Daiki Aomine

> The only one who can beat me is me.
>
> Daiki Aomine

**Daiki Aomine** (青峰 大輝 *Aomine Daiki*) was the ace player of the renowned Generation of Miracles and was the former partner/light of Tetsuya Kuroko in Teikō Junior High. He currently plays as the power forward and ace of Tōō Academy.

## Appearance

Aomine is a tall young man with tan skin and an athletic build. He has short navy blue hair that he parts to his right as well as thin eyebrows and relatively long, slanted eyes of the same color.

On the court, Aomine wears the black and red Tōō Academy jersey with the number 5. During his time at Teikō Junior High and Team Vorpal Swords, he wore each team's jersey with the numbers 6 and 5 respectively. His casual summer clothes consist of a loose, white tank top and tan cargo pants. In the winter, Aomine is often seen with a light woolen shirt, a black hoodie and a dark bodywarmer.

## Personality

In the past, Aomine was very outgoing and friendly, if not somewhat immature. He had multiple irresponsible habits such as taking food from others when he was hungry and hiding his dirty laundry away in a locker as an excuse not to properly clean it. He was also not a particularly good student, something that persists to this day. He was close friends with Tetsuya Kuroko and often pushed Ryōta Kise around in a friendly, lighthearted manner. Satsuki Momoi has compared this version of Aomine to Taiga Kagami in that they both loved playing basketball and had equal amounts of talent and passion.

As he continued to improve and his true talents blossomed forth, however, Aomine grew more and more distant from the sport and its players. His opponents began to call his talents monstrous and many completely lost their will to play against him, crushing him with both guilt and disappointment and dashing much of his desire to play. Believing that he would never again find a player that stood a chance of being his equal, Aomine made the decision to stop practicing entirely in order to not make his games any more one-sided than they already were.

From this time up to his first year at Tōō Academy, Aomine adopted the saying of "the only one who can beat me is me" and became increasingly careless towards the sport due to his boredom. He openly spoke down to his opponents and taunted them with the fact that their attempts to beat him would be useless, making a show of how little effort he had to expend to win. He was similarly disrespectful to his own teammates and was not above stealing their food or physically harming should they get on his nerves. This general lack of care has extended to his personal life as well, often taking naps or otherwise lazing around without any real goal in mind.

Despite this, Aomine did not fully lose sight of the things he cared for and remained fiercely protective of his former teammates at Teikō Junior High. After hearing a benched teammate insult Tetsuya Kuroko and his style of play during a match against Seirin High, Aomine did not hesitate to slam him against the lockers and warn that he, as someone who couldn't even earn a spot on the court, had no right to comment on the players' performances. Aomine was similarly protective over Ryōta Kise following his match against Fukuda Sōgō Academy, as he chose to wait outside the venue to prevent Shōgo Haizaki from causing any further trouble for Kise or his team.

These echoes of his past self have grown stronger throughout the course of the series, following his reconnection with Kuroko and his first loss to Seirin. This change is and will likely continue to be a gradual one, as while his ego has lessened and his passion for basketball has begun to return, he is ultimately not the same person any longer. His teammates have also taken note of this shift and are now able to more consistently get him to practice, prodding at his rivalry with Taiga Kagami as motivation and threatening to burn his favorite magazines if he misbehaves.

Aomine is notably a big fan of gravure idols and magazines. He has an outspoken preference for women with large chests and is rather shameless about this hobby in general, as he had no qualms with rooting around Kagami's apartment for erotic magazines during his very first visit.

## Skill

As the ace of the Generation of Miracles, he was regarded as "a monster" in basketball, as he was leagues ahead of anyone that came second to him, even among the talents of the Generation of Miracles. His abilities can be described as extremely fast, extremely strong and extremely skillful. It is shown that Aomine can essentially score the basketball from any position on the court. He is very fast, agile, and powerful which enables him to get past even the strongest of defensive minded players. He accomplishes this by performing insane crossovers, changing his speed and direction of movement at an absurd rate, leaving his opponent behind. Overall, these well rounded and polished skills make him an amazing player who is often described as "a monster". Aomine is so skilled he along with Kagami is called the double ace of Team Vorpal Sword (a team made up of the Generation of Miracles).

As explained by Shintaro Midorima, Aomine learned to play basketball on the streets without lessons, so while not possessing the basic movements of basketball play, it is said that Aomine never has a non-changing movement, be it passing, dribbling or shooting. His play is described as limitless. It's extremely difficult to guard him as only a hand-full of players could keep up with him. Tetsuya Kuroko and Ryōta Kise are shown to capability of stopping Aomine predicting his movements based off their past experiences as teammates.

