To me anime was that special place, so when I thought about sports anime, I just dismissed it as "probably boring", or "not going to work well or be factual", or " can't be better than the real thing, aren't sports anime competiting with the real sport??...seems like a losing battle"
These were my prejudgment about sports anime, and may or may not be fair judgments. After a while, my friend checked up on my list and saw that Kuroko No basket was never added. He then pleaded with me to give the anime a try and just to watch the first two episodes, if I didn't like it, he would leave me alone and never speak of it again. I agreed. I watched the two episodes and..boy, was I blown away!
Story:
This anime is extremely intriguing and catches your attention straight from the get-go. The prelude before the opening already gives a feel for the mood and storyline of the show. You are curious to see who this mystery sixth man is, and what kind of player he is.
At first glance, Kuroko seems weak and shy, but he is in reality very confident. You consider that he may be small, really quick and a good point guard. However, you then found out that he cannot even make the simple of layups, cannot dribble, and has no jumper. Then you come to the realization that this guy is a loser, and probably the whole show will about him learning JUST how to shoot a normal jumper and make a simple layup. Your heart drops at the idea of a slow, non fulfilling anime..again
By the end of the episode though, you see the real extent of Kuroko's ability and you are simply amazed..amazed enough to go the second episode in which the story line then takes over.
This being my first sports anime, it is easy for me to say that the story line is original, I mean, who's heard of a middle school basketball team that contains five basketball phenoms (all with unique abilities) and a phantom sixth man whose the incarnation of Rondo and Steve Nash. Some may say the story line isn't original, but those aren't my sentiments.
You are immediately enthralled by the notion of these five phenoms, of the so called "miracle generation", you want to see them play and see how they stack up against Kagami who's been to America.
The way that these miracles are introduced, and used are in my opinion perfect. I was captured by every moment of it. In that sense, I give the story line a 10/10 for outstanding job creating a mood and suspense.
Art:
The art is good, not the best anime art that I've ever seen. I've said I've never watched a sports anime, but there's been scenes in other animes where basketball was played namely true tears..and the basketball scene in there was more crisp, fluid, and dynamic. Of course, I don't expect Kuroko no Basket to pull off this kind of art for an entire season, but maybe one or two moves of this kind of animation would have been fine.
I don't have any great regret or criticism about the art, some of it was done extremely well but for a show this recent, I would have liked more fluidity.
The characters design were well done, and I was able to recognize most of the players in every scene. I like how most of the main characters all had different hair color to help us differentiate between them. A show about sports is bound to have a lot of characters so I enjoy the uniqueness of each char and they add to their personalities. I'm still amazed that some of these character can play full games with normal glasses on...not that I haven't seen that in real life.
8/10, overall very good art and animation.
Sound:
Anyone who has read previous reviews of mine knows how much of an importance I put on bgm music and the quality of sound in a show. The background music has the ability to make or break a show. The most important scenes can be altered dramatically by the music piece that they choose to use as background music.
That said, I really liked and enjoyed the bgm of Kuroko no basket. There was a particular case I remember when I thought a better piece might have been used..I won't state the case since it would spoil and reveal for some people, but those who has watched the show may know which scene I am talking about.
I really liked the piece that starts off most episode, the prelude, it really sets the semi-serious tone that this is all business and that the miracle generation are the main guys running things.
During the game scenes the sound used to portray aggression, intimidation, desperation were all used very greatly and this only added to my enjoyment of Kuroko No Basket.
9/10
Characters:
The characters make this show. If it wasn't for the intense personality of Kagami, or the calm confidence of Kuroko, then the enjoyment of this show would drop significantly. They are a great complement to each other and have an interesting and intriguing dynamic.
They aren't the only ones with interesting dynamics, it seems that every player from the "miracle generation" have a or teammates that complement them and make it fun to watch them in the locker room. The teams really do feel like real teams, it's not always lovely dovey, teammates can really get in each other's nerves and this portrayed well in that sense.
Speaking of the generation of miracles, at this point we are only formally introduced to a few of them, but the few that we know are well written characters, have perks about them and are overall good to watch.
I wish that we would have at least a character that is American come into the show, someone from New York, or North Carolina that can also play basketball. It would bring a whole new dynamic to the show since now we can actually measure these "basketball miracles" to the real deal (the American youth greatly out measures the world in basketball...this is different when we start talking about the adults).
I was patiently waiting for an American to be featured but this didn't happen, we got something close to that..but he wasn't American and thus didn't bring the same level of intensity that I would like. Maybe this will done in the future, but the goal of the characters in Kuroko No Basket is to be the best players of Japan, not necessarily the world.
Overall, I love the characters and they brought the uniqueness and the intensity to the show that captured from episode 1 up.
10/10
Overall:
I've played four years of high school basketball, and planning on playing college basketball. So the sport is something that I hold dear to my heart and has been a part of my life for a long time. I didn't think an anime could portray the passion that I have for the sports but surprisingly it did.
As Kobe Bryant would call it " The love of the game" is strong in this show. Kagami comes to mind when I think of that. I was just like him when I was younger and playing in high school, I couldn't sleep the night before games. I was always excited to play better competition and better athletes than me.
Watching Kuroko no basket gave me goosebumps by how riveting and how exciting and hype it made me.
Yes, a lot of the game play were unrealistic but this is an anime, and they should be able to defeat the restrictions that we have in this plane of reality. Yes, it is impossible to shoot a 100% from the floor but don't we all wish we did? Yes, we wish we had the ability to copy every move from every player that see..( some people can do this to some extend) but we cannot so why not give these abilities to fictional players and see how much more pressing a game may become. If we all wanted realistic plays, we could just go to youtube and watch a regular game..we watch this as entertainment and I would be gravely lying if I said I wasn't entertained.
10/10 for Kuroko No Basket and I recommend this to anyone.
