Year: 2nd year
Position: Small Forward
Jersey Number: #9
Eiji Sawakita is widely regarded as Japan's top high school basketball player and the ace of Sannoh. What sets him apart from other elite players like Rukawa isn't just his skills—it's his personality. He's got a goofy side and tends to react with exaggerated shock when opponents pull off something impressive, which gives him an oddly relatable quality. While high-profile players like Rukawa get flooded with fan mail, Sawakita apparently doesn't, and his teammate Masashi won't let him forget it.
After the summer Interhigh Tournament, Sawakita plans to head to America to continue his basketball career.
Skills
He's the complete package as a player—arguably the most well-rounded in Japanese high school basketball. His offense is nearly unstoppable, and his defense matches it step for step. There's a running rumor that no one, high school or college level, can beat him one-on-one, and he proved it when Rukawa challenged him during the National Championships. Rukawa had no choice but to abandon the isolation and pass the ball away. Sawakita's defensive pressure is relentless too; he exploited what he saw as weaknesses in Rukawa's dribbling and nearly stripped the ball multiple times.
He holds the distinction of being the best player in Sannoh's history. He even beat Sendoh of Ryonan—a player known as a genius—back in middle school.
Growing Up
Basketball was basically Sawakita's first language. His father, Tetsuharu "Tetsu" Sawakita, started him young—playing one-on-one since he was four years old. His first toy was a basketball, though he quickly got bored with the toy net and his dad upgraded to a real one. Tetsuharu played with him every sunrise and sunset, establishing a routine that shaped everything Eiji became.
There was no basketball club in elementary school, so he just kept working against his dad with one goal: to beat him. That finally happened in junior high. Once he entered the actual club scene, he dominated his seniors so thoroughly that they found it boring to play with him. His cocky attitude didn't help—they got jealous and started roughing him up.
In those middle school days, he was already the best around. When he faced off against Sendoh, Sawakita came out on top, and Sendoh later acknowledged it as one of his rare losses in one-on-one play.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