Aomine is described as a solo player, only exceptional in playing one-on-one against his opponents and not passing the ball to his teammates even when he is cornered. His skill is reflected in the fact that he has beaten Kise in a one-on-one before, though this was before Kise mastered the Perfect Copy. At one point it even took a triple team of Kagami, Kiyoshi, and Kuroko to stop Aomine.

### Animal Instinct

Aomine possesses control of his animal instinct, with his instincts compared to that of a panther. This enables him to play purely on feeling and greatly enhance his five senses, making his reflexes and speed top notch. Since Aomine stopped playing seriously his instincts became dull. However it came back slowly during his battle with Kagami.

### Speed and Agility

Aomine is not just extremely fast but his acceleration and deceleration is extremely fast too. As seen in the match against Seirin High, he broke free from Kagami with his speed than stopped in front of the defense and shot with a fadeaway in an instant. Aomine can also sprint back to defense and perform chase-down block.

As stated by Midorima, Aomine transcends even the rest of the Generation of Miracles when it comes to speed and agility. Aomine is so fast he has gotten passed all of Seirin's starters, taking the ball coast to coast with his speed.

### Streetball Handles

Aomine has the ability to an array of different movements based on his street ball background, dribbling the ball at a very high and aggressive level which is difficult for the defender's eyes to follow, making it extremely difficult to steal. He uses many feints, unnecessary movements and doesn't play a standard form of basketball. With this style of play, he can score many creative baskets from the oddest of places on the court or the body, like from behind the backboard among other places, and a behind-the-back flick after drawing a foul. Putting this all together, Aomine is extremely unpredictable, can easily crossover, ankle-break, and get past Kagami at their meeting in the Interhigh. Kagami compares his style of play to the way they play basketball in the States.

### Formless Shot

The formless shot is his signature shot and it is his way of scoring. As stated by Midorima, it's not his agility or unpredictability that made Aomine the super scorer even among Generation of Miracles, but his ability to score in virtually any position and anywhere even from the oddest places, such as behind the board. He can even lower his posture to bypass the defense, even when his body is nearly parallel to the ground. One of Aomine's formless shot is where he throws the ball in a gridiron-like motion while performing a fade-away. It was deemed impossible by many to block such a shot, but Kise and later Kagami were able to stop it on occasions.

### Zone

**Zone** is a state of being that Aomine can access once he has found a worthy opponent and reached his full potential. Under this influence, he is "in the zone", which means that nobody else can stop him unless the opposing player is in the Zone as well. When a person is in the Zone, streams of sparks or currents of electricity seem to gather in the player's eyes, indicating that the individual has entered the Zone and gained his full potential as a basketball player.

When entering the Zone, one forgets everything and focuses solely on the game. It is a superlative of regular concentration. Only the elite of the best of the best of players are allowed to enter the Zone, and Aomine seemed to have forced his way in. Opening the gate to the Zone means opening the gate to your full potential, the full 100% of one's capabilities and abilities. In Aomine's case, his speed doubles at the least, his power increases drastically. His ability to score from anywhere escalates and Aomine's skills become even more overwhelming.

Because of Aomine's past filled with victories, he hadn't been pressured as much as his match against Seirin High, more specifically, Kagami. He started to enjoy playing against his first real opponent in some time and this feeling of enjoyment and excitement opened the gates of the Zone for him. In other words, his main condition to enter the zone is a "worthy opponent" whom he can give his all.

He is also very knowledgeable about the Zone, and because of this, he was able to give Kagami some information about it.

## Quotes

* "*The only one who can win against me, is me.*"
* *"I don't even remember how to receive your passes anymore."*
* *"I won't lose. A battle's no fun if you don't win."*
* *"I'll never find what I'm looking for."*
* "*What's with this... It wasn't a gatekeeper or anything. The one standing in front of that door... It was you all along, wasn't it? Tetsu.*"
* To Team Jabberwock:*"Prepare yourself. They paved the path up until now. The last two and a half minutes, I'll go all out without holding back."*
* To Akashi, Midorima, Kagami, and Kuroko:*"Doesn't mean we have time to be scared. Doesn't matter how strong he is. That doesn't give us a reason to lose to scum like them."*

## Etymology

* The name **Daiki** means "big, great" (大) (**dai**) and "brightness, radiance, shine, sparkle, gleam, twinkle" (輝) (**ki**).
* Daiki's surname **Aomine** means "blue, green" (青) (**ao**) and "peak, ridge" (峰) (**mine**).
	+ The kanji "青" (**Ao**) in his name means *blue*, hinting to his hair color, but in Chinese, it could both mean blue and green.

1. ↑ Kuroko no Basuke chapter 270, page 17