English Dub Review: Kuroko’s Basketball: Last Game

 

Overview:

Kuroko reunites with the “Generation of Miracles” when former rivals are humiliated in an exhibition game against a notorious street basketball team.

Our Take:

It’s been almost ten years but Kuroko’s Basketball is finally fully dubbed! Kuroko’s Basketball: Last Game is the movie to finish off the series. If you were a fan of this series at all I imagine that the movie has plenty for you to get hyped over. Going to touch on a few of the negatives first.

First of all, if this isn’t your first sports anime then a few parts will become predictable. You can more or less guess the ebb and flow of how the game will progress but seeing how you get to the conclusion is still a lot of fun. Also, I need to discuss the problem with Jabberwock themselves.

Jabberwock is the streetball team from America and they are presented horribly. They call everyone “monkey’s” which isn’t going to win any points. But they are also presented so cartoonishly evil that it borders on ridiculous. I know they have to be a little over the top to force the Generation of Miracles to come together but still, it’s a little bad. For what it’s worth David Matranga does an excellent job as the face of Jabberwock, Nash Gold Jr.

One other minor problem I have is with the team formation itself. I understand that in the limited runtime we had that not everyone could play but why even include people like Hyuga on the team if they weren’t going to at least get a moment or two? Hyuga and some of the others definitely deserved it. Going along with that Hyuga never got any closure with Riko in the film even though it was teased.

That’s about it for the negatives, to be honest. The animation is fantastic, Production I.G worked on the series from the beginning and they definitely go all out with this film. It’s definitely because of them that I got as hyped as I did during a lot of the scenes. Sports anime kind of lives or dies based on the animation I feel and they show why this is one of the most popular sports animes of all time.

Did you ever want to see the Generation of Miracles all play together with Kagami thrown into the mix as well? Then have I got a movie for you! I can’t count how many times I caught myself grinning like an idiot and just getting super hyped with how awesome some of these moments were. Kagami and Aoimine entering the zone at the same time? Check. Akashi pulling off the pass to an already shooting Midorima? Check. Murasakibara getting serious for the first time ever? Also check!

The character development in this series has been fantastic. Kagami has come a long way and seeing him get acknowledged by the Generation of Miracles was an awesome scene. But honestly, Akashi just continued to get better in the movie. I loved his growth and development the most. I wasn’t expecting to get any more from him but I was very pleasantly surprised. To be fair the movie managed to give just about everyone awesome moments.

If you have watched every season of Kuroko’s Basketball you’re definitely going to want to watch this movie. If you haven’t watched the previous seasons you should. It is a masterpiece of the sports genre, blending action and shounen battle themes as well. I’ve mentioned many times that it’s like Dragonball Z meets basketball and it’s awesome. You won’t have much more fun than by watching Kuroko’s Basketball.