Kuroko's Basketball

Let me start by telling you that I'm 29 years old, and when I was 6 years old, I fell in love with an anime called Captain Tsubasa, not only because I am Portuguese and we generally love football, but because when you're at that age, everything is magical, you want to do the shots they do, you want to be Tsubasa Ozora on the field. I've seen many sports anime after it, and none were good enough to create the impact that Captain Tsubasa caused on me, there were a few that I loved such as Miracle Giants Dome-Kun! and Ganbare! Kickers, but Captain Tsubasawould always have a special place in my heart. To all the sports anime fans that grew up with this style of Shounen, the anime with the potential to dethrone the generally accepted king is finally here. The story is just what you expect from a sports anime, it's unrealistic? It's an anime. How many anime about sports are realistic? hell, other than slice of life how many anime about anything are realistic? and is that really what you are looking for when you're watching anime? realism? the answer is obviously no. Despite all that, whoever wrote the anime and drawn the moves definitely knows his basketball since some of the plays are copy/paste from some of the greatest dunks, three-pointers or behind the hoop shots in real life, they know their technical therms, they know how basket works, and they made a damn good anime about it. The generation of miracles is exactly what they said it is, miracles, players that usually are born in the united states, once every other decade, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James... except these were born in Japan, all at the same time, and now, they're all rivals. You will love them all. The main character is not some overpowered monster that destroys everyone, no, he's very simple, you barely notice him, but you know he creates the biggest hype, and you can barely wait to see what he will be capable of in the future, but he faces hardships, real hardships, he's the underdog you like to root for. Right at the beginning of season 2, his potential will scare you. His rivals are not only his rivals, they're his friends, you will get to know them, their traits, you will appreciate the anime as much for its school and story characteristics as much as you will do for the sports component. The character development is ridiculously good, and you will get acquainted with all players from the top teams in about 25 episodes, games last 2 or 3 episodes, which is just the right amount of time, it's packed with action, it's packed with story, it has just the right amount of each! It keeps topping itself, over, and over, and over, and you get more and more excited, and not only for basketball or sports fans! No! You can like fighting anime such as Fairy Tail, Zetsuen no Tempest, Bleach, Naruto, and you won't be let down by the action of Kuroko no Basket, I guarantee it. No one would ever thought an anime about basketball could be so interesting, so filled with adrenaline and action packed, no one would ever think it could have such an amazing story, but Kuroko no Basket will prove you wrong, your heart will race, you will laugh, you will get excited, you will root for your favorite characters, and you will watch another, and another, and another, until you inevitably surrender to the awesomeness of Kuroko no Basket. As a sports anime, it gets a 10. As an overall anime, it still gets a 10 because it is that awesome!

Kuroko is supposed to be a sports anime, but it isn't even about the sport. Despite there being basketball games that take place, there is no real portrayal of basketball to be found. It is just a generic rule of cool anime that happens to involve basketball. The concept of superpowers in sports completely takes the point away from the sport in the first place. It makes the side characters irrelevant, and it completely destroys the foundation of the sport. Instead of placing the focus on the intricacies of the sport, we are focused on random superpowers. The characters are bland and uninteresting, and thereare no stakes present in this anime whatsoever because of this. Characters: There is no reason to care for the characters on their journey because there is no reason to like them in the first place. We hardly see them in their personal lives, and we don't see them make relationships with anyone outside of the team. They don't have any real motivations except that Kuroko wants to prove that he is valuable to the other members of the generation of miracles for some reason. This doesn't make sense in the first place because Kuroko is constantly asked by the other members to leave the team he joined to join them, proving that they saw him as valuable the whole time. Even if they didn't, he is already one of the 10 best players in the entire world because he was born with superpowers, so of course, he would be valuable. Kuroko is a shy person who goes unnoticed by most of the people around him. This is literally just what his ability is. He goes unnoticed on the court because of the fact that he doesn't do much, and he uses this to his advantage. Except he actually does do stuff on the court, such as passing, so you would think that the opponents would begin to learn of this cliche and not let it happen over and over again, but yet he still goes unnoticed. When your entire personality can be defined in a simple ability like Kuroko's can, that's the sign of a generic self-insert character. Kagami is just along for the ride and doesn't have many real motivations outside of the generic wanting to be number