Kuroko No Basuke Anime Review

This is my review on the Kuroko No Basuke anime (also known as Kuroko's Basketball or The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays) originally based on the manga written by Tadatoshi Fujimaki for Weekly Shōnen Jump, animated by Production I.G. This is a SPOILER-FREE review. The images shown in this review are screenshots of the Kuroko V Slam Dunk mod for NBA 2K14 which can be found here.

Kuroko No Basuke Anime

Kuroko No Basuke is one of the top two basketball-related anime along with Slam Dunk. The manga started in 2008 and ended in 2014, with the anime's run back in 2012 until it ended this year, 2015. Kuroko No Basuke is commonly attributed to being the best successor to Slam Dunk in many ways while many Slam Dunk purists do not believe so. So let's see, how does Kuroko No Basuke actually fare against Slam Dunk? I personally watched the anime in English Sub (Japanese Audio, English Subtitles).

Premise & Concept

Kuroko No Basuke's (translated in English as "The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays" or "Kuroko's Basketball") premise centers around the relationship of the main character, Tatsuya Kuroko, who belongs to a team of greatly talented (dare I say, superpowered) individuals who split up after middle school (Junior High), and his relationship with these characters as he finds a new teammate (Kagami) with the potential to be on the same level as these talented individuals. The talented members of the team were known as the "Generation of Miracles" as they were all fortunately born in the same year. The story deals with Kuroko and Kagami's rivalry with the members of the Generation of Miracles which were all teammates before, that have taken their talents to different teams in the present.

Kuroko believes that teamwork is the key to victory, not individual prowess and talent. The members of the Generation of Miracles focus solely on their individual strengths to win basketball games, not relying on teamwork. It deals about their love for basketball, the importance of their relationships with their teammates, as well as their growing competitive relationships with their opponents.

Execution & Delivery


Common First Impression: "An anime about basketball with special abilities? Not my cup of tea."

At first, I personally felt that the abilities were corny and unnecessary for a story about basketball. A guy could copy your move and do it better than you, one guy could shoot from anywhere, another guy is just simply unstoppable, etc. Like, how could you defeat them? But that's exactly the point of the anime. With all of these crazy abilities, you want to know how they can be vulnerable and the answer lies within the anime's premise, which is teamwork. Teamwork is the weakness of great individual talent when this talent does not care for the other members of their team. The basketball game storylines are great and normally last around 3 to 4 episodes per game while the non-basketball game episodes have enough training and backstory to keep it interesting.

Art Style, Music & Voice Acting

The art style is nothing short of amazing. There is a common mix of 2D and 3D during the basketball matches and the studio tries its best to copy the manga per shot. The second season is the best in terms of animation and while all of the seasons have great music, I can personally say that the soundtrack to the third season is actually the best of all of them. The voice acting is incredible with each voice fitting each personality. Numerous popular Japanese voice actors from other anime give life to the characters from Kuroko No Basuke. A lot of the opening songs are great as well, probably all of them except for the second one in the first season are excellent.

Similarities with Slam Dunk & Comparison

The show does have very many similarities with Slam Dunk you can almost say that it pays homage to it. However, the story itself is different with different morals incorporated into each season. The show has a similar (if not identical) flow to it as does Slam Dunk. Both protagonist teams start with a practice match between the first years and the team veterans, proceeded by a practice match against a (what would be) rival team, as well as the presence of the knockout round into the Final Four for the Interhigh Qualifiers. The Interhigh (Slam Dunk's popular tournament) is also present in Kuroko No Basuke, but there is more attention given to the Winter Cup in the second and third seasons.

