First Impressions – Kuroko no Basuke 2

Magical basketball players are back to win the InterHigh!

I can’t even remember how long it’s been since Kuroko first aired (…or when I even got around to watching it for that matter), but the important thing is that I’m all caught up for season 2. It looks like they’ve upped the animation budget as well this time around, so even better~

It’s time for some duuuuuunnnnnnkkkkkkkkksssssss! Well not really, but definitely some amazing ninja moves. I’ve come to love the sports genre after reading Eyeshield21, watching Oofuri, Giant Killing and Chihayafuru. You can see I really don’t care about the sports rather characters and plot tension. Kuroko no Basuke is same with an all-star cast, leaving you behind in bunches to select who should you really support. Not to mention, handsome bishies doing their thang, which is always good in my books.

What can I say when my second long-awaited anime is finally here except “YEEES!!!”? Kara no Kyokai, and I decided to form the Yaoi Trio mingle together and talk about the most exciting “sport” show of this season!

Bromance… Or Not?

Kuroko no Basket: Kagami’s Deleted Affair

After effifn’ 26 episodes of the first season, the fans are exposed to Kagami’s past. When I first found out about his background, I was surprised that he had such a deep story within that brute strength of his. Even though, to be honest, his story seems to be a bit silly now that I think about it. Anyhow, the point is WOW… He actually has a story! Now what makes his story silly? Well, the bromance between Kagami and Tatsuya in strain just because of a silly reason. Tatsuya got frustrated of his injured arm, and he decided to vent off his frustration on Kagami by ending the bromance between the two of them if Tatsuya loses. As a person who values friendship more than basketball, I found Tatsuya’s reasoning to be childish and not sensible. Is that how much the friendship between Kagami and Tatsuya worth? Is it something that can be cut off easily just because of a mere basketball game? No wonder, Kagami intentionally lost himself at the game. Between friendship and basketball, he chose friendship. But this is a basketball-centric anime, which means everything revolves around basketball. And if I see everything on Kagami and Tatsuya’s point of view, it makes sense… In a way. Basketball is the reason why they became brothers. It is the only thing they have in common, and without basketball, there’s no way the two of them became THE Japanese basketball couple in Hawaii (I think it’s Hawaii). Kagami might want to protect their friendship, but he did it wrong. Friendship is the result of their passion in basketball, and to preserve the result, Kagami should have preserved the means of getting that result. Which is basketball, in this case. Though the wall between Kagami and Tatsuya is still there, Kagami still has a chance at hooking up fixing their love bromance. As it has been said before, he should preserve the means of getting that bromance back, and he can (finally) do it by winning against Tatsuya. Now the question is, can he win?

Seirin High Five!

Kuroko’s stalker-ish behavior and jealousy knows no bound

Even if the beginning rap down by that old coach was a bit annoying (as an old watcher), it gave the clear message that Seirin was up for Winter Cup with Shuutoku (OD voiced Midorima’s team), which means more than one level-up required for any sports story is already done. From the events of season one, the team is even more pumped to roll out their new acquired moves and the reason they turned up on Street Basketball. Though, who would have thought that it would cue to Kagami’s flashback and a new character introduction. Even in the trailers, I was curious to know who this guy would turn out to be because definitely he’s not from Generation of Miracles but seeing his endurance, he’s going to be a tough cookie. Which leads me to Kuroko, who has been playing Kagami’s shadow for a while now; his reaction to Tatsuya has been lukewarm at best but more than anyone he will help out Kagami in winning against Tatsuya if that’s in the cards. It was almost funny how Kuroko intervened in the whole Tatsuya/Kagami mess with #2 but good thinking nonetheless with calming down effect. Still, with SuzuKen voiced Atsushi in the mix, I’m definitely looking forward to the match and hope for the Seirin bishies to win with some smooth moves but even chances are that they will be defeated to fire up their prep for Winter Cup. In the end, both works really.

