Basketball is serious business.
If you are not yet familiar with the anime Kuroko’s Basketball, the setting is simple. We follow Kuroko’s adventures as he and his new team try to improve and become the best players. Quickly said, it’s a sports anime.
The first episode of Kuroko’s Basketball 2 does not display many changes. It still feels like the same anime, which is good. On the other hand, if you have not see the first season I am not sure you can understand everything. They briefly re-introduce the main characters from the first season but we quickly jump in on the action and are already faced with new characters with terrific basketball abilities.
That is the main problem with this first episode. It does not welcome first time viewers, you can understand what it is all about but watching the first season is better. If you have already watched it, then you are back into it in no time.
Because that is the power of Kuroko no Basket (which I did not want to watch), you try it and it catches you. Or at least it caught me. The story is nothing that special, it is pretty much the same as in any other sports anime you can find, Kuroko’s team needs to win and for this they train and play against other strong teams.
The thing I really like in this anime are its characters and their interaction. Kuroko for example seems like a weak character but he changes and the changes are visible. His teammate Taiga is the same. It is the same for absolutely everyone, that is what you call good character development. Hell, I even love the girls, and it does not happen very often with things originally published in Shonen Jump for me.
Now, what this first episode of this new season brings is new characters, which is a good thing. Because these characters are used to bring out some more parts of the past of several characters. That is always great for character development and always feels rather natural.
The new characters are Himuro Tatsuya, bringing out a part of Taiga’s past we only talked about but never saw. That was actually pretty cute. Then we are introduced with another member of the generation of Miracles, Murasakibara, because to be fair, Kuroko also needed an opponent he knew.
Next episode will probably be devoted to yet another match and we will be back into good old Kuroko’s Basketball.
Do I need to say that I will follow this religiously? (I need to know how will this deviant-type Titan will attack poor Kuroko after all …)
This series is streaming on Crunchyroll.
