For the last three years, Teikou Middle School has dominated the national basketball scene with its legendary lineup: the "Generation of Miracles." It consisted of five prodigies who excelled at the sport, but a "Phantom Sixth Man" lurked in the shadows and helped earn the team their revered status. Eventually, their monstrous growth jaded them from the sport they loved and made them go their separate ways in high school.
In search of new members, the Seirin High School basketball team recruits Taiga Kagami and Tetsuya Kuroko, two freshmen who seem to have significant differences in abilities. Having returned recently from America, Kagami has both a natural aptitude and relentless love for the sport. Meanwhile, Kuroko lacks presence and exhibits no outstanding athletic talent. However, it is later revealed that he is Teikou's Phantom Sixth Man—the player once part of the Generation of Miracles.
Kuroko wants to prove to the Seirin team that he is strong in his own way. Seeing his conviction, Kagami forms a dynamic partnership with Kuroko, the latter promising to support Kagami's "light" as his "shadow." Alongside their new Seirin teammates, they aim to conquer the upcoming Interhigh championship, but the reappearance of Kuroko's former teammates complicates their plan.
Kuroko no Basket also has a series of light novels, audio CDs, and several games for the Nintendo 3DS. Kuroko also appears in the crossover fighting game J-Stars Victory VS.
The most common criticism I've seen so far of Kuroko no Basket has been how unrealistic it is. I myself am an avid basketball fan who plays regularly and watches NBA games. I can understand the criticism as this anime has a lot of spectacular dunks, blocks and flashy passes, the stuff you usually only see in highlight reels, but occurs regularly throughout the games in here. There's also the shounen elements with the special powers of Generation of Miracles members and other things such as the "martial arts" Seiho employs.
That being said, I am completely ok with this. Why? Because it makes it...interesting. Think about it. As a basketball fan, it'd be great to see the teams run plays like the triangle or pick and roll, but you can't expect the average viewer to understand what's going on. Plus, trying to explain this and other technical terms would eat up screen time and bore a lot of viewers.
This is first and foremost entertainment. Kuroko no Basket is great to watch BECAUSE of these elements. Watching Kagami slam the ball down or Kuruko go ninja and make an amazing pass is far more exciting than watching a player hit an open jumpshot from good ball movement. It's the same reason why many people label the Spurs in the NBA as "boring" despite their well-oiled offense. If you really wanted realistic basketball, you'd watch an actual game. What Kuroko no Basket excels at doing is showing how exciting basketball can be to a mainstream audience. I have yet to be disappointed by any of the episodes, as they have all left me with a big, goofy grin on my face from the thrilling games or cliffhangers at the end of each episode. Look around and you'll see that many viewers are not basketball fans, but love this anime. This is great because it's garnering interest in basketball in people that would have never noticed the sport were it not for this anime. This is especially true in Japan, where basketball is nowhere near as popular as sports such as baseball or football (soccer).
As for the anime itself, it captures your attention with epic scenes, likeable characters, and funny comedy. Kuroko's sudden appearances that startle every character out there is a running gag, opponents with names like "Papa" and Kagami's Engrish "THIS IS JAPANESE LUNCH TIME RUSH!" keeps things interesting. The story is your classic sports anime, with the Seiren basketball team aiming for the top. However, if you were expecting some athletic, hot-headed knucklehead who excels in the sport...well, that's the deuteragonist Kagami. Kuroko is the protagonist here, and he's an unconventional lead for a sports anime. He's terrible at almost every aspect of basketball except passing and stealing. Together, he and Kagami form a exciting duo to watch reminiscent of real-world duos such as Stockton and Malone. The other characters aren't explored too much initially and I was afraid the other Seiren members would just become useless bodies, but slowly we've been introduced to their own unique skills. The only other characters that the anime really delves into are the members of the Generation of Miracles, who are all distinguished by their special powers and...colorful hair, Kuroko included. Here is where the shounen aspect of the show is most visible, with the members displaying everything from behind the backboard shots to full court shooting range (though I have to admit that's really pushing it). They are the equivalent of the boss characters you see in other shounen anime, as Kuroko, Kagami, and the Seiren team must find a way to overcome them.
The art and animation are solid, however, animation isn't as consistently fluid as I would've liked. The movement of players shooting or passing the ball feels too rigid or unnatural at times, as if they didn't draw enough frames (with the exception of Aomine's ridiculous handle). It compensates for this by having a lot of slow motion and close up shots of dunks, blocks, and steals which really help excite the viewer and make this anime so thrilling. It is definitely one of the better looking sports anime out there, which is part of what makes it so appealing to a wider audience. For the most part, the music consists of guitar-heavy tracks that come in whenever something notable happens, such as opponents being surprised by one of Kuroko's passes. The opening and ending feature rock songs that keep the same adrenaline pumping feel the anime has. The one thing that really bugs me though is how each episode starts off with a narrator introducing the Generation of Miracles story. It's understandable in the first few episodes, but past that there's no point in it, since viewers would already be familiar with the backstory (EDIT: They finally stopped this nearly HALFWAY through the season).
In short, Kuroko no Basket is an entertaining anime to watch, even if you don't like basketball. The thrilling games will capture your interest and many can relate to the story of going for the top and exceeding expectations, as the underdog Seiren team does time and again. Don't go into Kuroko no Basket expecting expertly executed plays like in real basketball. Don't go into it thinking you'll see a mirror image of a real game in anime form. Go into it expecting a thrilling game of dunks, blocks, and crazy passes, a lot of O.O faces from the characters, and competitive trash talking. Watch it for the determined characters, comedy, and overcoming special powers we've come to love in shounen anime. It doesn't portray basketball too realistically, but realism in this case would only drag a fun anime like this down.