List of Similarities

• [Kuroko No Basuke & Slam Dunk] Run-And-Gun Protagonist Team (Shohoku & Seirin)
• [Kuroko No Basuke & Slam Dunk] Protagonist PF with High Jumping Ability (Kagami & Sakuragi)
• [Kuroko No Basuke] Shooter Captain & Returning Injury-Prone Big Man (Hyuga & Kiyoshi)
• [Slam Dunk] Returning Injury-Prone Shooter & Captain Big Man (Mitsui & Akagi)
• [Kuroko No Basuke] Defensive Team that plays Zone with three players over 200 cm (Yosen)
• [Slam Dunk] Defensive Team that plays Zone with four players over 190 cm (Shoyo)
• [Kuroko No Basuke & Slam Dunk] #1 Player in the Same District (Aomine in Tokyo & Maki in Kanagawa)

Verdict

Kuroko No Basuke definitely is deserving of its spot as one of the top two basketball-related anime. Obviously, it surpasses Slam Dunk in animation, and equals it in music. Both stories are different in terms of feel and approach as Slam Dunk has a more serious tone with lots more drama compared to Kuroko No Basuke which has a good equal tone for comedy, drama and pure epicness during basketball matches. The humor is great and it'll make you laugh despite the audio being in english and is definitely a recommended anime if you are a fan of basketball, anime, and Slam Dunk.

Rating

9/10

Pros & Cons

(+) Pros (+)

• Unique Characters
• Interesting Lore
• Inspirational story
• Exciting basketball scenes & fluid animation
• Perfect season 2
• No romance getting in the way of the plot

(-) Cons (-)

• Lackluster season 1
• Season 3 not meeting expectations from season 2
• Too many similar outcomes in basketball matches
• No small-time romance (even as a side story)

Kuroko No Basuke was great, especially the second season. But the third season did not quite live up to the hype that Season 2 got me engaged in and is the only thing holding it back from receiving a perfect score. Overall, it was a great anime!

Don't forget to download Kuroko V Slam Dunk for NBA 2K14 on PC if you don't already have it! Also, Universal Portrait Project v3.0b has already been released which fixes the portrait for Kenjirō Sakamoto of Seihō High.

Download Universal Portrait Project v3.0b Now

Kuroko V Slam Dunk: Winter Cup Beta Released

The much-anticipated Kuroko V Slam Dunk: Winter Cup Beta has been released! This Winter Cup Beta features 15 Kuroko No Basuke teams, 1 Slam Dunk team (Shohoku), 10 special Kuroko No Basuke teams, accurate jerseys and creative floor courts. The Kuroko V Slam Dunk webpages have now been launched on the website as part of the release!

Kuroko No Basuke Rosters

The Features section of the website shows in greater detail all of the features of the entire mod, including the rosters. To make it short, the Winter Cup Beta includes progressive rosters, from season 1 to season 2 to season 3 of Kuroko No Basuke's anime. As for Slam Dunk, there was only one season and with that, we divided the roster into three parts. The first part is Shohoku's game vs Ryonan where Miyagi and Mitsui were not present in the team. The second part is all of the games Shohoku played from Miuradai up until the match against Kainan. The third and final part is the game against Ryonan (where Sakuragi had his haircut) and upto all of the final games in the manga. These three parts in the Slam Dunk anime correspond to the three seasons of the Kuroko No Basuke anime. Players are available/unavailable and look the way they look in the roster's respective seasons.

Cyberfaces, Courts & Jerseys

KoroX and Seushir0 both made cyberfaces for the Winter Cup beta and will proceed to create more cyberfaces to complete the Slam Dunk side of things. Courts right now do not have accurate stadiums, as no member of the small modding team has any knowledge when it comes to stadiums. However, an accurate Winter Cup floor and a fictional Interhigh floor have been made for both the Kuroko No Basuke teams and Slam Dunk teams respectively. Extra courts such as the Direct Drive Zone courts are also available, as well as two fictional Interhigh courts.

Future Plans

Along with the completion of Slam Dunk teams, there are more plans to include new presentation files such as a new global, title screen, jukebox, stories & headlines, english text file, etc. Warstomp32 is in charge of these new presentation files and will lead the mod from a roster mod into a full conversion mod. The Kuroko No Basuke logos currently have its own logos for the All-Star teams and the league logo, which cites the only difference between the other teams logos. However, the logos from the other mods (Med's NBA Roster, FIBA 2K14 and PBA 2K14) have logos already compatible with Kuroko V Slam Dunk.