one by surpassing the generation of miracles. This is literally impossible due to his ability being almost completely useless, if not the most useless in the anime. This would be a fine underdog story normally, but in this anime, the concept of getting better through training is completely nonexistent. This means there is no point in watching this anime because the main character will either achieve his goals through plot armor and bad writing, or he will never achieve them at all since he was born unlucky. The side characters pretty much have no involvement in the games since all of the main characters have superpowers. This is a terrible way of nullifying all side characters since they were born unlucky, and they are only there as filler players. The games might as well be 2v2 games instead of 5v5. Outside of that, they only serve as comedy and fan service. The rest of the generation of miracles are just stereotypes with broken abilities with different hair colors. When you pick a favorite character in this anime, you don't pick them because you like their character more; you pick them for their hair color and their abilities. All of the main characters who have abilities are defined by simply having a different hair color from one another, and that's it. Aomine is a poorly written-character as well. He was growing tired of competing since he was better than everyone else around him, so why didn't he just move on and play against bigger competetion? This happens all the time in real life, where younger people play up. It was Aomines choice to play against worse competetion, so why does he still play in the lower leagues? I found myself not caring about a single character because nobody is playing for anything meaningful. The main 2 characters are trying to get attention for how lucky they were for being born with basketball abilities; Kise doesn't even like basketball and also just wants to be cool like Aomine. Aomine thinks he is better than everyone and also doesn't want to play the sport, and we don't even know what Midorima is playing for. The only characters with some sort of actual motivations happen to be the side characters, who will never even be useful on a team no matter how hard they train. Powers: The generation of miracles is a poor concept, to begin with. These people all happened to go to the same school at the same time, and all happen to have superpowers? It doesn't make sense that they all go to the same school, and nobody else outside of this school had any superpowers, except Kagami, of course, because of plot convenience. Why are these people even competing at the high school level at this point? Midorima can literally shoot 100% from 3. This is not only impossible but Steph Curry, who is the best 3-point shooter of all time, only shoots 42.8% from 3, so why isn't he playing at a much higher level already? This concept is so poorly thought out, and if the writer wanted to force abilities in this badly, they should've made them less overpowered and more subtle, so it would at least be fair. The players and coaches seem to be self-aware of these abilities, yet they aren't at the same time. They are never implemented into the game plan at all. The abilities are often inconsistent, to the point where even the author doesn't know how they work. There is no consistency or use of strategy integrated within the abilities that add to the sport. You would think that, at least with the power system, the author would include this as a strategic way of playing through the basketball game, but even with these powers, there is still no strategy involved, and it is just random dunks with barely any planning or teamwork. The author was attempting to mix normal basketball play with overpowered abilities, but this creates an infinite number of problems such as: If Midorima can shoot 100% from anywhere on the court (even full-court shots somehow, which is physically impossible), why don't they just set screens or create ball movement in order to get him more open? Why doesn't Kise just copy whatever ability he needs at any moment in time whenever he needs that exact ability? Why does Kuroko go unnoticed still even though people know that his quirk is going unnoticed? Why does Kagami's ability defy the laws of physics? Why is Aomine so overpowered to the point where he can seemingly do anything he wants? The author was attempting to still have the characters play normal basketball even with these broken abilities, but the author didn't realize just how much these abilities change the core function of how the sport is played. Instead of going all the way and changing it fully, he mixes it with traditional basketball, and he uses the abilities as a cheap way to let us know who the important characters are instead of being able to come up with actual crafty basketball skills that normal people have in real life. Even the Coach has a random inhuman ability for no reason, which normally serves as plot convenience to use it as an excuse for her to know when Kagami should play or not whenever he gets injured. Instead of having a medical team like in real life and having to make a life-altering decision such as deciding whether to risk it all and play for the current time and risk making your injury career-ending or to suck it up and let it heal by ending the current season. Instead of being faced with tough decisions, the coach just magically knows exactly what Kagami's health status is and if he should continue playing or not. Why doesn't she become a doctor or something and actually do something more important than