GoM Speculation (or not really)

Rainbow-colored GoM is already a sign

I can’t say I remember much of the character’s on Kuroko’s team, but at least the Generation of Miracles is as easy to spot as ever. We’re finally meeting the purple haired guy who eats a lot, Murasakibara Atsushi. He seems… tall. We didn’t see much of him this episode, considering that he showed up at the end, but at least he’s finally getting a formal introduction into the plot. So I assume that he’ll be more relevant in this season (not to mention that he’s in one of the 3 powerhouse schools in the Winter Cup. Finally, there’s the last guy (voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi~~!), Akashi Seijurou, who was captain of the GoM. I assume he’ll play a part in this season (again, the Winter Cup), since he and Murasakibara were huge mysteries in S1. Or more like, they were clearly important, since they were in the OP, but they never actually showed up/did anything. Of course, along with the mew arrivals, I hope the already introduced characters show up too at some point in the season. Aomine at least seems like he’ll definitely be in the Winter Cup. …I can’t believe that it’s taken me this long to realize that all of the members of GoM have their hair colours in their names (minus Kuroko, but he’d be waay more boring of a character if his hair was black). Even the GoM’s coach, Momoi, fits in this

Extra Magical Balls

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Well, there was more drama than basketball playing this episode, but that’s totally okay with me. We’ve seen so much about Kuroko’s past team mates, it’s time that we see what got Kagami into basketball and what he did in America when he lived there. The English wasn’t even that Engrish-y either, I’m rather impressed. Of course if back-stories aren’t for you, the next episode looks like it will go right back into the basketball action, since they left off at a rather intense place. Overall though, this was a great opening episode for Kuroko. They explained just enough at the beginning for me to remember what went on the last season, and then thankfully moved on and introduced the new plot. It was a good balance and I’m rather excited for the new season~

This anime is on a pretty good start with its first episode. Though, I want to start on a separate note, flaunting my seiyuu fagism as I keep on happening about interesting facts like seiyuu starting up their music careers and keeping it steady with their VA career. Maaya Sakamoto and Suzumura Kenichi have made it quite big with their side-music careers but do you think they are it? No way! It’s the next best thing, a recent example being Free! OP and ED, which were performed by Tatsuhisa’s (Makoto’s seiyuu) band OLDCODEX and star cast respectively and similar is happening with Kuroko no Basuke. Old favourites from season one OLDCODEX is back (as they sung the second ED of S1), to perform the ED, while the OP is handled by GRANDRODEO, Taniyama Kishou’s (Tatsuya’s seiyuu), band, recently known for Karneval and Code:Breaker’s OPs. So yeah, you not only get better production value but pumpy music to boot in season two.

This episode in particular was pretty good for an opener. Not just production value but pacing was perfect. For a good sports tale, it’s imperative to be not boring and even when some of the season one episodes had more talk than sporty action, the characters and their chemistry with each other made up for it. If you ask me, seeing the Seirin guys around a restaurant table, while Kagami wolfed down everything in sight  and Riko lectured them was like meeting old friends again. I can’t wait to see them in action and let’s not forget the Hiroshi Kamiya voiced red-haired bishie. Oh man, his strategies and team power is something we have all been waiting for. Therefore, this season better keep up it’s pace!

What I’m going to say is pretty much the same like Kara no Kyokai. Just like what the two said, the premiere of the second season started off with a bang. Everything in the anime shows that they’ve upped the budget for the animation, which is mighty fine for me. I love seeing muscles and bishies, especially if they are animated beautifully and without flaw. It seems that the studio is showing more effort too, and this can be seen by the not-so-Engrishry English that was used in this anime. Kagami and emo dude sounds like Japanese living in America (in a way), though the structure of the sentences is still stiff for people who have been living in English-spoken country for years. There’s also the accent that was just wrong for some of the characters. But let’s stop talking about language and go back to the basketball. Though it was just the first season, the studio did a decent job at making everything easily accessible for those who wants to refresh their memories about the first season. The explanation of the important characters are simple without complicated stuff whatsoever. The best of all though is how the studio went straight to the main plot without doing that annoying reintroduce-the-characters-for-the-whole-episode method. So far, Production I.G. did a fabulous job at making the first episode look appealing and interesting, so let’s see how this basketball-centric (or drama-centric?) anime is going to be.

Preview: Rain to add the dramatic atmosphere with that deadly stare-down.