This is the start of Phase Three for the December Releases. After this, the Universal Portrait Project will be updated to fix the portrait issue with one of the Seiho players. After the Universal Portrait Project update has been released, PBA 2K14 v9.1 will be released with new updated PBA files and rosters, and then, the post-Christmas (or pre-New Year) update for Med's NBA Roster v3.5. A new addition to Phase Three is FIBA 2K14 v4.2 which will also be released in this month. It will include 2015 roster updates to Iran and Italy, as well as finalizing all of the jerseys for FIBA 2K14 by Dunix.

Please be reminded that this is only a BETA which means you should not expect it to work for MyCareer, Association, or any mode and is release purely for the purposes of allowing Quick Game and Blacktop modes. For now, enjoy the release of the Winter Cup Beta. Happy Holidays everyone!

Download the Winter Cup Beta Now

Med's NBA Roster v3.4 Released

Lots of bug fixes, new All-Star jerseys, updated ratings, rotations and animations by J-Paul, new jersey slots by chuajefry and the "Fear The Dear" Milwaukee Bucks' alternate court by Pepis21!

New Jerseys & Color Combinations Added

We've added the new 2016 NBA All-Star Game Jerseys for the East All-Stars and West All-Stars by Pepis21. We've also added the Phoenix Suns' Orange Alternate Jersey (Sleeveless) to the roster. The Golden State Warriors' Retro "The City" jersey's jersey numbers have been fixed in this update. Over 20 new jersey slots have been added thanks to chuajefry that includes multiple color combinations for a number of teams. You can read all about these new color combinations in the Changelog. "(H)" in the Changelog means white socks & shoes while "(A)" means black socks & shoes.

Fear The Deer Alternate Court & Roster Changes

Pepis21's Milwaukee Bucks Alternate Court has been added to the roster, similar to how the Golden State Warriors' Retro Alternate "The City" court has been added a couple of versions back. Please visit the Instructions section of the website to learn how to load this court.

Jimmer Fredette has been waived by the New Orleans Pelicans since the last roster update and a total of four NBA players have left to play overseas, thus have been removed from the roster. Namely Tony Mitchell, Jerome Jordan, Samuel Dalembert and Josh Harrellson. A number of ratings, tendencies, accessories, signature skills and animations have also been updated. Future roster updates will keep a more comprehensive changelog for this aspect of the roster. Mike D'Antoni has also been updated as the new Philadelphia 76ers Assistant Coach under Brett Brown.

Bug Fixes & General Changes

The "Box Score Bug" & "Headline Bug" for Association/MyCareer/Season have been fixed and no longer occur. Not only that, but the option to Create-A-Team has been reimplemented into the roster. theyano!'s Playbooks also make a comeback to the roster as it has been reimplemented in this update. The NBA's new Salary Caps have been implemented in the NBA roster in a way that affects the Contracts instead as you cannot modify the Salary Cap (hard-coded in the game). Taking the player's salary in per year multiplied by the average salary cap for each team (in-game) and divided by the average salary cap for each team (in real life) is now the reduced player salary used in-game as it adjusts properly to the in-game salary caps.

This marks the end of Phase Two of the December Releases. Next in line is Phase Three which will include the much anticipated Kuroko V Slam Dunk: Kuroko No Basuke Beta, PBA 2K14 v9.1 (we could call this v10 really, there are a lot of files) and Med's NBA Roster v3.5 (Post-Christmas Update). For the new jerseys by Pepis21 as well as his new Hardwood Classics Oracle Arena court, please re-download Main Directory Files 17 once more to enjoy these new additions. Please do NOT forget to read the Changelog to learn more about the changes in this update.

Download v3.4 Now

Universal Portrait Project v3.0 & Updated NBA Scoreboard Logos

We've updated the Universal Portrait Project for FIBA 2K14 v4.1 as well the 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos for the Default 2K Scoreboard.

Updated 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos for Default 2K Scoreboard

We've updated the 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos for the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards. These are 2D scoreboard logos that are compatible only with the Default 2K Scoreboard as well as those modded scoreboards that are heavily based on the Default 2K Scoreboard.

Completed FIBA 2K14 v4.1 Portraits & Re-sized NBA Portraits

We've added the portraits for the two new players included in FIBA 2K14 v4.1, Phillip Scrubb and Melvin Ejim of Canada. We've also re- sized the portraits of Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors.

