| Introduction |
| “ | Kanagawa's number one rookie is me, Kainan's freshman Nobunaga Kiyota!! | ” |
—Hanamichi Sakuragi, to Kaede Rukawa | ||
| Nobunaga Kiyota | |
|---|---|
| |
| Name | |
| Aliases | Wild Monkey |
| Characteristics | |
| Gender |  Male
|
| Birthday | December 1 |
| Height | 178 cm (5' 10") |
| Weight | 65 kg (143.3 lbs) |
| Hair Color | Black |
| Eye Color | Violet |
| Professional Status | |
| Team | 
|
| Year | 1st year |
| Position | Shooting Guard |
| Jersey Number | #10 |
| Personal Status | |
| First Appearance | |
| Anime Debut | 032. "Genius Hanamichi!! Killer Dunk" |
| Voices | |
| Japanese Voice | Toshiyuki Morikawa |
| English Voice | Vincent Gutierrez (GMA Dub) |
| [v · t · e] | |
Nobunaga Kiyota (清田 信長, Kiyota Nobunaga) is a freshman at Kainan High and is the only freshmen in the team's starting lineup. Like Hanamichi Sakuragi of Shohoku, his antics often make him a source of embarrassment for his team.
In the Filipino Dub, he initially calls Sakuragi "pre", meaning bro, instead of "Red-Haired Monkey". Later in the series, he begins calling him "unggoy", which is Filipino for monkey.
Appearance[]
Kiyota has shoulder length black hair and violet eyes. During basketball matches, he is often seen wearing a dark purple headband and the basketball match between Kainan and Ryonan onward, his hair is tied in a loose low ponytail to show the fringes of his hair in each sides.
Like Maki and Jin, his initial appearance has him wearing a standard Kainan winter school uniform but it was a contrast to both; a light blue long sleeved formal suit jacket with a white short sleeve loose shirt, light blue formal pants and white shoes. His summer school uniform was seen at the end of the final episode wearing a white short sleeve button-up shirt along with his light blue formal pants and white shoes from his winter school uniform. Kiyota also wears his dark purple headband from his jersey uniform.
In on and off courts, Kiyota wears a blue and yellow Kainan jersey jacket with a matching blue trousers and white sneakers, his jersey uniform is concealed with this outfit. He also wears a yellow and purple Kainan shirt within his white, yellow and purple jersey shorts or his white, yellow and purple jersey shirt beneath his blue trousers.
The color of the jersey is the moniker white, yellow, and purple.
His casual appearance is a dark green cargo vest with a dirty white short sleeve under loose shirt, khaki cargo shorts and black shoes and white socks. He also has a Kainan cap on his head.
Personality[]
Kiyota is loud and boisterous. He likes to call himself a super rookie and constantly boast about his greatness similar to how Sakuragi acts (though Kiyota actually has the skills to back it up). He regards Kaede Rukawa of Shohoku as a rival and is jealous when the latter becomes the only rookie among the top five players of the Kanagawa tournament known as the "Team of the Tournament".
Kiyota highly respects his teammates, especially the players older than him such as Shinichi Maki and Soichiro Jin. He idolizes Maki and aims to take over Kainan's captaincy in the future.
Kiyota and Sakuragi tend to bicker and tease each other whenever they are together. They call each other all sorts of names including monkey and stupid. Kiyota is often in denial whenever Sakuragi showcases a good basketball move or skill and always calls it luck.
But despite their antics against each other, Kiyota and Sakuragi share a lot of similarities (which they'll likely deny vehemently if told). Both of them wear the jersey #10. Very similar to the dynamic between Akagi and Sakuragi, Kiyota also gets smacked on the head by Maki often for his rambunctiousness. Both of them think that they are the #1 rookie in Japan, thus they share the same level of disdain against Rukawa (who many believe is the actual top rookie) and cohesively mock him whenever they can. Their cohesive competitiveness is not merely against Rukawa; they react identically when Maki mentions that Hiroshi Morishige might take the spotlight over them at the Nationals, booing him in unison and calling him all sorts of names together. Despite his best efforts, Nobunaga's attempts at showing off often backfires and he ends up making a fool of himself, which also regularly happens to Sakuragi.
