Ayumu Kadowaki

**Ayumu Kadowaki** (門脇 歩, *Kadowaki Ayumu*) is one of the heroes of the series. He is a second year student at Honan Academy and the "reluctant" runner of the Stride Club.

He is voiced by Hiro Shimono (Japanese) and Micah Solusod (English).

## Appearance

Ayumu has neatly combined green hair, matching green eyes and wears wide silver-framed glasses.

He wears a white jersey (with a thick blue and thin red line running across the shoulders until the elbows and Honan Academy's emblem on the left) with a white-shirt underneath. He wears it with brown shorts and grey running shoes.

His school uniform consists of the black school gakuen which contains both jacket and pants and grey dress shoes.

When he sleeps, his eye mask is orange with thick, black eyebrows with dark-brown eyes with fired-up pupils. He also wears a red neck roll.

## Personality

Ayumu is a passionate Shogi player. He concurrently serves as the leader of the Shogi club and self-proclaimed "King", and is a Stride Club member. He was a relationer last year, and relayed information to Heath and Hozumi in the 2-on-2 race.

## Skills

He is a very poor runner overall, not only because he is a dedicated shogi player, but because he was previously an interim relationer. He was actually drafted in by Hozumi Kohinata, a classmate of his after Kyosuke Kuga beat up the third years, and stayed on when they left for university.

However, due to his mental toughness, his speed and parkour skills are often overlooked (but in the anime, he actively avoids obstacles by running around them, but in the second match, he persevered and took a dangerous shortcut to briefly take the lead, but broke his right clavicle (collarbone) upon landing, he also suffered cuts on his left cheek, which was bandaged in episode 6). Even after his injuries were healed, he became a substitute member.

As a shogi player, his mental game is above average, but he isn't quick-witted and can't deal with Kaede's barrage of questions about Kyosuke Kuga, and constantly have his sentences completed or lines stolen by Takeru.

He has a broad theoretical knowledge of Stride and trivia, from naming all kinds of vault jumps needed to clear obstacles (but he has below average vertical jumping abilities and next to no practical parkour skills, but he can visualize how it is supposed to be done), he is also good at trivial knowledge of Saitama and Mihashi. He also relied on his theoretical knowledge to be a backup or interim relationer when he first joined the Stride Club.

## Quotes

* *"I'm promoting myself!"*
— before making a dangerous leap over a tree
* I suspect our captain is suffering from B.N.S. — Best of Natsuno Semeku (Summer Torment, aka Summer Holiday Homework). He has good looks, Captain of a club, but not very smart, almost T3A (Terrific Three Advantages, the third being top of the class in grades) — referring to Heath Hasekura's poor grades

## Etymology

* The name **Ayumu** means "walk, step" (歩).
* Ayumu's surname **Kadowaki** means "gate" (門) (**kado**) and "side" (脇) (**waki**).

## Trivia

* Likes: Reading the Stride magazine "Stride Mania", Shogi, wandering around in bookstores, Green Tea Poured over Fresh Sea Bream and Rice, and sleeping on long train rides. Talking in acronyms.
* Dislikes: Sweet milk coffee.

* Ayumu has green hair and wears glasses (in reference to Daisuke Ono (Heath), who also voiced Shintarō Midorima of Kuroko's Basketball. Midorima also wears glasses with no rims on top, just like Fujiwara). Ayumu is right-handed, and is voiced by Hiro Shimono.
* Ayumu is the only true member of the Shogi Club.
* When Honan faced off against Mihashi, he would try to wind up opponents, especially Nobuhiko Nagatsuka of Mihashi. The story he told was similar to what Midousuji told Imaizumi about a family member being in hospital, but Ayumu is an only child, while Nagatsuka bought the story, he didn't take him lightly. In the anime, Ayumu took a risky shortcut where he would get badly cut by the branches, and dislocated his right collarbone.
* Nagatsuka thought he is a half-sister of Ina Bauer, but it cannot be because she passed away in 2014, aged 73. This also makes Ayumu's version of the story a hoax, just like Manti Te'o's girlfriend hoax in 2012-2013.
* Ina Bauer also refers to a figure skating element, a footstep named after her. The term became popular in Japan due to an explosion of World Class female figure skaters in Japan in the 1990-2010's, especially 2006 Winter Olympic Champion, Shizuka Arakawa, who won with her flexible version of the move in her long skating program.
* His last name 'Kadowaki' is only two characters away from 'Kadokawa', the company that made the series.
* Like Nobuhiko Okamoto, the voice actor for Takeru Fujiwara, in which Nobuhiko Nagatsuka is named after, Okamoto is a certified skillful shogi player.

## References

1. ↑ Episode 4
2. ↑ Episode 9