About Kuroko's Basketball
Kuroko's Basketball (Kuroko no Basuke in Japanese, often written Kuroko no Basket or simply KNB) is a sports manga written and drawn by Tadatoshi Fujimaki. It ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 2008 to September 2014, 275 chapters collected in 30 volumes, and Viz Media publishes it in English. By November 2020 it had more than 31 million copies in circulation. Production I.G adapted it as a TV anime directed by Shunsuke Tada: three seasons of 25 episodes each, 75 in all, broadcast between April 2012 and June 2015. The anime tells the whole of the original manga's story.
The story starts with a legend. Teiko Middle School won three national championships in a row with a team built around five prodigies, the Generation of Miracles: Ryota Kise, Shintaro Midorima, Daiki Aomine, Atsushi Murasakibara and Seijuro Akashi. After middle school they split up, each joining a different high school with a strong team. There were rumours of a sixth member, a phantom player nobody could quite remember. That player is Tetsuya Kuroko — small, unremarkable and so easy to overlook that people forget he is in the room. He joins Seirin High, a new school whose basketball club was founded only the year before, and teams up with Taiga Kagami, a hot-headed power forward who learned the game in the United States. Kuroko calls himself the shadow to Kagami's light.
From there the series is a run of matches, each one against a former Teiko teammate and the team he has joined. A practice game at Kaijo against Kise comes first, then the Inter-High preliminaries against Midorima's Shutoku and a crushing defeat by Aomine's Touou Academy. After that come the Winter Cup qualifiers and, finally, the Winter Cup itself, where Murasakibara's Yosen and Akashi's Rakuzan are waiting. Every key player has a named special move, and the Japanese site Real Sound has contrasted that with the realism of Slam Dunk, the earlier Jump basketball series. Underneath the games is a question about what winning is for. The Generation of Miracles were taught that victory is everything, and Kuroko left them because he believes the game should be played as a team.
Want the archetype rather than the character? The dere type quiz scores you across all eight anime dere types — tsundere, yandere, kuudere, dandere and four more — and explains where each word comes from.
What the Kuroko's Basketball Quiz Tests
Our Kuroko's Basketball quiz covers the three seasons of the TV anime, which adapt the whole of the original manga, and nothing from the OVAs, the Extra Game sequel or the film Last Game. Easy levels cover the premise and the main cast: Kuroko's misdirection, Kagami's years in America, who plays for which school, Midorima's horoscope and the people who made the series. The middle levels follow the story in order. They start with the chalk message on Seirin's school grounds and the hoop Kagami breaks at Kaijo. They continue through the Inter-High preliminaries, the summer camp, the Winter Cup qualifiers and the first round against Touou, with questions on the abilities that decide the games, such as the Hawk Eye, the Vanishing Drive and the Emperor Eye. The hard levels ask about the fine print: Murasakibara's height and school, Himuro's signature shot, how Haizaki's copying works, the Teiko flashback, the second door of the Zone and the final score of the Winter Cup final.
Key Characters
Tetsuya Kuroko is a lead built around being overlooked. He has almost no presence on the court and plays as a pure passer, using misdirection to send the ball where nobody expects it. He walked away from Teiko because its stars stopped playing as a team. His partner Taiga Kagami is everything Kuroko is not: tall, loud, a huge eater with a huge leap, and terrified of dogs. Around them, Seirin is run by second-years: Riko Aida, a coach who can read anyone's physical stats at a glance; Junpei Hyuga, a captain who shoots best under pressure; and Teppei Kiyoshi, the 'Iron Heart' who founded the club. The opponents are the Generation of Miracles, each with a gift and a flaw. Kise copies any move he sees. Midorima hits three-pointers from the far end of the court and never goes anywhere without his horoscope's lucky item. Aomine is so good that he stopped going to practice. Murasakibara is 208 cm tall and claims not to care about basketball. Their captain, Akashi, sees an opponent's next move before it happens and has never lost. Satsuki Momoi, their old manager, now does the scouting for Aomine's team.
Available Quizzes
Kuroko's Basketball Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Kuroko's Basketball Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which Seirin player or member of the Generation of Miracles matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 40 anime including Kuroko's Basketball. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Tetsuya Kuroko
Taiga Kagami
Ryota Kise
Shintaro Midorima
Daiki Aomine
Kuroko's Basketball Fun Facts
- Kuroko's surname is written 黒子. The same word is used for kuroko, the stagehands of traditional Japanese theatre, who dress all in black so the audience can treat them as invisible. It suits a player whose whole game depends on not being seen.
- Each of the Generation of Miracles has a colour in his surname, and it matches his hair. Kise begins with ki (yellow), Midorima with midori (green), Aomine with ao (blue), Murasakibara with murasaki (purple) and Akashi with aka (red). Kuroko's surname begins with kuro, black: the shadow.
- The rock band Granrodeo sang six of the anime's opening themes, and its vocalist, Kishō Taniyama, also voices Kagami's 'brother', Tatsuya Himuro. Kenshō Ono, the voice of Kuroko, sang an ending theme in season 2 and an opening theme, 'ZERO', in season 3.
- The anime won the Television category at the 2013 Tokyo Anime Awards.
- The story continues in Kuroko's Basketball: Extra Game, a two-volume sequel that ran in Jump Next! from December 2014 to March 2016. It was adapted as the film Kuroko's Basketball The Movie: Last Game (2017). In the film, the Generation of Miracles join Kuroko and Kagami as a team called Vorpal Swords to face an American street-basketball team, Jabberwock.
- One of Fujimaki's former assistants, Kawada, went on to create the sumo manga Hinomaru Sumo. In November 2015 Weekly Shōnen Jump ran a one-off crossover chapter between the two series.
Kuroko's Basketball Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of Kuroko's Basketball are there?
Seventy-five TV episodes, in three seasons of 25. Season 1 aired from 7 April to 22 September 2012, season 2 from October 2013 to 29 March 2014, and season 3 from 10 January to 30 June 2015. There are also a few OVAs released on home video, such as 'Tip Off', which is numbered episode 22.5, and the film Last Game. None of these is part of the main TV run.
Is Kuroko's Basketball finished?
Yes. The manga ended in Weekly Shōnen Jump on 1 September 2014 after 275 chapters, collected in 30 volumes. The anime adapts the whole story, and its final episode aired in June 2015. A short sequel manga, Extra Game, ran from December 2014 to March 2016 and was turned into the film Last Game in 2017.
What order should I watch Kuroko's Basketball in?
Season 1, season 2, season 3, then the film Kuroko's Basketball The Movie: Last Game, which picks up after the series. The three Winter Cup compilation films released in Japan in 2016 retell the series' Winter Cup arc, so you can skip them if you have seen the series. The OVAs are optional extras.
Where can I watch Kuroko's Basketball?
In North America the anime is licensed by Crunchyroll (previously under the Funimation name), and Netflix added all three seasons with an English dub in 2021, followed by Last Game. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services.
What is Kuroko's Basketball about?
It follows Tetsuya Kuroko, a quiet player with almost no presence on court, who was secretly the sixth man of a legendary middle-school team called the Generation of Miracles. In high school he joins Seirin, a new team, and partners with the powerful Taiga Kagami to beat his old teammates one by one. Along the way he tries to prove that basketball is a team game and not just a contest of individual talent.