Download v3.0 Now

Next in line for Phase Two is the release of Med's NBA Roster v3.4. It will include the East & West All-Star jerseys, a few more jersey slot additions, the Milwaukee Bucks' "Fear The Deer" alternate court, and more. Learn more about the Three-Phase December Releases here.

FIBA 2K14 v4.1 Released

FIBA 2K14 v4.1 has been released and it updates Canada's roster and fixes a few roster mistakes, includes a few cyberface updates and jersey updates.

Updated Canada Roster & Roster Fixes

FIBA 2K14 v4.1 fixes a few roster mistakes regarding most teams' player ratings, tendencies and play styles. A few roster edits that made it into the roster update were added such as fixes to AfroBasket 2015's MVP Chamberlain Oguchi, etc. The 2015 Canada roster has also been updated. From now on, we'll be updating team rosters with each minor update from v4 to v5 (v4.1, v4.2, v4.3, etc.) until we completely update all teams in v5.0. The next objective is to add the other teams that played in the tournaments such as Venezuela, Tunisia, Chinese Taipei, etc. We have also added an NLSC Mirror for the Appdata Files for those that wish to download from NLSC.

Updated China Jerseys & Fixed Mexico Jersey

China's 2015 FIBA Asia jerseys have also been added to the FIBA 2015 Zone rosters. Dunix has also fixed the name lettering issues on Mexico's 2015 jerseys.

To enjoy the new additions to FIBA 2K14 v4.1's cyberface and jersey updates, a 15 MB Follow Up Pack has been uploaded for you to download complementary to the FIBA 2K14 v4.1 Appdata Files that have been uploaded. The files in this 15 MB follow up pack have already been included in the reuploaded Main Directory Files 2, and FIBA 2K14 Full Packs for those that have yet to download the FIBA 2K14 v4.0 update, or have yet to download for the first time..

Download v4.1 Follow Up Pack

This is the start of Phase Two for the December Releases, the next release will be the Universal Portrait Project v3.0 which will include portrait additions for Canada's two new players, Phillip Scrubb and Melvin Ejim and the 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos for the Default 2K Scoreboard for those that want updated scoreboard logos but do not use any modified scoreboard. The final release for Phase Two will be the release of Med's NBA Roster v3.4 which will include the East & West All-Star jerseys, a few more jersey slot additions, the Milwaukee Bucks' "Fear The Deer" alternate court, and more. Learn more about the Three-Phase December Releases here.

Please be reminded that downloading from websites or pages other than this website may contain files that might harm your computer. FIBA 2K14 updates are released exclusively on this website. Any FIBA 2K14 "updates" you may find that do not come from this site are not considered as trusted sources. When downloading individual mods for FIBA 2K14, please make sure that you download from trusted sources only, such as members of the team behind the development of FIBA 2K14 (Credits) or the related modders & modding teams (Related).

New Previews for December Releases

Brace yourselves, Winter Cup is coming!

This month of December has already seen the release of FIBA 2K14 v4.1 and Med's NBA Roster v3.3 last week (December 7, 2015) but there's still more to come for the releases this December!

Med's NBA Roster v3.4 and v3.5

The next NBA roster update will feature the new 2016 jerseys for the East & Well All-Star teams. The 2016 All-Star court hasn't been revealed yet so we cannot include the updated All-Star court in the update yet. We've also added the Phoenix Suns' Sleevelss Orange Alternate Jersey to the jersey slots for the roster, even more color combinations as well as some new jerseys by Honeybadger. The next roster update will also see some adjustments to the Player Contracts to compensate for the Salary Cap increase the league is about to experience. We're also adding the Fear The Deer Alternate Milwaukee Bucks Court to the next update, which is very timely as the Bucks gave the Golden State Warriors their first loss of the season. The third NBA roster update this month will come after Christmas once we see the correct gear colors that the teams playing on Christmas will sport.

FIBA 2K14 v4.1

FIBA 2K14 v4.1 will feature fixes to most rosters (tendencies, animations, etc.) as well as updated 2015 China jerseys and fixed 2015 Mexico jerseys. We will also include additional cyberface updates for a few players and will add the updated 2015 team roster for Canada. We aim to update all of the 30 teams by v5.0 and add more teams in future updates. Hopefully, we can release follow up packs to include updated teams until we complete them all in v5.0.

