Review: Kuroko no Basuke S2

[RANT ON HOW DUMB THE BASKETBALL IS IN THIS SHOW REDACTED]

3ET: N/A

Review Scale

Warning: the following review contains SPOILERS and Dragonball Bouncyhoops


I could easily make this review about how awful the basketball is in both seasons of Kuroko no Basuke. My part-time job on the stats crew for the University of Michigan's basketball teams has taught me a lot about the sport. And even if I haven't played since the fourth grade, eight seasons is more than ample time to learn through observation. The thing is, if I went over the worst examples of how the artist behind Kuroko has no idea how basketball is actually played, I'd be here for five thousand words. And I still might write that article at some point, because seriously, some of what goes on in these games is terrible. Let's just take that as a fact and move on.

One thing I will complain about though is the way Kuroko no Basuke is shot. Extreme close-ups of the players is not effective in showing what is going on in a team sports show. Maybe it was necessary to keep some of the absurd physical feats from being stupidly unrealistic. Maybe they didn't have the budget to show the normal televised angle with all of the players moving for several minutes an episode. The reason I bring this up is that it is just one way that makes the games in this show, which make up the majority of the running time, feel nothing like watching a basketball game. The other thing that contributes to that is that the players on-court (and the spectators off-court) will not shut up. Every basket requires several seconds of poorly written commentary on what just happened and what the current game situation is. It's as if they think the audience is so stupid that they can't figure out that if Seirin was down seven, and made a three, they're down four. These things completely ruin what I think is one of the best things about basketball, the flow and constant motion of the game while the ball is in play.

This is about the widest camera angle that we get during game action.

However, I have to concede that at its heart, Kuroko no Basuke is not really a sports show. It's a fighting tournament show, except this tournament is fought in teams, has a system of scoring points, and a fixed clock. And because of that, the dramatic tension of the show is how the best players on each team fight each other. The show is at its best when there is emotional weight each game provides thanks to the relationship between the Seirin players and the other players. The most important of these relationships are Kuroko's relationship with his former teammates, the Generation of Miracles, and Kagami's relationship with his former training partner in America, Himuro.

Season one had some good moments exploring these relationships during the games, but season two was not as successful. The games against Kirisaki Daiichi (a school that plays dirty and injured a Seirin player last season), Shutoku (most overpowerd Generation of Miracles member), and Yosen (Himuro and the Generation of Miracles' big man) were all boring to watch, despite all being close games. That's because the players on the other teams were complete assholes to the point of being borderline sociopaths. The character drama boiled down to Seirin playing good team basketball for the love of the game versus the other teams playing for what is being portrayed as "the wrong reasons". And the other thing that didn't help any of the games, even the one positive one I'm going to talk about in a bit, was the debuting of absurd basketball moves in the middle of the action. I don't decry the moves themselves, but wasting time explaining them while the games were going on was painful to watch.. It took all of the action of the game and any of the often weak drama that had built up and brought it to a complete halt.

Hey, all four characters who are interesting take the court for Seirin at the same time.

The one game that had some decent drama was the game against Touou, where the player who is the most similar to Kagami, and Kuroko's former "light" (as he's a "shadow", because that's what his name means, get it) Aomine plays. This game benefited from Kuroko having a close relationship with the other team's best player, Kagami needing to step up his game against someone close to both his talent level and his passion for basketball, and a revenge factor for the beatdown Touou put on Seirin in season one. And to this show's credit, it works when there aren't off-court characters narrating what just happened or the on-court characters aren't explaining the new moves that were just busted out. Even the mostly irrelevant side characters get a turn in the spotlight. For these fleeting moments, it's almost as if Kuroko no Basuke remembered for a moment that it is a show about a team sport and made me root for Seirin to somehow win their game.

The reason this is such a rare occurrence is that with the exception of Kuroko, Kagami, and a pair of second-year players who are given a couple of episodes to tell their backstory, no one else is actually interesting on Seirin. With a team size as small as basketball, I don't feel like it is too much to ask for all of the players on the team to have some sort of character depth. And the same goes for players on the other teams. A sports show is at its best when it does two things. First, I have to be rooting for the main team to win. Second, I have to be able sympathize with other teams and feel sorry for them when they get emotional after a loss. The second season of Kuroko no Basuke mostly fails on both counts. Speaking of the teams, the coaches are all girls, which could be interesting, except that they aren't really people. These girls exist solely to give their respective teams a case of the not-gays. And given how the fandom has responded (and my roommates response to Kagami and Himuro buying rings for each other and wearing said rings on chains while they play), that was about as convincing and effective as the daily updates from the Iraqi Information Minister a decade ago.

I'm not saying that I ship it, but I ship it.

And despite all of its flaws, I'm almost considering picking up the inevitable season three. I can't say this is a good show, or even an average show. But, I do like Kagami and Kuroko and how they interact with each other. Their rapport was what convinced me to originally pick up the show, and is what has kept me watching. Because of those two, I want to see how Seirin does in the rest of the Winter Cup. So, Kuroko no Basuke does the bare minimum to keep me interested, but it doesn't do much beyond that aside from showing sweaty boys running around while playing with balls. And that's not enough for me to recommend to anyone aside from the most diehard fans of the sports genre.

Final Score: 4/10