Plot[]
Kiyota makes his first appearance (excluding his silhouette being shown when Ayako discusses Kainan during Shohoku's practice) riding the bicycle behind Jin on their way to Shohoku vs Miuradai, which Maki is already watching. They arrive just as Shohoku scores its 100th point against Miuradai's 47, and Maki joins them on the sidelines. He watches the rest of the match--including Sakuragi getting dismissed with a comical dunk attempt on Tetsuya Naito's head--as Shohoku wins the match 114-51.
During Shohoku vs Shoyo. He is surprised that Shohoku is competing evenly against Shoyo into the 2nd half and decides to report this to his team. However, he accidentally enters Ryonan's locker room instead of Kainan's. When Jun Uozumi towers over Kiyota and questions who he is, Kiyota smacks Uozumi's hand away and self-proclaims himself to be the #1 rookie of Kanagawa while dismissing Ryonan as a subpar team he wouldn't even bother spying on (and visibly irritating the entire Ryonan squad). Despite the roisterous jeers, Kiyota internally in his mind knew many of the notable Ryonan players as soon as he saw them including Ryoji Ikegami, Hiroaki Koshino, Uozumi, and Akira Sendoh. He ultimately joins up with his teammates and watches the rest of the match as Shohoku defeats Shoyo 62-60.
During the pregame warmups against Shohoku, Kiyota steals the ball Sakuragi is holding and starts to show off his ballhandling skills. This leads them to bicker at first, but Sakuragi and Kiyota suddenly become cohesive when Kaede Rukawa interjects. Both of them simultaneously declare that they will not lose to Rukawa as the #1 rookie before Akagi and Maki smack both of them on the head and drag them back to their respective team huddles.
During the Shohoku game, Kiyota is able to surprise Sakuragi by pretending to go for a layup, but switching to a dunk when Sakuragi attempted to block his shot. He also tries to block Akagi's first dunk in the match and almost succeeds, but ultimately fails as Akagi asserts his physical prowess to finish the dunk. Kiyota primarily guards Rukawa, but is not successful in the first half as Rukawa goes on a scoring spree. Sakuragi--proclaiming himself as "King Kong's little brother under the rim"--also blocks Kiyota's shot attempt before the end of the first half.
During Kainan's half-time teamtalk, he pledged to his coach and teammates that he would shut down Rukawa in the second half. A redetermined Kiyota began the second half by blocking Rukawa's first shot attempt which prevented a layup, and effectively limited Rukawa to only 6 points for the rest of the match with much tighter defense. This improved defensive pressure combined with Rukawa's exertion in the first half ultimately forced Rukawa to run out of stamina and sub out prior to the end of the match. Kiyota also made a game-saving contest against Hisashi Mitsui's 3-pointer where he barely clipped Mitsui's shot with his fingertip in the dying seconds of the match. Kainan ultimately won 90-88.
During the pregame warmups prior to Kainan v. Ryonan, Kiyota tried to show off by trying to do an alley-oop dunk off his own bounce pass; but the ball ended up going into the basket before he could even grab it, thus he made a fool of himself once again. When Kainan was trailing Ryonan by 15 points in the second half, Kiyota snapped back at a departing Sakuragi for yelling at him and Maki to do better. Yet Sakuragi's intervention reignited Kiyota, and he immediately dribbled past Kicchou Fukuda before dunking over Uozumi. This solo effort boosted his entire team's morale which initiated a massive 16-2 scoring run in favor of Kainan. Kiyota also taunted Uozumi while running back on defense after the dunk, which irritated Uozumi and made him begin to lose his temper. Kainan capitalized on this lack of focus as they enticed him to consecutively foul Kazuma Takasago and be ejected from the game. Kainan ultimately claimed a 89-83 victory in overtime.
Kiyota played the majority of the match in Kainan's blowout victory over Takezato while other Kainan's starters were rested on the bench by the end of the game. Kiyota finished off the match with a fastbreak dunk to make it 98-51, which started from his own defensive block that led to a combination play with Hiro Tsuburaya. This sealed Kainan's 17th consecutive first place finish at the annual Kanagawa Tournament.
After their match against Takezato, Kiyota and his team watched Shohoku v. Ryonan. During the first half, Rukawa's passiveness puzzled Kiyota. It wasn't until the beginning of the 2nd half that Kiyota realized why--Rukawa was pacing himself so that he could be aggressive in the 2nd half and not burn out early like he did against Kainan. Once Rukawa's offensive prowess was on full display, Maki pointed out that Kiyota will have to compete against him during their high school years which Kiyota acknowledged. After Shohoku defeated Ryonan, Kiyota and his team went down to the award ceremony to be crowned champions of the tournament. Both Kiyota and Sakuragi were visibly irate that only Rukawa was named in the Team of the Tournament out of the first years.