PBA 2K14 v9.1

PBA 2K14 v9.1 will not only feature accurate PBA warmup jackets, but will also feature around 50 new cyberfaces and updated UAAP Season 78 jerseys. This update will NOT feature updated UAAP Season 78 team rosters as it is reserved for our v10.0 update. We're also adding new cyberfaces for new players such as Joseph Sedurifa (Meralco Bolts) & Michael DiGregorio (Mahindra Enforcer), as well as updating the NLEX Road Warriors' light jersey, giving it the texture update on its back. The new theme song of the PBA titled "Liga Ng Mga Bida" is also included in the next update to the PBA 2K14 Optional Files' Jukebox which also includes a file that will successfully remove the cheerleaders.

Kuroko V Slam Dunk: Kuroko No Basuke Open Beta

The Kuroko No Basuke Open Beta for Kuroko V Slam Dunk will feature 15 regular Kuroko No Basuke teams, 10 Special Kuroko No Basuke Teams, and Slam Dunk's Shohoku team. With the addition of Warstomp32 to the modding team, we will be able to feature an accompanying jukebox featuring the soundtrack for Slam Dunk and Kuroko No Basuke as part of the mod's beta. The Kuroko No Basuke Open Beta is nearly finished, with the cyberfaces for the Shohoku players the only remaining files needed for its release. The Kuroko V Slam Dunk webpages are now under construction.

Universal Portrait Project v3.0 and 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos

The Universal Portrait Project will have to be updated because of the newly added players to Canada's 2015 roster, while a small pack containing the new 2015-2016 NBA scoreboard logos for the default 2K scoreboard will be released simultaneously.

Check out the revamped checklist for this month's releases!

Phase 1:
☑ Med's NBA Roster v3.3 - December 7, 2015
☑ FIBA 2K14 v4.0 - December 7, 2015
☑ Universal Portrait Project v2.9 - December 9, 2015
Phase 2:
☐ FIBA 2K14 v4.1
☐ Universal Portrait Project v3.0
☐ 2015-2016 NBA Scoreboard Logos for Default Scoreboard
☐ Med's NBA Roster v3.4
Phase 3:
☐ Kuroko V Slam Dunk: Kuroko No Basuke Beta
☐ PBA 2K14 v9.1
☐ Med's NBA Roster v3.5

Definitely feeling like Marvel with all of these plans for these releases. Kuroko V Slam Dunk's KNB Beta might be pushed to a release earlier than PBA 2K14 v9.1 as it nears completion and has more progress than PBA 2K14 v9.1. Advance Merry Christmas to everyone!

Universal Portrait Project v2.9 Released

We've updated the Universal Portrait Project for Med's NBA Roster that updates the portraits of 45 NBA players according to their current look. We've also updated the portraits for FIBA 2K14 that includes the new players added to the 2015 lineups for Croatia, France, Germany, Serbia, and Spain.

Updated Portraits for 45 NBA Players

We've updated the portraits for 45 NBA players thanks to the list provided by stockalone1232 of NLSC. Namely Greg Monroe, Michael Carter-Williams, Nikola Mirotic, LeBron James, Mo Williams, Marcus Smart, Tyler Zeller, DeAndre Jordan, Josh Smith, Jeff Teague, Goran Dragic, Chris Andersen, Spencer Hawes, Jeremy Lin, Alec Burks, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Williams, Robin Lopez, Julius Randle, Nick Young, Victor Oladipo, Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier, Dirk Nowitzki, Chandler Parsons, Deron Williams, Brook Lopez, Paul George, George Hill, Andrew Drummond, Kyle Lowry, DeMar Derozan, DeMarre Carroll, Donatas Motiejunas, Ty Lawson, Kawhi Leonard, Enes Kanter, Ricky Rubio, Andre Miller, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Marcin Gortat, and Otto Porter.

