Kojirou Nanjou

Kojirou "Joe" Nanjou is one of the original architects of S — the illegal underground skateboarding scene at the heart of SK8 the Infinity — a professional chef whose skating style treats every descent the way he treats a dish: with total physical commitment and an eye for what makes something beautiful.

Background

He and Kaoru Sakurayashiki have been intertwined since before the series begins — old friends whose history predates S and whose mutual affection manifests primarily as affectionate antagonism and competitive one-upmanship that has clearly been running for decades. They built S together, know everyone in it, and occupy the position of veterans who have seen enough of the scene to have opinions about what it is and where it is going. Professionally, Kojirou runs a restaurant, and the series makes the culinary parallel explicit: his skating is described and shown as flowing, sensual, using the full range of his physical capability in a way that prioritizes the experience of the movement over pure technical score. He is a big man — physically imposing in a way that his style deliberately contrasts with — and the gap between the expectation his appearance sets and the fluidity his skating delivers is one of the visual pleasures the series builds around him. His interest in Reki and Langa's development is genuine, and his approach to mentorship shares the qualities of his cooking and skating: direct, physical, and completely committed to getting the result right.

Skills

Skill	What it does
Flow-type Skating	His distinctive style — emphasizing fluid momentum management, weight shifting, and the use of his full physical mass to generate speed and control rather than relying on technical trick sequences; powerful and difficult to read for opponents used to more conventional approaches
Physical Power	His size and strength are genuine assets on the board — they allow him to manage momentum in ways that smaller skaters cannot, and his physical dominance in direct beef (race confrontation) is a consistent factor
Culinary Expertise	His professional life as a chef informs the series' characterization of his skating as an aesthetic practice; the discipline and precision of professional cooking are not separate from his physical expressiveness but part of the same commitment to doing something completely

Personality

He is warm, physically expressive, and confident in himself in a way that doesn't require performance — the easy assurance of someone who has been genuinely good at something for a long time and knows what that feels like. His affection for Cherry Blossom operates through decades of established shorthand, and his interest in the younger skaters is the specific warmth of someone who recognizes something worth developing.

Relationships

• Kaoru Sakurayashiki — Cherry Blossom; his longtime friend and rival, whose complementary opposite he is in almost every aesthetically legible way — where Joe is flowing and warm, Cherry is precise and controlled; their dynamic is one of the series' most consistently enjoyable things
• Langa Hasegawa — the newcomer whose natural talent Joe recognizes and whose development he takes an active interest in; Langa's background in snowboarding gives him a movement vocabulary Joe reads quickly and responds to

Role in the Story

Joe is SK8 the Infinity's argument that S is not just a competition but a culture — that the people who built it and have been in it longest carry something about what it is and why it matters, and that their presence in the new generation's story is not context but active contribution. He is the series' embodiment of physical expressiveness as its own kind of intelligence.