Koganei has normal, spiky, dark brown hair. His front bangs just reach his eyes. His most distinctive feature is his mouth, that is instead of a straight line, wavy. The corners of his mouth go down, but in the middle, his upper-lip curves upwards. His mouth resembles a cat's or a squirrel's mouth.
Koganei, or Koga, as he is sometimes called, is a comic relief character. He is very level-headed and very talkative; often making funny, out-of-context or dumb remarks. He is also scared very fast and looks up to playing against a strong opponent. Even in the match, he is pessimistic. When Riko drives up the training, he is usually the first to complain. Despite all this, he gets serious during matches. In the match against Seihō High, he fought for his pride.[1]
He is friends with everybody on the team and calls them nicknames, like Tsucchi for Tsuchida and Itsuki for Izuki.
Koga played tennis in Junior High school but changed his mind to basketball when he saw Mitobe play basketball. In high school, he and Mitobe heard about the gathering of a basketball club and approached Kiyoshi. They both join the club, becoming the club's third and fourth member. Koga immediatly proves himself to be a complete novice at basketball, even calling travelling "cycling".[2] Koga also wanted a cute female manager for the team and so the basketball team ask Riko to join them. After Riko refused, Koga complained about her toughness.
Later, when the basketball team went to eat in a fastfood restaurant, they discuss their positions. Koga said that he wants to be side back, to the despair of Izuki.[3] The next day, at school during the morning ceremony, the team stood on the roof of the building and shouted their resolve, Koga including. Riko eventually decided to join them anyway and the Seirin High basketball team is formed. The trainings started, their game uniforms arrived (where Koga seemed very excited about) and Seirin eventually played their first match, which they win. Seirin advanced to the last match before the final league of the Interhigh preliminaries and for their next match, they went to a very large gym with a lot of audience. Koga is overwhelmed by this.[4] Seirin won their match against Kirisaki Daīchi High, but lost Kiyoshi in the progress. They were defeated in the Interhigh preliminaries final league.
Koganei is first seen at the opening ceremony of Seirin High School. He was recruiting new members for the basketball club and ran into Kagami. He ended up being brought to the basketball club booth by him. Kagami fills in an application paper and leaves. After Kagami left, Koganei sights and calls Kagami scary. He was about to explain to Riko why Kagami had him by his neck, when he notices Kuroko's form. He gives it to Riko and she sees that he's from Teikō Junior High School, meaning that Kuroko is one of the Generation of Miracles. Koga wonders about why the freshmen this year are so amazing.[5]
He later appears on the first and second training of the new Seirin team. He joins in the match against the freshmen and is seen triple-teaming Kagami.[6]
Koganei starts on the bench in Seirin's match against one of the Three Kings of Tokyo, Seihō High. He subs in for Kagami when Riko decides to spare Kagami and Kuroko for later. Now with only second years in the field, Seirin declares that they are going to win for their pride as senpais.[7] The match goes on and Seirin keeps up with Seihō with a lay-up from Koga. As Riko is explaining Izuki's Hawk Eye, Furihata asks about Koganei's skill. Koga shoots at that moment and Riko says that Koga can shoot from any range. The shot goes off the rim and Riko adds that his accuracy is average. The match continues and the ball is stolen and fumbles out. Koga runs for the ball and manages to keep it in bounds, but is unable to stop his run, trips and falls behind the bench.[8] The team is surprised and Riko examines him, saying it's probably a mild concussion. Kuroko subs in for his place. Seirin eventually wins the match.
Seirin goes to the locker room and Koga is seen conscious and well, putting on his jacket and eating a banana.[9] He accompanies Kuroko to the toilets and encounters Takao, who sees Kuroko immediatly, much to the surprise of Koga. The match begins and Koga starts on the bench. He comments on the game and on Midorima's abilities throughout the match. After half time, because of Kuroko's problem with Takao, Koga subs in for him. At his first ball contact after a pass from Izuki, he shoots and scores.[10] He is later blocked by Ōtsubo and marks him in defense, together with Mitobe. Even though Ōtsubo has two players marking him, he stil outjumps them. Later, when Kagami is about to collapse, he subs back out for Kuroko.[11] With Kuroko back on the court, the team overcomes the King of Tokyo and wins the match.
Koga, along with the rest of Seirin, attended the opening ceremony. When their match against Tōō Academy was starting and Seirin entered the court, Koga is overwhelmed by the cheering audience and wonders if they might be famous. Kiyoshi says they're not, that the audience is cheering for the other team, Tōō. The match commences and Koganei is seen sitting on the bench, together with Mitobe and Tsuchida.[12]
Koganei is a jack of all trades, but a master of none, meaning that he has no specialities or special talents. He possesses very regular basketball skills, he can shoot or lay-up, but that it won't necessarily go in.[13] His lack of skill is probably because he only started playing basketball in high school. But because of his training the past and this year under Riko's schedule, he greatly improved his overall abilities, being at an average strength and speed at the moment.
On the first character poll, Koganei ranked 10th, with 525 votes. On the second poll, he went down to 20th place, with 224 votes.
On last year's test results, he ranked 52nd out of 300.[14]
His motto is: "If you have your spirit, you can do anything."
Excluding Riko, Koganei is the smallest member of the team among seniors. He's also sharing the title of 2nd smallest player with Kōki Furihata.
If following the Japanese school year (in which school begins and ends in April), then he would be (excluding Riko) the 3rd youngest among Seirin's second-years (Izuki would be the 2nd youngest and Mitobe 1st).
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