Daiki Aomine (青峰 大輝 Aomine Daiki) is one of the Generation of Miracles and was the former partner/light of Kuroko in Teikō. He now plays as the ace of Tōō Academy. He and Kagami are sworn rivals after their clashes in the Interhigh preliminaries and in the Winter Cup. He was the main antagonist until the first round of the Winter Cup.
Aomine's noticably brown skin is darker than most of the other characters. He has dark blue hair that is quite short. His hair is parted on his left side. Aomine is very tall and muscular.
He wears the black and red Tōō High uniform with the number 5. His casual summer clothes consist of a loose tank top and cargo pants. In winter, he is often seen with a light woolen shirt, a black hoodie and a dark bodywarmer.[1]
Before he gained immeasurable strength, Aomine was out-going and even friendly. He often fooled around with Kuroko or Kise. Momoi stated that the old Aomine was so alike with Kagami. He loved playing basketball and was very good at it too. But he kept training and he kept getting stronger, to the point that he totally crushed his opponents' will to play basketball. He was initially sad about this, and searched for a decent match, but never found one.[2] Eventually, he came to conclusion that he is simply the strongest and that "the only one who can win against him, is himself". He also cast his feelings towards his opponents aside and now views them as weak and wants to crush them. He seeks to humiliate them in the worst kind of fashion. He has also become very lazy, only coming to training when he wants to, and slacking off even during matches.
Aomine also has a short temper and some kind of admiration towards Kuroko, as he threatened a Tōō player with physical violence when he spoke badly about Kuroko. Haizaki Shōgo stole food from Kuroko and Aomine told him to get his own food.[3] Another trait he shows, is that he is a big fan of Japanese idols. He is interested in that field of entertainment and knows a lot of idols and keep them apart well. He has said he likes models with big boobs.[4]
When Aomine was still little, he started playing basketball on the streets, before he was taught anything. It was seen that he played with Momoi, revealing how they were childhood friends. As he was growing up, he began playing against streetballers. This was the developement of his ever-changing flexible streetball.[5]
Aomine attended Junior High school in Teikō for three years. He joined the basketball club and was classified in the first string. When Aomine was one day staying late for extra practice, he went to another gym because the regular gym was full of other players. He was warned by Momoi (who was the team's manager at the time) that the gym was haunted by a ghost, but Aomine didn't believe it. He entered and heard basketball sounds, but couldn't see anyone playing. Kuroko then introduced himself, scaring Aomine. They talk and Aomine complements Kuroko that staying so late for practice proves his love for basketball. Kuroko and Aomine start practicing together and become good friends. Aomine also persuaded Kuroko to keep playing basketball when he wanted to quit.[6]
When Kuroko eventually joined the regulars of Teikō, Aomine and Kuroko were perfectly adaptable. Kuroko's misdirection and invisible passes connected with Aomine's strength and the two brought out the best in each other.[7]
In his second year in Junior High school, Aomine inspired Kise to play basketball and he became his training partner. Kise was still a complete rookie, apart from his copying ability, and Aomine was obviously stronger than him, but Aomine kept training with Kise, just because he loves basketball.[8] He taught Kise a lot and became his mentor/idol. During that time, Aomine also became the ace of the team.
All the members of the Generation of Miracles didn't start of as strong as they are now, but Aomine was the first to progress quickly above the rest. He suddenly became a totally different, scary strong person. He took Teikō's victories to a whole other level, crushing their opponents with three to five times the points, even reaching 200 points. Aomine's share in the points was overwhelming. He stood out above the rest too much and skipped practice more often. When Kuroko confronted him about that, he told him that the game has become boring for him. Midorima clarified that Aomine needed a strong rival, but never found one. Aomine also became too strong in comparison to his teammates, too strong for his own good. Aomine started to do just the minimum to make the team win.[9] Kuroko tried to convince him otherwise and that his rival would surely come and Aomine believed that for a while, but his power grew even more and seeing his mentally crushed opponents, changed his mind. He told Kuroko that he respects his thought of a rival, but that his rival would never come. Aomine came to think that no one could match him. This is when his present arrogance originated.