being a basketball coach with an ability like this? Could you imagine how helpful she would be? But no, she is just a basketball coach for a random school for some reason. The powers create infinite problems, and this was one of the biggest downfalls of the anime. Games: The games do a good job of building suspense, and it captures the intensity of the games really well at times. The soundtrack also does a great job at keeping the viewer interested along with the overall competitive environment. On the first watch, Kuroko can be thrilling and intense for anyone who manages to care about the characters. However, the games themselves are very uninteresting if you take the emotions out. Rewatching a game in Kuroko is almost completely pointless, and it's just plaing boring unless you're watching out of pure nostalgia. Rewatching a real NBA game, even when you know the outcome is very rewarding because you can dissect so many little things all of the players do and the strategies involved within the game to learn more about the sport and to learn how to get better at it yourself. You can really see everyones intent and purpose in the game. In Kuroko, there is no real strategy. It's just a rule of cool, with random shooting, running around, dunking, and overpowered abilities. This is why it’s so easy to get into this anime for people who don’t play basketball because it’s not actually basketball. The games are too lackluster and don't have enough strategy to be interesting to anyone who isn't just satisfied with seeing random dunking. There are never any stakes because we are never invested in the characters, and nobody is playing for anything meaningful. In Summary: In sports, everyone has to constantly work on their game to improve it no matter the sport. This is how you get better than others. In real life, anyone can be as good as they want to be at any sport if they work hard enough at it and learn what their strengths and weaknesses are. This isn't the case in Kuroko because no matter how hard they train, the side characters will never come close to touching the skill of the main characters. Therefore the message of this show is to hope you get lucky and are born with the best genetics. So, if you aren't born as a 7-foot-tall male with a 50" vertical that can also shoot consistently from anywhere on the floor efficiently and play defense at a high level, you might as well just not play basketball in the first place unless you want to be an irrelevant side character. There is no sense in attempting to get better at the sport, there is no strategy, and we aren't shown the intricacies of the sport in the slightest. I was able to enjoy something like Initial D even though I was never interested in racing in the slightest because the author bothered to show the viewers the intricacies of the sport, and I was able to really appreciate racing once I finished it. I learned a lot about racing after completing Initial D, However, with Kuroko, this isn't the case. The concept of the abilities takes what is good about basketball out and turn it into something it isn't and should never be. If you don't know anything about basketball, don't expect Kuroko to teach you a single thing. Kuroko doesn't capture the struggle of being on a team, having to put in the actual effort, and suffering loss as a team while overcoming that loss and getting better. It fails at even showing the most simple aspects of basketball on a fundamental or rudimentary level, and it doesn't have that much of an interesting plot outside of the basketball games. The characters are bland for the most part, with no real motivations of their own. Kuroko is bad in many aspects, and the only people I would recommend it to are those who enjoy turning their brains off and watching Rule of Cool action. It isn't a complete disaster and has some positives, but there are other anime more worth your time.

“There's no such thing as useless effort.” Kagami Taiga (Kuroko no Basket) So, as I have nothing to waste, I will bring to you a review of the immensely praised show that is Kuroko no Basket. Even though it is not a very popular show (not even in the top 100), most people that have watched it are immensely positive about it, and it made me wonder why. After being encouraged to watch the show several times, I figured it was the time to do so – and I can say it delivered. I soon became one of the people “enchanted” by the show. Story: 9/10 Once upon atime, there was a basketball team that demolished each and every competition they came across: the all-star team of Teiko Junior High. The team consisted of 5 basketball players with each an astonishing amount of talent, and their own unique speciality: the Generation of Miracles After junior high school ended, the team naturally broke up – the prodigies all joined different high schools with great basketball teams. However, fairly unknown is that there was actually a 6th player which played in the all-star team of Teiko Junior High: Kuroko Tetsuya. This so called “phantom” player joined a new school, with an unknown basketball team, unlike the other prodigies. At this school, Seirin High, Kuroko meets Kagami Taiga, a natural basketball talent who has just returned from America (where he had lived for some years). Together, they are aiming to beat the generation of miracles, and become the strongest in Japan. Overall it’s just a very solid storyline, which is able to keep the viewer interested over the course of episodes, but it’s not stunning either. It isn’t a very complex storyline which leaves the viewer thinking, but