Noboru Koike

**Noboru Koike** (小池 昇, *Koike Noboru*) is a 3rd-year in and captain of Yami-uma High's basketball team.

## Appearance

He has incredibly zigzagged bangs reaching down to his eyebrows, similar to Touma's hair. His hair also seems to be somewhat parted at the top of his head, but with the parting not reaching the bangs.

## Personality

He is incredibly persistent and strong-willed, in part owing to the fact that he has only a few years left to enjoy basketball in High School.

## History

Since he's going to take over his father's sheet metal store after high school, upon enrolling at Yami-Uma Technical he immediately joined their basketball club as a first-year high school student 2 years ago with Ryuuichi Kanaka, Kaoru Noro, and Shou Shiroiwa. In order to make use of his last 3 years of basketball in high school, he spent everyday training at the gym, unwittingly pissing off his senpais who feel guilty watching him whilst they laze around. This caused him to get bullied, until he shared his reason for trying so hard to practice, with the other 1st-years: that high school is his last chance to take something he likes seriously. Ryuuichi along with the other first years stops Jun and the seniors after a particularly violent episode. Unfortunately the incident got him in an injury that would take 2 months to recover, and temporarily dissolved the basketball club. The rest of the 1st-years, inspired by his charismatic devotion to the sport and out of gratitude for helping them practice free of the seniors' ill will against them, practiced with just the 3 of them while waiting for him to recover and later they reformed the basketball club. Due to his rebellious practice sessions, his team mates managed to get 2 extra years of training and managed to polish their strengths enough to finally break into the Top 4 of the Inter High. Due to all this, his team agreed to make him captain, even whilst having the worst skills in the team.

## Plot

### Yami-uma vs Ōsen

Although he wasn't a key player, he managed to throw Kuromiya off with his defense, preventing him from assisting in the offense against Yami high. He also managed to inspire Shou and Kaoru in the 2nd quarter, and calm down Shishido in the 3rd quarter, which directly lead to Shishido's realization, a major factor to their strong offense and towards Yami-uma's victory.

## Skills

### Desperation/Persistence

He constantly sticks to whoever he has to mark, regardless of the skill gap, and will do anything to hinder the offense in anyway, even just by distracting them with his fingertips.

### Mental Fortitude

Even though he lost 1-on-1 to Kuromiya (who has black execution in his skill set) multiple times, he never waivered once and continued to apply defense.

### Charisma

His previous traits are easily contrasted by his lack of talent or any "real" basketball skill, which makes the previous traits all the more charming and even inspiring to those fighting with him. His constant practice drills inspired the formation of their current basketball team, and his slow victory against Kuromiya's offense and his overall desperate defense inspired Kaoru, Shou, and even later on in the match Shishido, and immediately improved their performances.

## Trivia

Although there are no animal kanjis in Koike's name, the "ike" portion means pond and combined with the imagery behind him on Chapter 80's cover as well as the "Koi" sound in his name makes him fit the animal-themed naming scheme of Yami-uma.