First Impressions / Kuroko no Basuke

「奇跡は起きない」 (Kiseki wa Okinai)
“A Miracle Will Not Happen”

I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a Kuroko no Basuke episode in a while. Sure, the Kaijo game might have gotten the engines whirling a little but this final battle against Rakuzan is on a completely different level.

Completely Shutout

Starting the episode off by reminding us that Kuroko has effectively become a shell of what he was and also has to see what a new and improved version of himself would look like, this episode didn’t waste anytime laying down the notion that Seirin is going to have an immensely difficult battle ahead of them.

Starting with one of my favorites, I could barely watch as Mibuchi slowly whittled Hyuuga down to the point where he started to question whether or not he’d be able to pull ahead against someone directly challenging him. I mean, it’s one thing for one player to intimidate another through a difference in skill (as Aomine has demonstrated time and time again) but the way Mibuchi intentionally did it to break Hyuuga’s spirit down from the inside just rubbed me the wrong way. And if that wasn’t enough, we had to watch it all again when Teppei and Nebuya went at it. In Teppei’s case though, it felt like he was able to stand up a bit better to Nebuya even though it didn’t mean much at the end. In any case, it didn’t feel very good to see the anchors that held down Seirin’s offense and defense get knocked off kilter.

Fighting Spirit and Looking Ahead

I was trying to see if I could fit this next paragraph under another subheading but opted to just toss it in here since this episode was devoted to solely destroying Seirin’s team as a whole.

If there’s one thing that Seirin has shown us time and time again, it’s that in the face of adversity, they beat the crap out of it and send it back where it came from. Be it their inner demons or one on the court, they’ve always found a way to play from behind and eventually grasp victory right at the very last second. And even though things are looking terrible right now, the preview for next week’s episode gives me hope that everyone is preparing to respond to shots that Rakuzan has fired. Since if anything, it looks like their players will be on the receiving end of whatever Seirin’s managed to cook up — especially since it seems that Kuroko has managed to come up with something to fight his clone with.

See you next week!

 

Preview

31 Comments

  1. “A miracle will not happen, and even if it did, they can’t win”. Which anime were you in again?
    https://randomc.net/image/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke%203%20-%2019%20-%20Large%2036.jpg

    From this look,
    https://randomc.net/image/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke%203%20-%2019%20-%20Large%2004.jpg
    to this look…
    https://randomc.net/image/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke/Kuroko%20no%20Basuke%203%20-%2019%20-%20Large%20Preview%2002.jpg
    Mayuzumi will get own’d

    Red HeartGold ZX
    Reply

  3. Hmmm…

    IIRC, Teppei managed to score a few points first before he was completely shut down by Muscle man.

    And Seirin’s counterattack Show Spoiler ▼

    Reikakou
    Reply

    2. Unfortunately… yeah… that’s the only thing that she can do…

      Show Spoiler ▼

      And no. It’s not to distract Rakuzan WWW. Akashi is not that stupid to fall for it and Riko knows it. It just that Mitobe and the other first years get easily exhausted from fighting head to head with Rakuzan players so Riko had to rotate them frequently.

      Hmmm… so the anime cut out the comments of Riko’s dad during the ball game. He practically spelled out how good the coach of Rakuzan was aside from Akashi.

      Reikakou
      Reply

    2. Akashi’s meeting with a “shadow” is a whole lot similar to Kagami’s meeting with his “shadow”. Also, judging by the ED, it can be assumed that these two fateful encounters occured almost at the same time.

      Red HeartGold ZX
      Reply

  14. They’re literally using all the members on the team for this game. I really liked that the three first years got development at the very end with this and Kaijo. While it might not have been needed, it was a really nice touch and I appreciate it.

    chibi-killua
    Reply

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