During the finals in Block A in the Interhigh preliminaries, Seirin vs Shūtoku, Aomine is seen for the first time. Momoi runs in on him at the gym, where he is slacking off while the rest is having the preliminaries finals. Momoi informs him on the match between Midorima and Kuroko, with Momoi betting on Kuroko. Aomine hesitates but says that it could be both of them.[10]
After the match, Momoi calls Midorima on the cell phone but Aomine takes it from her. Talking to Aomine, Midorima warns him of Seirin in the final league. Aomine responds that that's ridiculous and concludes that the only one who can beat him, is himself.[11]
After asking Momoi where Kagami is, he finds him practicing at a street ball court. Aomine challenges Kagami and Kagami rudely asks him who he is. Aomine gives him his name and Kagami realizes he's one of the Generation of Miracles. Aomine swats away Kagami's further questions and urges him to take him on, in order to entertain him for a bit. Aomine belittles Kagami and his arrogance annoys him. Aomine totally overpowers Kagami and tells him his partnership with Kuroko will fail because Kagami's "light is too dim", before dashing past him and finishing the one-on-one.[12] He meets up with Momoi afterwards, to which he tells that Kagami is disappointing.
The team is just on lunch break when Aomine returns to the gym. He takes pieces of Sakurai's bento without asking and pulls a lame excuse when he is asked where he was. He gets irritated when a teammate complains about his absence and quickly departs after picking up his idol magazine. Suddenly, Wakamatsu stops him and grabs him by his collar in anger and shouts that he should go to practice. Aomine says that he's not very energetic and that he'll let Wakamatsu off the hook, though he does violently kick him in the stomach shortly after. Then, Aomine picks up a stray basketball and mocks practice, saying that he doesn't need it if he performs well in matches. He dunks with ferocious power and breaks the basket. He leaves, after stating that they can bug him about practice when they're better than him.[13]Imayoshi later comments than Aomine is forgiven these acts because he is simply a sport-changing player.
A few days after, the Interhigh preliminaries final league's first day has arrived. The first match being Seirin vs Tōō, both teams arrived at the gym already, only Aomine is missing. Momoi calls him on his cell and Aomine is revealed to still be at school, having overslept. Imayoshi then talks to Aomine, telling him to get there as fast as possible. Aomine cuts him off by saying that Seirin's not that big a deal and that it'll be fine.[14]
Aomine appears during the Winter Cup when Akashi has summoned the Generation to meet them. He is seen spinning a basketball on his fingers when Kuroko arrives.[15] He notices that Kuroko has brought Furihata with him and makes fun of Kuroko. Murasakibara says that Aomine also brought Satsuki, after which Aomine tells him to shut up. Kuroko greets them all and Aomine says to Kise to put his cellphone away, as the constant ringing irritates Aomine. Kise tells him he keeps getting messages from his fan girls and Aomine says for him to go die. Akashi arrives and greets them. After threatening Kagami with Midorima's scissors, he turns to leave, angering Aomine, who then asks Akashi what the point in gathering them was if they did not confer about anything.[16] Akashi replies that he just wanted to check that they didn't forget their oath, which they apparently didn't.
Aomine is later seen walking with Tōō Academy onto the Winter Cup court, to prepare for their match against Seirin High. Aomine is announced as the "Genius scorer of the Generation of Miracles".[17] Both teams enter the court and Kagami approaches Aomine and Aomine notices that Kagami got a little better. Kagami admits and Aomine encounters Kuroko. Kuroko declares that Seirin will not lose a second time and Aomine agrees to settle it this time for sure. Seirin and Tōō line up and wish each other a clean match.
