TheEnigmaticRR said: I'm aware that Kagami is required to exist; I understand that there has to be a light in contrast to Kuroko's shadow. The problem, as I stated, is that Kagami lacks depth as a character. Considering the amount of screen time Kagami receives and how vital he is to the team (being Kuroko's light and the team's ace), he should have more depth as a character than a simple ball hog who eventually learns to work with his team. He strikes me as very uninspired, so much to the point that, like I claimed, he rather seems like a plot device; surely SOMEONE has to be Kuroko's light, and thus his relevance doesn't go much further. He needed to be expanded upon, is what I'm asserting. For a character so big, he is rather small.
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The following analysis of Kagami is going to be disjointed, since I have no desire to waste time on properly organizing my thoughts, so I'll just say whatever comes to mind to bring across my points.
Kagami is supposed to be boring, but he has enough depth for a character in a sports anime. It's not like Rukawa or Ippo or Echizen have a lot of depth to them other than coolness, passion, cockiness, indomitable spirit, etc.
Kagami cares only about basketball and nothing else. He barely has any furniture in his house apart from the essentials, not even a TV. He practically eats and lives basketball. He obsesses about getting stronger and meeting strong opponents excites him. He even said in season 1, "it's better if I don't win", because apparently life needs to be full of challenges and there is no point if there is no one who can beat him. He started as an impatient ball-hog who loses his temper if he doesn't touch the ball enough for his liking, but eventually he progressed (thanks to Kuroko constantly lecturing him) to someone who's cool-headed, such that even Wakamatsu and Aomine noticed the change in him.
There's this whole rivalry and brotherhood thing with Himuro in case you forgot. For all that tough exterior, we find out that he really is a softie after all. Even Hyuga commented that he is too kind to play seriously against someone he feels a sense of kinship with. But eventually, for the sake of winning, he decided to close off his feelings for Himuro by asking Kuroko to discard his friendship ring because right then, winning for the sake of his team is more important than Himuro.
We find that he really cares about his teammates. The way he consoled Kuroko when he was crushed by Aomine was amazingly cool. "I'll teach him (Aomine), that there is no such thing as a useless effort." I think he even inspired Kuroko to do the same for Kiyoshi later against Yosen after he was taken off. "I'll beat you (Murasakibara) on his (Kiyoshi) behalf." Kagami has an undeniable effect on his team off-the-court as well.
When we were first introduced to Kagami, he was cocky as hell. "I'll beat the generation of miracles and become the best player in Japan." However, he soon was shown how naive he was. After facing Aomine, it seemed apparent to me that he lost quite a bit of his confidence as a player. Yes, part of that can be attributed to him being more cool-headed, but he just didn't exude that same aura of overwhelming strength as he did when he first joined Seirin. It almost seemed that the Aomine had beaten his confidence down. However, the real Kagami was unleashed against Aomine when he no longer felt he had to depend on Kuroko anymore.
Against Yosen, despite being a extraordinarily competitive player, he decided to limit his area of play from the entire 2 point area to just the paint area, showing the kind of humility and self-awareness that even surprised Hyuga. In the same match, he came to the realisation that he shouldn't lament about his lack of ability to get into the zone and just focus on playing to the best of his current abilities. Yet another leap forward in maturity as a player.
It was great to see the subtle changes in Kagami as the story progresses. So much for a character with 'no depth'.
He's symbolic of how, with the right guidance, a talent can blossom. He falls somewhat between Himuro and the other miracles. He already has the potential to be on par with the miracles, but he couldn't reach that on his own. However, with Kuroko, Alex, Midorima, Kise and Aomine all giving him support, training, advice and the right nudge along the way, and the miracles providing the seemingly insurmountable obstacle he needed to push himself further, he eventually attained their level of godly basketball. He just took a different path.
Narrative wise, he does seem like a tool for Kuroko to use against the generation of miracles, to prove that their basketball is wrong, but they do have a real sense of camaraderie and he does have his goal (to become the best player in Japan) and own will to succeed, so it's more like they are mutually helping each other to attain their own individual as well as common goals.
TheEnigmaticRR said:StevenHu said: Speaking of Kagami lacking depth, I found it hilarious how quickly Himuro was thrown under the bus.
What brother figure? One-trick pony is more like it.
The theme of untalented people not being able to achieve greatness no matter their effort is very motivating indeed.
Hahahaha.
His one-trick was devastating enough though. Not once did a Seirin player stop his dribbles. Once he worked in tandem with Murasakibara, Yosen's offense was (nearly) unstoppable.
The generation of miracles being such monstrous talents such that a normal person could never hope to reach them no matter how hard they train is an important theme in the series. In real life, the ideal of innate talent is a myth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&v=mF0v-C_A45E
In fact, elite players train harder than non-elite players. Sure there are some prerequisites to being talented, such as intelligence, ability to reflect on one's mistakes and internally correct them, visual and spatial processing speed, etc, but no one who is elite, be it Lebron, Curry or Anthony Davis, becomes it without working hard. Every real life elite player is a source of motivation if you are looking for it. The idea of born-geniuses, of people born with tennis, basketball or shinobi DNA in anime is inherently flawed, albeit it makes for compelling storytelling. So is the idea that you can get an instant power-up by screaming "I can't lose here!" :) If you want to develop your game irl, anime is not the best place to look for insights or motivation. |