Kuroko’s Basketball / Kuroko no Basket

Review By: John Fragglepuss Evans

Genre: Sports, Comedy, School, Basketball

First aired: Spring 2012, 25 episodes + a 25 episode second season + a third season currently airing in Winter 2015! I am covering the entirety of the series because it is a constantly moving story.

Summary: The Teiko Middle School basketball team produced three perfect seasons in a row with five players deemed “The Generation of Miracles.” There was also a rarely talked about sixth-man on the team.

Taiga Kagami is just back from America and signs up for the basketball team at Seirin High School. He meets the quiet Tetsuya Kuroko. Kagami is shocked to find that Kuroko is terrible at basketball. The trick to Kuroko is that he is so plain that he is impossible to see. But Kuroko’s “invisibility” lets him pass the ball around without being seen and with incredible accuracy. It turns out that Kuroko is none other than the sixth member of the Generation of Miracles! Kuroko makes a pact with Kagami to defeat the other members of the Generation of Miracles, who are all playing basketball at different high schools.

Kuroko no Basket combines basketball with anime in such a good way. The basics of basketball are there, but they are combined with the action and drama that anime utilizes so well. The dunks are intense, the passes are intense and they use beams of light to show just how amazing the passes truly are. Kuroko and Kagami remind me of the old NBA combo of John Stockton and Karl Malone, one with finesse and the other with raw power. In true sports anime fashion, the matches are all important and all last several episodes while the drama and intensity unfold.

You might enjoy this if: You are a sports anime veteran or even if you are a sports anime rookie.

You might not like it if: Over dramatized motions and slow-motion sweat is too much for you.

Note to the Viewer: Be prepared to get sucked into the story and watch a season in a day!

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