The match starts and Seirin gains possession of the ball. They drive it up court but Tōō's pressure defense stops them. Sakurai steals the ball, dribbles to the other side of the court and pulls up for a three-pointer. But instead of shooting, he passes the ball in front of the basket and Aomine dunks a fierce alley-oop. Meanwhile, Kagami has just arrived and Aomine taunts him. When Kuroko prepares for his Ignite Pass Kai, Aomine recognizes his normal Ignite Pass, but Kuroko says it's a new form of that pass.[18] Kuroko doesn't use his misdirection, which surprises Aomine. He reaches out his hand, preparing to catch the pass, but Kuroko's Ignite Pass Kai repels Aomine's hand. It flies past Aomine, reaches Kiyoshi and Kagami scores an alley oop. He says to Kuroko that it seems that he got a bit more interesting. Kuroko replies that if not, it'd be disappointing.
The match goes on and Tōō overwhelms Seirin. The ball ends up with Kagami and he decides to go up against Aomine. Kagami runs a simulation of their battle in his head with a high-level tactical battle and eventually passes to Izuki, concluding that he would lose if he went against Aomine now. During the simulation, Kagami and Aomine just stood towards each other for a few seconds. When the ball goes out of bounds, Aomine laughs and understands that Kagami made the right decision and that the old him would have plunged right in.[19] He gets that Kagami has evolved much and that his tactical battle was just the tip of the iceberg.
The first quarter ends in a tie with Hyūga and Sakurai's shoot-out. During the pause, Momoi reveals to her team the secret to the Vanishing Drive. They agree that they have to keep Kagami and Kuroko apart, but Aomine declines. He says that they should just let Kuroko do the Vanishing Drive, that Aomine will definitely stop him. Aomine sneers, saying he is better than Kuroko. Kuroko immediately faces off against Aomine when the match starts again and Aomine says to Kuroko that they really do have a great mutual understanding of basketball. Kuroko agrees and he and Kagami proceed to do the Vanishing Drive. It seems for an instant that Kuroko broke through, but Aomine turns and stops Kuroko.[20] He was closing his eyes, only relying on his sense of basketball and Kuroko's breath to follow him. He says that their mutual sense of basketball is too bad and he steals Kuroko's ball. He drives to the basket and dunks the ball. He then turns to Kuroko and threatens him that he can't beat him and that his effort was futile.
Kuroko gets the ball on the offense and pulls up for an Ignite Pass Kai, in an act of despair. He thrust the ball with all his might, but the ball gets stopped by Aomine. He is standing in the middle of the court and says to Kuroko that the same move won't work on him a second time. He continues by saying that his effort to defeat him was futile and that he should give up. He passes Izuki and encounters Kagami by the basket. Aomine does his formless shot, with his body almost parallel to the floor, throws the ball besides Kagami, it grazes the top of the board and falls into the ring.[21]Seirin then calls for a time-out.
