#this isnt ima/yoshi slander btw i like him a lot! i just think he's an...outlier among the senpai

[majiburger]

knb s1 rewatch post

i just finished rewatching the first 25-26 episodes of knb for the...i wanna say third? fourth time? and thing that jumps out to me is how strong kagami's character arc starts out, and how amazingly kuroko's character arc ends!

these two are no doubt the heart of the series, but it's an earned title for sure and never taken for granted! kuroko is so complicated, so full of anger, sadness, regret, but also so full of hope and dedication and kindness and all the things that you'd want from a sports protagonist (even if he's Not Like Other Heroes of this genre). he starts out season 1 with a point to prove using his basketball, but ends the season wondering what his actual basketball is beyond his gimmicky misdirection.

additionally, with all the reminders of his past constantly coming up in front of him, another challenge for him seems to be whether he can truly break free from what teikou made him out to be and find out who he is under seirin. wonderfully, this is a challenge all the boys seem to be facing, and they are all desperate for change, especially aomine, who really wants to be proven wrong about all the cynicism he has mustered up about the sport he loves.

meanwhile, kagami is such a delight, all hot-tempered and impatient and pure power. his first defeat against aomine has him contemplating what it really means to be an ace, and also what it means to play basketball with a team. he's gone from insulting kuroko to relying on him too heavily, unable to strike a healthy balance between pure autonomy and cooperative teamwork.

speaking of which, a big theme of the season (and the show itself, by extension) seems to be the senpai's influence. this is probably the most overused trope in sports anime, but the thing about overused tropes is that if you use them with thoughtfulness and sincerity, it really works, even if it's a story you've seen a 1,000 times before. fear of sincerity is the death of art, especially in genres like this and i'm happy that knb is unafraid to show how serious and unironic this game is to these boys

it's been interesting to see the kiseki kids contend with the fact that there are other people on the team with hopes, dreams, regrets and bad memories with the sport, just like them. the ultimate reality of the generation of miracles is that they were a team of one generation; but the senpais have their own stories to tell, their own desires, and having them in the GOMs life makes them better, makes them team players. they are no longer playing for themselves, but for the people that they spend time training with, the people that they share jokes and cry with.

that being said, it is astonishing what a bad senpai imayoshi is LMAO. where kasamatsu (and SEIRIN) are quite involved with their kids' growth, imayoshi behaves in ways that are actually bad for aomine in the long run. it's surprisingly wakamatsu who has the correct insight, but no one seems to be taking him seriously at touou just yet*

nonetheless, the season ends with aomine's POV being validated (remember, your virtues don't mean shit unless you validate them with a victory) but neither kise nor kuroko have been destroyed entirely by their respective defeats, and midorima is just as eager to swing back. the winter cup is going to be one hell of a clash between opposing ideologies!

stand-out characters: kagami, kuroko, riko, kiyoshi, kise, midorima, aomine

* [spoiler alert: watching this season while knowing wakamatsu becomes captain after imayoshi is...a very very interesting experience!] all in all a great set-up season!

#this isnt ima/yoshi slander btw i like him a lot! i just think he's an...outlier among the senpai #kuroko no basket