Jersey Number: #10
Position: Power Forward
High School: Shohoku
Shoe Brand: Jordan
The series protagonist. Sakuragi starts out as a delinquent with a terrible track record—he'd been rejected by girls 50 times before the story even begins. Everything changes when he meets Akagi Haruko and falls hard for her, which inspires him to join the Shohoku basketball team. Problem is, he's never played before, and it shows. His natural gifts—height, athleticism, stamina, speed, jumping ability—can't quite make up for complete inexperience. He's got the confidence of a star player though, maybe too much, strutting around convinced he's a natural genius. His signature red hair is pretty hard to miss, though he shaves it off later as self-punishment after a loss to Kainan.
Early on, Sakuragi's a liability on the court. He fouls out constantly in his first official games. But his development over the series is where things get interesting. He grinds through the fundamentals, picking up dribbling and layups before Akagi trains him into a genuine force on the boards—rebounding becomes his bread and butter by the second half. He's clutch too: he banks a crucial dunk that saves a game against Ryonan that Akagi would've blown, and nails a buzzer-beater jump shot against Sannoh after Coach Anzai runs him through an insane drill of 20,000 shots in a week.
The Sannoh match costs him though—he injures his back badly and has to rehab after Shohoku's loss to Aiwa Academy. Despite everything, Sakuragi's got the kind of stubborn determination that keeps him in the fight. His love for Haruko and his rivalry with Rukawa started out as his main fuel, but that injury forces a realization: he actually loves basketball itself now. From there, he's all in for his team.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