After their match in the first round of the Winter Cup, Kuroko calls Aomine out again the night after the match. Aomine asks why he called all of a sudden, but Kuroko asks if Momoi isn't with him. Aomine replies that he ditched her. Kuroko then cuts to the chase and asks Aomine head-on to teach him how to shoot. They move to a nearby basketball court and Kuroko shows Aomine his shot and asks if it's any good. Aomine lashes out that he has no clue and gets mad about Kuroko just dragging him in. He sits down and says that he hasn't been able to sleep since that match. He explains that the taste of defeat is bitter, but that he is still shaking from excitement. He says that his passion has somehow revived. He agrees to helping Kuroko out.[22]
Some time before the quarter-finals of the Winter Cup, Yōsen vs Seirin, Aomine completes his training with Kuroko. Kuroko has then scored 7 out of 10 shots, which Aomine finds sufficient. Momoi suddenly clings to Kuroko and is surprised about how fast he learned to shoot. Aomine says that he himself didn't do much and explains how the side-effect of his passing speciality refrained him for shooting properly. He adds that by negating that side-effect, he'd be able to shoot just fine. He thinks by himself how it's odd that Akashi, who taught Kuroko his playing style, didn't notice this flaw. He is suspicious of Akashi. Kuroko then sincerely thanks Aomine, but Aomine says that it's not needed, that he just couldn't stand seeing Kuroko suck so much. He then warns him about Murasakibara, he hesitates to tell Kuroko that it's really him who's grateful. He eventually doesn't say that and takes off, but not without saying that they next time they will meet, it will be as enemies...[23]
After the quarter-finals, Kagami's shoes are totally wrecked. Therefor, Kuroko calls Momoi for help and the three meet up at a close basketball court. However, Kagami is surprised to see that Aomine came along as well and asks why he's even here. Aomine answers with irritation. Momoi then says that since Aomine and Kagami have the same shoe size, Aomine said that he'll give Kagami a pair. Aomine denies, but after Kagami sees the shoes in question, Aomine decides that he'll get the shoes if Kagami is able to defeat Aomine in a one-on-one. He adds that he'll give him a small lecture while they're playing... In the end, Kagami loses, but Aomine decides to give him the shoes anyway. He says that he doesn't want to see a crappy match just because Kagami doesn't have proper shoes. Kagami reluctantly accepts.[24]
Aomine and Momoi are absent from the first semi-finals, Rakuzan vs Shūtoku and a large part of the second, Kaijō vs Seirin. The pair is seen in a café, when Aomine asks Momoi if she believes in fate. Momoi is startled and Aomine explains that it's hardly a coincidence that something like the "Generation of Miracles" happened and that they are now facing each other as enemies in a tournament like the Winter Cup and what's more, that Kagami has appeared. He calls Kagami "the miracles who did not become one of the miracles" and that he also partnered up with his fated shadow, Kuroko...[25] At the same time, Kagami manages to overcome Kise in a one-on-one in the actual match.
Aomine and Momoi later do enter the gym to watch the last 5 minutes of the match. Aomine is shoved in by Momoi and he says to her that they've come at the right time, as both Kuroko and Kise are about to enter the field for the last showdown. He is then occasionally seen shocked by Kise's vast improvement or commenting on certain plays.[26]
Aomine is quite literally "a monster" in basketball, as he is leagues ahead of anyone that comes second to him, even among 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 oppenent behind. On top of that he is also very strong as he can dunk against other centers with relative ease also allowing him to rebound nearly every missed shot. Overall, these well rounded and polished skills make him an amazing player who is often described as "a monster".
As explained by Midorima, Aomine learned to play basketball on the streets without lessons, so while not possessing the basic movements of basketball's play, it is said that Aomine never has a non-changing movement, be it passing, dribbling or shooting. His play is described as limitless.[27] It's extremely difficult to guard him as only a hand-full of players could keep up with him. Kuroko and Kise are shown to capability of stopping Aomine predicting his movements based off their past experiences as teammates.
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.
As stated by Midorima, Aomine transcends even the rest of the Generation of Miracles when it comes to agility.[28]
Aomine has the ability to an array of different movements based on his street ball background. He uses many feints, unnecessary movements and doesn't play a standard form of basketball.[29] With this style of play, he can score many creative baskets from the oddest of places on the court, like from behind the backboard among other places.[30] Putting this all together, Aomine is very unpredictable and can easily crossover and get past Kagami. Kagami compares his style of play to the way they play basketball in the States.
Apart from his ball handling and speed, Aomine can get a shot off from essentially any position on the court. One of his signature shots, the formless shot is where Aomine lowers his posture to bypass the defense, as he shoots when his body is nearly parallel to the ground.[31][32] It was deemed impossible by many to block such a shot, but an awoken Kagami was able to stop it.[33]
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 angle, even from the behind the board.