Completed FIBA 2K14 v4.0 Portraits

We've added the portraits of the 16 added EuroBasket players to the 2015 updates for Croatia, France, Germany, Serbia and Spain for the FIBA 2K14 v4.0 update. Namely Dragan Milosavljevic, Zoran Erceg, Pau Ribas, Pablo Aguilar, Guillem Vives, Guillermo Hernangomez, Léo Westermann, Mouhammadou Jaiteh, Rok Stipcevic, Marko Tomas, Dontaye Draper, Miro Bilan, Maodo Lo, Paul Zipser, Anton Gavel, and Johannes Voigtmann.

Regarding FIBA 2K14, a follow up update will be released in the next couple of days that updates China's jerseys and adds a couple of cyberface updates, named FIBA 2K14 v4.1, before the next major release this month, PBA 2K14 v9.1.

Download v2.9 Now

FIBA 2K14 v4.0 Released

The long-awaited FIBA 2K14 update has been released! Half of the teams have been updated for the 2015 FIBA Zone rosters. All of the courts have been updated for all 2015 FIBA Tournaments. A number of new presentation files have also been added, including new scoreboards and new Molten basketballs.

New Team Rosters

FIBA 2K14 v4.0 partially updates the EuroBasket teams, fully updates all AfroBasket teams and updates China for FIBA Asia. To compensate for the missing EuroBasket, FIBA Americas & Asia updated rosters, we included the 1992 Dream Team & 2012 Olympic Team USA, as well as Team White & Team Blue for Team USA that played in the 2015 Team USA Showcase. The half of the roster that has been updated to their 2015 rosters are Angola, Australia, China, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Nigeria, New Zealand, Philippines, Senegal, Spain, Serbia (total of 15 teams), leaving all of the FIBA Americas teams and a few EuroBasket & FIBA Asia teams remaining to be updated.

New Courts & Scoreboards

FIBA 2K14 v4.0 fully updates all of the 2015 Tournament Courts (AfroBasket, EuroBasket, FIBA Americas, FIBA Asia, FIBA Oceania), and includes the 2012 Team USA Arena (20-year anniversary) as the home court for all of the USA teams and Mall of Asia Arena as the home court for the Philippines in the FIBA 2015 Zone rosters. The new update also assigns only the 2014 World Cup courts to all of the teams in the FIBA 2014 World Cup roster, while all of the new 2015 Tournament Courts are assigned to all of the teams in their respective zones with Mall of Asia assigned to the Philippines and the USA court assigned to the USA teams. All of the new scoreboards have also been added which has all of the scoreboards used in each tournament (AfroBasket 2015, EuroBasket 2015, 2015 FIBA Americas, 2015 FIBA Asia, 2015 FIBA Oceania and the 2014 FIBA World Cup). These scoreboards are only compatible with 16:9 monitors so if you have a 4:3 monitor, please only use the default 2K scoreboard.

New Presentation Files

Along with these new necessary file updates are new presentation files that include six new title screens and icons featuring Gilas Pilipinas players Calvin Abueva & Terrence Romeo, USA's Kyrie Irving, Spain's Pau Gasol, China's Yi Jianlian, Argentina's Luis Scola and Lithuania's Jonas Valanciunas. Six Molten basketballs by DaRealSanity are also included per tournament. A new overlay has been added to provide the FIBA wipe and a lot of other presentation files have been updated.

This is the second of four major releases this month of December, the first one was the release of Med's NBA Roster v3.3 here. After this, the Universal Portrait Project will be updated to include portraits for the added EuroBasket players for FIBA 2K14 v4.0 as well as update the new look of the NBA players for Med's NBA roster. After the Universal Portrait Project has been released, PBA 2K14 v9.1 will be released with new updated PBA files and rosters, and then finally, the Kuroko No Basuke Beta for Kuroko V Slam Dunk. For FIBA 2K14 v4.0, those that have already downloaded v3.1 should download all of the NEW files in the Downloads section. For those downloading for the first time, you can download the full packs as they are up to date with the latest v4.0 update.

Download v4.0 Now

Please be reminded that downloading from websites or pages other than this website may contain files that might harm your computer. FIBA 2K14 updates are released exclusively on this website. Any FIBA 2K14 "updates" you may find that do not come from this site are not considered as trusted sources. When downloading individual mods for FIBA 2K14, please make sure that you download from trusted sources only, such as members of the team behind the development of FIBA 2K14 (Credits) or the related modders & modding teams (Related).