Year: 1st year
Height: 178 cm
Weight: 65 kg
Jersey number: 10
Position: Small forward
Nobunaga Kiyota is basically what arrogance looks like on a basketball court. He's convinced he's Kanagawa's real rookie star—not Rukawa—and isn't shy about reminding everyone. The problem is his trash talk often comes back to bite him. He tends to overlook opponents, especially Shohoku, which has led to some pretty humbling moments: getting dunked on hard by Akagi and falling for one of Sakuragi's fakes come to mind. He and Sakuragi have a whole thing going, with Kiyota calling him "Red-furred Monkey" while Sakuragi counters with "Wild Monkey."
Despite all the ego, Kiyota genuinely respects his teammates, particularly captain Maki, which actually makes him more tolerable.
What makes him interesting is that he can actually back up some of the attitude. His leaping ability and ball-handling are legitimately good—at 178 cm, he shouldn't be able to dunk regularly or block shots, but he does it anyway. He even threw down a memorable dunk over the much taller Uozumi during Kainan's match against Ryonan. As a first-year starter for Kainan, he's one of the few rookies who can claim to be truly elite, which is probably why the cockiness never completely goes away.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
