Series in one sentence:
Everyone's bisexual for each other.
Series in more sentences:
Saki wants it all; the boy of her dreams and breaking through as a cute pop idol duo with her best friend, who is also the sister of her crush.
After having a dream about being a "magical girl superhero" involving her crush, a dubious man shows up at her door and informs her it's a real thing. Her mother is revealed to be one, even, but her duties greatly weakened her over the years and a replacement is needed now that demons are attacking the city.
Saki loves the concept and accepts, though the transformation is far from conventional. She turns into a muscular man wearing a cute dress.
Total madness, but the show managed to make sense out of it. I loved the first few episodes, the humor was on point and cute, but near the end things became less exciting. If you can believe this.
Saki's best friend, who's also blessed with powers at one point, also worried me a little at one point. I'm never charmed by lovestruck characters who turn into very real rapists, but after one or two episodes, she calms down a bit.
Still not sure why Saki was fine sitting next to her after that scene where she tried to wrestle her down like nothing happened, but alright.
It's sad that the show lost its comedic touch, there were way less (good) jokes as it progressed. Maybe they wanted to focus more on the story? There was one episode that didn't progress the story at all; it was some major complaint about having to reach an episode's deadline or how the animation business worked? It was incredibly boring, I couldn't watch it for long.
It's a short series, I guess it wouldn't be a waste of time to check it out for yourself.
Series in one sentence:
A boy with neon-blue hair somehow manages to be invisible.
Series in more sentences:
A young team of high school basketball players dream about becoming the best team in Japan, but their opponents consists out of legendary players known to never lose a match.
Luckily for them, an American-Japanese boy with the stamina of 5 people signs up to their team, as for one of the lesser known legendary players, who's talents are unlike anything they've seen.
It was an exciting ride, though slightly overdramatic when you allow yourself to think about what it is these kids are getting themselves worked up about.
No matter how cool and serious things got, we're still talking about a bunch of high school babbus throwing a ball around. So. Why're some of these people acting like Dragonball Z supervillains? It's just a game -not even a professional or international one- damn boys, relax.
But yes, I can't deny it made for good entertainment. The talents of the players are portrayed and described as superpower moves, which is a fun way of making basketball interesting for those who generally don't care for it. I contentedly binge-watched this and would recommend the show to anyone, but still, it did lack something for me.
The story gets to the point and pretty much has no filler episodes, but I think it would've benefited from it. There were very little everyday moments; everything these kids do and have done in their lives revolves around basketball, even when they meet up outside of the gym or school building they're drooling on about it. It's a bit pathetic. Again, when you allow yourself to think about it.
I would've liked to see more scenes of them visiting each other at home, because they're friends, not with the intention to talk game strategy. I wanted them to prove to me they're actual people, not these sports obsessed kids stuck in a fantasy world. What else do they even do at school? What do they do at home? There were 2 hardly explored romances going on and it was noticeable how pointless they were.
The series doesn't care for building up relationships that have nothing to do with the love for basketball. The "cute" puppy they found is a testament to this; he was a pointless addition. I still don't even know who his owner is, he's always in the arms or bag of another character
When the anime started, I thought the bluehaired Kuroko and redheaded Kagami were going to be the main characters, but they really weren't. In some episodes you hardly see either characters in action at all, and the show thinks to fix this by having another character mention them.
Now, this anime didn't fail at making the other characters interesting, it did a good job actually, but it still feels a bit like false advertising. I wanted to see Kuroko and Kagami and know what they were doing every time the camera wasn't giving them screen time. They didn't talk or hung out as often as I wanted and they don't seem to be more friends than with the other team members, while the show tried to claim this at some points.
Kuroko's Basketball also had the tendency to "insert convenience". It keeps inventing basketball skills at the spot, just so a character can win a game he was majorly failing minutes before. These players always have a "2nd" or "3rd gear", and when their last gear fails, a "4th gear" is suddenly claimed to be a thing. Convenient plot points define the show and strategies are always explained at the last second, it's very lazy.
But alright, our heroes still meet with hardships and there's a fair distribution of strength, so we're not dealing with Gary Stus, by any means.
All in all, Kuroko's Basketball presented a creative way of making basketball appealing. While the normal social/human interaction was lacking, the games themselves were really cool to watch.
Series in one sentence:
Yare yare.
Series in more sentences:
A straight-faced teenager with immense psychic powers wishes to lead a peaceful, average life where nobody will bother him, but finds himself in all kinds of situations with his ever-growing group of unwanted friends.
While Saiki prefers not to get involved with other people's problems, he often helps out under the guise of "doing it to benefit himself".
Damn hilarious with addicting characters, I've watched it in Japanese and English.
Despite
this, the series can be difficult to follow for certain people. As a
foreigner with a short attention span, I need to focus especially hard
in order not to miss reading or hearing a funny line, as the show is
extremely fast-paced. The English version was easier to follow, but only
slightly.
Often 2 or more people are heard talking at the same
time, and when you're watching the Japanese version, that means reading
multiple subtitles in 2 seconds before the scene switches over. The show
can be quite overwhelming and it doesn't help that the main character
speaks telepathically to people -not moving his mouth- and just as often
thinks to himself. It's not always clear when he's doing what. Saiki is
basically Garfield the cat.
Episodes consist out of shorter
episodes and the change of story is what functions as a pause between
the madness. In that sense, they applied a clever way of making the fast
pacing work.
While it's all short stories, most plots and characters
make a return, so you're not at all dealing with a show that presses
the reset button every time.
I loved its self-awareness and the cheap excuses made for its cheapness, this must've been a blast to produce.