Y'know, for a show which was pretty retarded a lot of times, it wasn't too bad. Now you may be thinking "he didn't give it a 10, what does this man know of this show's greatness". Well, let me explain what it did right and wrong. But first an explanation of the story.
The anime starts off by explaining that a team of 6 players were the legendary super saiyans that had the ability to slap their "special" (special is the keyword here folks) golden cocks in the faces of their opponents. Now let me translate, a middle school team dominated their league and their...players were given the name the generation of miracles. Each player in the generation of miracles has their own special ability.
The plot focuses on the relationship between the two main characters, their relationship with their teammates and mostly how the team will win tournaments. Kuroko's plan is the help Kagami achieve his goal by becoming his "shadow" whilst Kagami is his "light". Obviously Kagami's goal is to be the strongest player in japan.
So a fairly normal plot for a sports anime, but I mean c'mon, aside from being the strongest player or the best team or winning a tournament, what else can a sports anime do? Do you want them to turn evil and fuck everything up?
Now, what it did right, ahem:
1. Relationship between main two characters. Now the main highlight of this anime is the relationship between Kuroko and Kagami shared as partners, almost like brothers. Majority of the time the matches would be decided because of the actions of their teamwork. They are the underdogs, you'd naturally root for those two to win the game. The concept of Kuroko being Kagami's shadow and Kagami being Kuroko's light was a fairly nice one and it was good that it was further explored later on in the show. Individually Kuroko is the most interesting of the pair, physically he is weak but he is mentally strong. He brings the best out of Kagami whilst also helping to drive the team forward, he feels more like a teamplayer whilst Kagami feels a bit like a lone wolf. That's not to say Kagami isn't interesting as well, he may be a hot head but if it wasn't for him the show would lack a lot of it's "woah" moments.
2. Relationship between Seirin team overall. Again, another thing this show did right as a sports anime was how they presented the main team to you, a group of likable characters with their own skills that contribute to the whole team. Teamwork was the key here and even though it felt cliched at points in the anime, honestly, it's rather undeniably logical that teamwork is vital, even if it's constantly mentioned. Seirin are the underdogs of this show, you'd think "oh those guys are way stronger than Seirin, they'd never lose to them", but secretly you want Seirin to win, think of it like a psychological thing, you know the odds of Seirin losing are high but it'd be pretty fucking sweet if they did win. Honestly this is the kind of thing I like about sports anime, they'll present you with odds which aren't in favour of the underdog team, yet they'll still pull through and win. The anxiety and suspense it builds up can really give you the feeling that you're part of that winning moment. Unless your name is Aomine and can just fuck up all the odds like a dick.
3. Sound and animation Generally speaking this doesn't really contribute much to an overall score really, animation and sound aren't important as characters and the story. In terms of enjoyment it plays a role. But it did have pretty nice OP's and ED's. Good to see GRANRODEO back. OST was good as well, not amazing though, considering they'd just play the same few good songs over and over. But it did play a major factor in the deciding moments of the game, you felt engrossed in the moment, it made it just a bit more enjoyable. Animation was good, nothing special, there were noticeable drops in quality here and there but still, it did it's job.
Now let's talk about what it fucked up in:
1. Repetitive matches. This is where the show starts to stumble, most of the time matches will consist of back and forth power ups. At one point one team will be leading, then Kagami gets annoyed and starts dunking like there's no tomorrow. Then the other team will power up to get the ball around Kagami and score more points. Seirin will start working together, again powering up, to get back into the game. Now you're probably thinking "well duh, they mention in the show that the flow of the game can easily be lost by the other team gaining momentum, the matches would be boring if it was just one team dominating, it has to be a bit back and forth". That doesn't excuse the fact that it's fucking repetitive and when something becomes repetitive it becomes boring. The only reason people aren't get bored is because the power ups get more shiny.
2. Poor power balance This is where the show starts to become retarded, the generation of miracles are extremely overpowered. Midorima, a member of the generation of miracles has 100% accuracy on his shots so you are literally fucked, this guy literally fucks you over sideways. That's not a special ability, it's too off scale, honestly if it wasn't for Kagami in the team Seirin would just lose all their matches against the generation of miracles and there lies the problem. Aside from Kagami, no one else can stand up to the generation of miracles, Kuroko can only pass so he can't do much else. The other members of the Seirin team are nowhere near as good as the generation of miracles so if it was just their entire team vs Midorima, he'd still just win on his own.
3. Retarded power ups and overpowered characters As I mentioned before the overpowered characters really fuck up the power balance but they ultimately make the matches less enjoyable. Characters become so overpowered that it's ridiculous, the shit they pull off is retarded. Aomine is the biggest fucker in the entire show, he is so overpowered that he can take on an entire team and not get tired, he'd rip them to shreds, why? Because he's Aomine that's why. You literally do not stand a chance against him. He just keeps on pulling shit from his ass and destroys the opposing teams. The same applies for Midorima with his 100% accuracy anywhere on the court, he could score 3 pointers all the time. I understand that if this show was realistic it would be boring, but that doesn't mean it can be fucking retarded as well, there isn't a balance, the abilities the generation of miracles posses is just too unfair and ultimately hinders the enjoyment of the matches.
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 there...are 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.
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