rather a very simple storyline which is enjoyable to watch. The show does not have much filler, yet is not too serious either – this was a huge plus to me. It was a very refreshing watch; a show I could really enjoy without putting too much thought into it. The pace is very good, as I found myself blowing through episodes one after another. However, I was a little disappointed at the predictability of some (or maybe most) of the matches, and the story as a whole. But that does not take away the fact that the story is very enjoyable. Most people that dislike KnB do so because of its unrealism – but I don’t agree on that. It’s the unique abilities and unrealistic shots that keep the viewer thrilled. I think the majority of the people would not like watching very plain basketball games as seen in real life. In short, Kuroko no Basket features a simple, yet very enjoyable story. Art: 8/10 Nothing astonishing here, nothing bad either. It is not a visual masterpiece, but some episodes really had a nice atmosphere to them due to the excellent animation in them. The drawing style is nothing to complain about either. Overall, I’d say that given the budget, they did a great job on the art: it is more than decent. Sound: 9/10 Sound is one of the aspects in which KnB really shines. The openings and endings are very good (and fitting), but even more impressive is the soundtrack during the episodes. They really manage to enhance the atmosphere of the matches and make episodes more thrilling than they already are. The sound acting is very well done as well – the sound as a whole is just excellent. Characters: 9/10 As for the characters, logically, the biggest focus is on Kuroko and Kagami. They are thoroughly described, and made to be very likeable: they both have characterising traits which perfectly fit their basketball abilities. The 5 “Prodigies” are very well done too – as far as the ones we get to know in season 1. Furthermore, we get to know a variety of characters in the high school basketball scene. While they weren’t all given the necessary description (for example, I think the other players in Seirin could have gotten more of a backstory), they were still decent enough to fulfil their roles. Enjoyment: 10/10 I honestly enjoyed Kuroko no Basket as much as I was told I would. While the show definitely has some flaws and is not nearly as enthralling or well thought out as others (I’m looking at you, Fate/Zero, Steins;Gate), it still turned out to be a great source of enjoyment. The matches actually did manage to keep me on the edge of my seat, and managed to get me to play basketball myself! It made me want to try those fascinating shots in real life, and got me to look up more about basketball as well. In short, if you are looking for a refreshing (perhaps simple) anime, or just really like sports shows, then you should certainly give this show a watch – because that’s what Kuroko no Basket has to offer.

Short Overall: Thoroughly enjoying, dynamic and engaging, and possesses characters that you will undoubtedly grow to love. Fantastic soundtrack to accompany somewhat seamless scenes, along with great visuals. Although it doesn't have a complicated plot with unexpected twists, Kuroko no Basket gives so much more than just your average sports series. Previously, Kuroko no Basket had appeared in numerous threads and places whenever i was searching for something new to delve into. As a non-sports fan myself, i wasn't interested in this series until i read the reviews for it. Many of the people's comments stated that although they didn't like sports themselves, they foundthemselves enjoying the series thoroughly. So, why not try it out? Characters: Over the 25 episodes, you're introduced to a wide array of characters that each possesses their own unique quality. They were all very likable, even if a few seemed difficult. The majority of them were given back stories that informed the viewer of their past, which was good for character development. Perhaps i would have liked to see a more thorough explanation of a few of the character's background. Sound: One of the things i liked best about this series was the soundtrack. They were inputted perfectly and in the right scenes to give that bit an extra "oomph". Alongside this, there was a nice variety of different compositions to emphasize the atmosphere of the scene at the time. I especially loved the song near the end of the series, at the end of the last basketball match. Art: The visuals were nothing special, nothing of say, a Shinkai masterpiece, but it was nevertheless pleasing to the eye. During some episodes the quality did fall slightly, but my best guess was that it was due to budget. Some of the animation in the scenes were brilliant, and made the movement of the characters seem much more fluent. Story: As i said previously, this show does not contain many serious twists and plot changes that will have the viewer sitting on the edges of their seats. That being said, i fully believe that it doesn't need twists to be a brilliant series. The enjoyment i got from this series was not because the storyline was complex, but because it was easy to follow and easy to enjoy. Everything was explained smoothly, and very few plot holes were left. Enjoyment: I was surprised - incredibly surprised- at how much i ended up loving this series. It was hilarious, exciting and really fun to watch and to engage yourself into. I ended up loving the characters and sympathizing with each of them. Kuroko no Basket is an engaging anime, and is one of the few i genuinely re-watch. It goes on my top 5.