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 he or she is in the Zone as well. When a person is in the Zone, some sort 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.[34]
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.[35]
Because of Aomine's past, he hadn't been this much pressured than in the 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.[36]
Aomine and Momoi have had a purely platonic friendship since childhood since they live close together. As children they often played basketball together.[37] Up until Junior High school, they were very close and were on first name basis (him calling her "Satsuki" and her calling him "Dai-chan"). To his discomfort, Momoi started to call him "Aomine-kun" instead, otherwise "people are gonna talk". Aomine himself said it felt gross that she called him "Aomine-kun". Their relationship grew apart slightly but they continued to go home together every day.
Their friendship was tested when Aomine started to get bored with basketball and his attitude started to cause trouble. Momoi stuck with him through thick and thin and also decided to attend Tōō High with him because she was afraid he would do something if she wasn't there to keep and eye on him. In the Character Bible, Aomine says that he wants to sleep in on his days off, but Momoi forces him to wake up and take her somewhere. It is shown that he does care about her but he lets his temper run away from him; when they had an argument about Momoi telling their coach to pull him off the team for injuries, he lost it and said that he didn't want to see her "or her ugly face" anymore.[38] Momoi burst in to tears, flung a clipboard at his face, and ran off, calling his face grotesque. Aomine's reaction implied that he hadn't meant to make her cry and regretted it.
Satsuki and Dai-chan attend Seirins quarter-finals
After Aomine was defeated by Kagami, he regained his love for basketball and asked Momoi to go shopping with him the next day so that he could buy some training gear. She smiles at this and starts to call him "Dai-chan" again, and adds that she will only do that if he buys her dinner.[39] Since then, the two have been shown together more often, implying that their friendship had been fully restored.
Aomine was neither supportive nor against Momoi's crush on Kuroko, as shown by both the Replace novels and an omake in which Kuroko and Momoi went on a date. He was dragged by Kise to go spy on them and he was the one who worked behind the scenes to get rid of possible interlopers who wanted to hit on Momoi.[40] He was even seen estimating Momoi's cup size (he guessed that she was E-cup at that time) after she made her appearance. After the date Momoi ran to his house to show off the stuffed toy Kuroko had given her as a present and he only responded with a "Yeah, yeah, congratulations." It was implied that Aomine already knows that Kuroko does not return her feelings but keeps quiet as not to upset Momoi.
Aomine was Kuroko's best friend and "light" back at Teikō Junior High School. Aomine was starter at first, when Kuroko was still third stringer. That didn't matter to Aomine, because he saw the same amount of basketball passion in Kuroko that he has. They practiced together after training and quickly became friends to the point where Aomine calls Kuroko Tetsu. When Kuroko was promoted to playing with the starters, his play was very in sync with Aomine.
The Kuroko-Aomine relationship that pretty much mimes the Kuroko-Kagami relationship
Aomine once stated that the two have very little in common but that basketball is what brings their friendship together. Midorima once said their way of play is so compatible to the point of annoyance. Outside of the court they would hangout and grab ice cream together after practices or games.
Over time Aomine changed: he became stronger and eventually lost his passion for basketball because he was too strong for his opponents and winning was no longer fun. Kuroko tried convince him that Aomine would eventually find a formidable opponent, but during the championships Aomine dominated the competition once again and deemed that he can beat himself as everyone else sucked. From then on the two grew more distance between them as they were no longer friends and Kuroko quit Teiko basketball.
When the two were first brought together, Aomine still showed the same attitude he had at the end of his Junior High school days. It was shown that Aomine expressed indifference when Midorima pointed out Kuroko would face him during the Inter-high championships. During the game Aomine overslept and didn't show up till the second quarter, though during the second half of the game Aomine completely destroyed Seirin stopping Kuroko including his ignite pass, misdirections among others. Aomine approches Kuroko at one point during the match and proclaim that he is disappointed in Kuroko because hasn't improved much since playing at Teiko and mentions that his current basketball abilities wouldn't beat him, also bringing up Akashi's prediction that Kuroko's style wouldn't bring winning basketball.
