midorima and his team’s attempts, he was in tears, the team
swore that they would beat him next time. The fact that this effort wasn’t just
him and him alone, but Takao too, and the other four members of Team Shuutoku. I
love how his character has developed in such a way!
Please, if you have opinions on Shintaro Midorima, feel free
to share them with me! Don’t forget you can check out my previous Character
Praise by looking through the hashtags below.
And remember!
Per Aruda Ad Astra
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