First Impressions / Kuroko no Basuke

「改めて思いました」 (Aratamete Omoimashita)
“Now That I Think About It”

One thing I feel confident of is that mangaka will never run out of esoteric explanations for the weird stuff that happens in sports manga.

OK, raise your hand if you’ve heard of “nanba walking”. OK, now put it down – I actually don’t want to hear how smart you are. I know there are 316,000 Google hits on this subject, but as much of a trivia geek and Japan-con as I am, it was a first for me. It’s definitely a real thing and it has nothing with touring the most exciting neighborhood in Osaka – as Kuroko no Basuke says, it’s all about moving the left arm in conjunction with the left leg, and the right with the right. Almost nobody in the world does it now, but some historians believe most Japanese walked this was as a matter of course – or at least walked with little arm swing – centuries ago. It’s a fascinating subject actually, and ties into all kinds of issues with traditional Japanese teachings fading out of style. These days nanba walking is largely the province of a few select martial arts disciplines and specialist societies.

Be that as it may, my initial question is this: if it’s that easy why doesn’t every sports team do it? In any case it’s one of the many weapons in the arsenal of Seihou High, the obstacle in Seirin’s path in the semifinals. They win with defense – an aggressive style that should, in theory, wear them out before halftime. They’re led by first-year defensive ace and world-class trash talker Tsugawa Tomoki (Furushima Kiyotaka), who’s assigned to cover Kagami. Their Captain is broad-chested giant Iwamura Tsutomu (Yoshikai Kiyohito) and their other third-year pillar is Ryuuhei Kasuga (Hayashi Yuuki). Compared to the Shuutoku Seihou isn’t flashy in the slightest – neither overly large nor offensively gifted, they win with their swarming attack defense and tenacity.

That seems to be working pretty well for Seihou as they plod out to a 14-0 lead over Seirin, but shounen manga being what it is, you have to figure that sooner or later Seirin will find a way to win this game, because Shuutoku is where the real drama is. At some point soon we’re going to see what the second-years on Seirin is capable of, because it doesn’t look as if Kagami is going to be able to dominate Tsugawa enough to win the game on his own. So far the strategy seems to be standing around watching Kagami try one-on-one moves against Tsugawa. If Aida were as good at strategy as she is at teasing and screaming at her players, she might have come up with something better by now – but the clock is ticking.

A couple of interesting asides here, the first being the brief flashback to the Generation of Miracles middle school days. We see Kise getting browbeaten by the coach for holding the ball too long, trying to break down Tsugawa’s stifling defense. Also interesting is that one of his sempai teammates on the team was definitely played by Kamiya Hiroshi, and others by Suwabe Junichi and Suzumura Kenichi – though exactly where that player fits into the story remains to be seen – you don’t use a seiyuu of that caliber as an extra in a show like this, that’s for sure. Also interesting is that Kise seems to be taking a very strong rooting interest in Kuroko, to the point where he takes a bad horoscope result for Kuroko’s Aquarius as if it were about himself. As the “least” of the GoM, perhaps Kise sees he and Kuroko as having a joint interest in proving themselves – I wonder if that pickup game might not have been the last time we’ll see the two of them playing together.

 

Preview

15 Comments

  1. “We see Kise getting browbeaten by the coach for holding the ball too long”
    Actually it was just the other Generation of Miracles (including the other 3 Generation of Miracles we have yet to see) telling Kise off for holding the ball too long lol (the flashback part was my fav part from this ep;;). And Kamiya Hiroshi is the seiyuu for the Akashi, the captain of the GoM.

    storm
    Reply

  2. OMG this episode made my day.

    I keep on replying the part where the other members of the Generation of Miracles scold Kise.

    Aomine’s voice so sexy! (voice by Junichi Suwabe).
    Murasakibara’s voice so cute (voice by Kenichi Suzumura)
    Akashi’s voice God so perfect! (voice by Hiroshi Kamiya)

    Correction Enzo-san they aren’t Kise’s Seniors as they are all in the same year. (^_^)

    mainavidesu
    Reply

      1. Well at first I didn’t know it’s him as well but when I replay that scene that’s the only time I figure out it’s really him. Though I know he will voice Aomine I didn’t expect to hear his voice this early of the series. I thought I’m going to hear his voice when Aomine is properly introduce in the anime. (^_^)

        Anyway, it’s really great to hear the other GoM voices. I keep of replaying that part even extract it. LOL

        mainavidesu
        Reply

  3. *raises hand*
    Me, me, I knew about the namba walking and not because I read the manga. I found out about it in another manga, another basketball manga actually that I read before reading KnB.
    It’s titled ‘Cross Over’ by Seo Kouji. The team of the main character is the one who trained to use it. But the manga ended a bit prematurely despite a whole volume of training with that so it’s not fully used. As for why it’s not being practiced if it’s effective, well, I don’t really know why 😛

    And I’ll join in on the above comments about the GoM and their fabulous seiyuus which they already mentioned. Pretty top tier seiyuus there and pretty much the highlight in this episode for me. Add the fact that Midorima is Ono Daisuke and Kise is Kimura Ryohei and the GoM is one formidable group both in the voice cast and in the story. Wow.

    And that’s it I guess….Oh right the episode.
    It was good, especially the music which is really getting me in gear as well for the matches. Pretty much Seirin will win this really so I’ll look forward to how they win.
    I’m patiently waiting for the match between the Onos.

    Riko is such a tease…
    And that end card…

    belatkuro
    Reply

    1. About the translation for the first image at zerochan. I would like to correct it, since I’m Chinese…there are some mistakes in the translation.

      Murasakibara: He eats wherever he goes.

      Kise: Midorimacchi please!! Borrow me your rolling pen or else I’m definitely going to die during the exams!

      Midorima: Who would care about you!
      (To Aomine) Aomine, you wake up now! Do you intend to hand in a blank paper again?!

      Akashi: Noisy as hell….well, I’ll make them practice basketball until they puke later.

      Sorry to nitpick, but I just got the urge to correct it. He added in some words that isn’t in the original text and 吵死啦 means so noisy that it will kill someone. So you got to include words like “hell” to make it have the same meaning as the original text.

      I gotta apologize again, but quality is above anything else right? 🙂

      Samhiuy
      Reply

  5. I never thought that we would be able to hear the voice of all the members of GoM. Their voices were perfect specially Aomine’s (blue-haired) voice. You’d know his personality just by hearing his voice.

    Since they used Kamiya Hiroshi for Akashi, the rumor that Production IG will finish covering the manga now holds more water! Color me happy!

    For the nanba-run, I think not so many use it since it’s almost forgotten and using it will also cripple your balance, though it would give you less strain. I think it better to have a good balance than having less strain since in this kind of sports you won’t expect your body not to be stressed, right?

    Eunichi
    Reply

  9. Thumbs up if you are going to try nanba walking today 😛

    I loved the well meant putdown by the captain the best. COME ON GUYS AT LEAST KNOW WHEN TO PRETEND TO BE EXCITED

    Outcast
    Reply

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