Kuroko and Aomine have met up a few times between the interhigh championships and Winter Cup, as each time their talks would heat up and challenges would be made. During their match in round 1 of the Winter Cup Touou still towered over Seirin, but Seirin gradually got better and better over the course of the match. At one point during the match, Kuroko used his Vanishing Drive against Aomine it first worked but Aomine was able to stop it after seeing it a few times. He also eventually stole his Ignite Pass Kai pass, crushing his will completely. The match would then turn into a matchup between Kagami and Aomine as the two now were pretty evenly matched. Unexpectedly, Kuroko comes back into the match and uses his Misdirection Overflow helping Seirin score a few points. Eventually Kuroko aslo forces Aomine to miss a basket. At the peak of his excitement and gratitude toward Kuroko, Aomine go into "The Zone", the pinancle state of concentration that only few chosen athlete can achieve takes control of the match. Kagami then follows suit and enters "Zone" as well and during the last seconds, as he and Aomine are stuck in a stalemate until Kagami finally gains the upper hand and eventually win against Aomine. He and Kuroko bump fists once again and promise to compete again. Because of the tough match, Aomine regained his passion and enjoyment and resees Kuroko as his friend. Aomine even agreed to help Kuroko develop his Phantom Shot.
Aomine is the one who inspires Kise to play basketball- having a unique style which Kise couldn't help but admire. He is persistent in his requests to play one-on-one with Aomine back in Teikō Junior High, despite the fact that he was always losing to Aomine. It is later revealed that, during their match together, Kise expresses a subconscious wish where even though he himself wants to win, he doesn't want Aomine to lose- therefore giving him a drawback and not able to copy Aomine. He later manages to overcome his admiration and copy Aomine's style, but eventually loses the match. Aomine was shown to be livid when Kise looked at him with pity (because he had earned a lot of dangerous fouls), and finishes the match by saying that the only one who can defeat him is himself.
Tōō's captain Imayoshi commented that Aomine didn't go full-force during the match with Kise because he still have a soft spot for his ex-teammate, thus implying that Aomine still cares for Kise. In their Teikō flashbacks, Aomine was shown to be often annoyed by Kise's antics like the other teammates. Aomine punched Haizaki to protect Kise after when he realizes that Haizaki intended to revenge his loss against Kise- not thinking of the consequences and claiming that Haizaki had no right to interfere with the Kaijō and Seirin's match. Kise, during their highschool time, admires Aomine like an idol and sets him as a rolemodel, but having broken free from that mindset- he managed to attain perfect copy and copy Aomine's style.
In the original datebook, Characters Bible, an early character concept sketch of Aomine is seen. His face and eyes haven't changed, but accompanying a sketch of his original hairstyle, is a sketch of Aomine with longer hair, reaching his eyes and the back of his neck.
On the first character poll, Aomine ranked 6th, with 710 votes. He went up one place on the second poll, this time with 1021 votes.
Similar to Kagami's nickname Baka-gami (Kagamidiot), Aomine has been dubbed by the fans as Aho-mine (with aho meaning stupid).
The kanji 青 (Ao) in his name means blue, hinting to his hair color.
Aomine and Momoi are childhood friends and her nickname for him is Dai-chan.
Aomine has called Kuroko "Tetsu" ever since they started training together back in Teikō.
Aomine hates bees (he was stung by one). One time he put a frog on Momoi's head, making her cry. It was stated that Aomine's type are girls with big boobs. [42]
His blood type is B. If Aomine had an alternate job it would be a police officer.
As stated by Momoi, his shoe size is similar to Kagami's, 29.5. In fact, they both use the same brand of Air Jordan shoes.[43]
He is the only Generation of Miracles player to have defeated Seirin so far.
Aomine resembles Keigo Atobe from the tennis manga/anime series Prince of Tennis, in terms of arrogance and abilities as all-rounder. Further more, they also share the same voice actor, being Junichi Suwabe.