【Kuroko’s Basketball】A beloved comedy / sport manga series that was said to rival Slam Dunk!

Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko’s Basketball or The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays) is a sport manga series written and illustrated by Tadatoshi Fujimaki. The manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from December 2008 to September 2014, with a total of 30 volumes.

As of November 2020, Kuroko's Basketball had over 31 million copies in circulation. It was adapted into an anime series by Production I.G, and aired for 3 seasons from April 2012 to June 2015. Individual volumes of Kuroko’s Basketball frequently appeared on Oricon's weekly lists of the best-selling manga in Japan. In 2013, it became the third best-selling manga series of the year.

Fujimaki also wrote a sequel titled Kuroko's Basketball: Extra Game. The manga was serialized in Jump Next! from December 2014 to March 2016. An anime film adaptation of the sequel manga premiered in March 2017.

Following the success of manga and anime, Kuroko’s Basketball inspired a series of 2.5D musical stage plays. The first play named Kuroko’s Basketball: The Encounter was produced in 2016 and the latest play named Kuroko’s Basketball: ULTIMATE-BLAZE was produced in 2019.

The story of Kuroko’s Basketball started with Seirin High School entrance ceremony where every after-school club was out to recruit freshmen. The main protagonist Tetsuya Kuroko was walking through the crowd, holding a book in his hand. The other students were stopped in their track by the recruiters but not Kuroko. For some reasons, nobody seemed to notice him.

Kuroko saw the basketball club’s table and stopped to sign up. After he left, another freshman named Taiga Kagami showed up at the table and asked to join. He was the polar opposite of Kuroko. Kagami attended middle school in America and came back to Japan looking for exciting challenges. However, he soon discovered that the level of basketball players in Japan was too weak and the matches were boring.

After the recruit session has ended, the basketball club’s coach Riko Aida finally noticed something unusual about this year’s freshmen. Kuroko was a member of Teiko Junior High School basketball club. Kuroko and the other five members of his former club were famously known as the “Generation of Miracles”, boasting several successive championship wins.

The day after recruitment, all new members of Seirin High basketball club were gathered inside sport hall. Aida told everyone to take off their shirts and with just a few looks, she was able to identify their strengths and weaknesses. One of the seniors explained that Aida’s father was a sport trainer and she grew up learning everything from him.

Aida looked at Kagami’s body and was instantly shocked at how strong he was. Kagami’s height, weight and raw muscle strength all surpassed that of a normal high school student. So this is natural talent! – Aida thought.

After Kagami, Aida searched for Kuroko since she was really curious about the member of “that legendary team”. However, standing in front of Aida was a normal boy with an average build. Kuroko was there from the beginning but she didn’t even notice him.

After school, Kagami went to a convenience store and bought a tray full of food. He sat down at a table and was shocked to find Kuroko sitting there all along. Like Aida, Kagami also heard the rumors of the “Generation of Miracles” and wanted to know for sure how strong Kuroko really was. He said that strong guys have peculiar smell about them and Kuroko should reek of weakness. But Kagami couldn’t smell anything from Kuroko at all. “Your strength is odorless”, Kagami said.

He challenged Kuroko to a one-on-one match and was really excited to beat Kuroko. However, after playing for just a few seconds, Kagami realized that Kuroko was truly weak. There was nothing special about his skills, Kuroko’s dribbles and shoots were those of an amateur.

Kagami told Kuroko to give up on basketball because he didn’t possess any talent. Hearing that, Kuroko simply declined. Kuroko then said he didn’t care about who would be the strongest because he was a shadow.

Later in the sport hall, the new member of the basketball club were about to have a 5 vs 5 match with the second year students. The second years were known to be strong players so everyone was afraid that they would lose. Only Kagami was full of confident and started off the match with a powerful dunk.

Thanks to Kagami, the freshmen were in the lead. On the other hand, Kuroko seemed to be struggling and his ball kept being stolen by the other team.

Just when Kagami was about to lead his team to victory, the second years changed their tactic. They put three guys to surround Kagami and prevented him from even touching the ball. Not long after, the second years were able to score points and turned the table.

Kagami lost his patience and got angry at the other members. The only one that was not afraid of Kagami and able to calm him down was Kuroko. That was when Aida noticed something about the match. She had an uncomfortable feeling that something unthinkable was about to happen.

Kuroko quietly told the guy standing behind to pass him the ball. But Kuroko only held the ball for a split second and made a surprisingly fast pass to the other team member behind. Before anyone could notice what was going on, Kuroko’s team has successfully scored a point.

After that, Kuroko continuously made use of his lack of presence to relay passes. Not only that, the time he kept the ball was also extremely short.

Using misdirection, Kuroko led the opponent to think the other player besides him would get the ball. In other words, rather than saying Kuroko was invisible during matches, he was encouraging the opponent to focus on other players than him. That was the reason why he was rumored to be the phantom 6th player of the “Generation of Miracles”, who was specialized in circulating passes without being seen. Kagami finally saw Kuroko’s real strength and both of them cooperated to lead their team to victory.

After the match, Kuroko told Kagami that his former teammates from middle school were all very strong and they have split up to join different high schools. “There is no mistaking that one of them will stand at the top”, Kuroko said. That was when Kagami’s fire was lit. He has found his purpose.

“I have decided”, Kagami said with a wide grin, “I will take all of them down and become the number one in Japan”. Kuroko smiled and told Kagami that he was a supporting actor, a shadow. And a shadow would become darker as the light got stronger. For that reason, Kuroko would become the shadow that make Kagami – the light, the number one in Japan.

How will Kuroko and Kagami challenge the strongest five players as the story unfold?