On their way to watch Aiwa vs Meihou, Kiyota and Maki ran into Sakuragi trying to illegally enter a pachinko store with his friends. Maki asks Sakuragi if he'd like to join them to go watch Aiwa's match which Sakuragi agrees to; but Maki and Kiyota end up paying for Sakuragi's train ticket, irritating Kiyota. Kiyota and Sakuragi were amazed at how people knew who Maki was even when they were in a different prefecture. When they arrived at the stadium, they ran into Dai Moroboshi being stretechered off due to his clash with Hiroshi Morishige. They watched the rest of the match as Meihou defeated Aiwa 74-68.
Kainan and Shohoku departed for the National Inter High Tournament on the same train (albeit in different cars). Sakuragi mistakenly approached Kainan thinking it was his team at the station; Maki redirected him to where Shohoku was waiting as Kiyota yelled at him while Akagi smacked Sakuragi for not recognizing his own team (along with being tardy). Kiyota is often seen with his team during the tournament, He mockingly expressed his sympathy for Shohoku when they were in the same bracket as Sannoh, and laughed at an insolent Minori Kishimoto when Maki didn't know who he was.
Kiyota watched both of Shohoku's matches at the National Inter High Tournament. Kiyota was absolutely flabbergasted along with the rest of his teammates when Sakuragi scored his first official midrange jumper during Shohoku's match against Toyotama High. And when Sakuragi executed a more advanced move of pumpfaking Mikio Kawata to score a jumper by the next match against Sannoh High, Kiyota was in absolute denial of what he was witnessing.
When Sannoh High's Eiji Sawakita seemingly had Shohoku singlehandedly beaten, Kiyota yelled at both Rukawa and Sakuragi (similar to when Sakuragi yelled at him and Maki during their match against Ryonan); he urged them to figure out how to defeat Sawakita and Sannoh as Kanagawa's representatives, despite initially dismissing any chance of Shohoku's victory in the beginning. He ultimately witnessed Shohoku's historic victory against Sannoh and saw Sannoh's consecutive championship run come to an end.
Kiyota and his team Kainan placed 2nd at the National Inter High Tournament.
Abilities[]
He has amazing ability and he can jump higher than most players despite his height, and can even perform dunks. In the mobile game, however, he can also learn stepback shots. He also has great ball-handling skills, people consider his dribbling as very fast.
As one of the Kainan's members, his speed is fast enough to defend counter attack. Although self-proclaiming as the No. #1 Rookie, his skill is not on par with Rukawa. However, he has a very high level of fitness and stamina like the rest of his Kainan teammates; he proves this by being the primary defender against Rukawa and outlasting him at the Kanagawa Finals (and reemphasizes his superior endurance when Rukawa takes a rest during the first half against Sannoh).
| Physical Ability | 8/10 | |
|---|---|---|
| Technique | 8/10 | |
| Stamina | 9/10 | |
| Mental Strength | 6/10 | |
| Special Ability | 8/10 | |
Etymology[]
- The name Nobunaga means "trust, believe" (信) (nobu) and "long, chief, boss" (長) (naga).
- Nobunaga's surname Kiyota means "clear, pure, clean" (清) (kiyo) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta).
Trivia[]
- Sakuagi's nickname for him is "Wild Monkey".
- Kiyota's nickname for Sakuragi is "Red Monkey"
- Both he and Sakuragi are also been punched in the head by their captains (Akagi and Maki) respectively for their trouble making antics.
- He and Sakuragi have the same personality and goal to beat Rukawa and be the best rookie. They say "I won't lose to you!" to Rukawa simultaneously.
- Kiyota shares the same Japanese voice actor as Mito Yohei (Morikawa Toshiyuki)
- Despite presumably not being close, Sendoh is the only character who called him by his first name "Nobunaga-kun" at their first meeting in the series.
- In the Filipino Dub, he share the same voice actor with Mitsui, Coach Anzai and Yohei Mito.
- His NBA counterpart would be Darrell Griffith, Griffith posseses the highest vertical leap ever in NBA history with 48"(a record he shares with Wilt Chamberlain), it's because of that that Griffith is know as one of the best high flying dunking guards, just like Kiyota. Kiyota can also be somewhat compared to David Thompson too.