What They Say:
All four teams competing for the two spots representing Tokyo at the Winer Cup are present. First, Seirin crushes reigning champions Senshinkan, and Midorima’s Shutoku High School easily defeats Kirisaki. However, instead of participating in the game against Shutoku, a group of Kirisaki players observed and analyzed Seirin’s game.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sports series can be difficult works to get through depending on how the actual game play is handled. What we’ve seen with this series is one that certainly works well as the progress through various matches goes at alternating speeds – and we’ve seen games where it’s barely even referenced that they played – since it’s more about the pivotal moments once they got rolling. The opening to this episode gets us through the remainder of Seirin’s latest game in pretty good order so that it can move to the next phase of getting on to the Winter Cup itself. But there’s still a match to be played as there are four teams competing and only two can make it to the Winter Cup from this group and there has to be results.
Getting past the preliminaries as they did is something that feels like it went fast – and has from our perspective – but as their team caption makes clear, that’s just getting the easy work out of the way before the real thing. Making it through this part of it and into the Winter Cup itself will just challenge them like never before. And they need to be prepared for it, mentally and physically, which is what Kuroko is all about here. But for him, he gets a pretty personal approach and one that works well as he wants to work with just Kagami on their own time to perfect the move he’s trying to master, one that will make him not unbeatable but a serious challenge to just about anyone. And that’s the kind of edge they need as they get towards the Winter Cup and have to face off against more of the Generation of Miracles players. Kuroko’s technique is one that works well, but it has its downsides as well, but all told it’s just his calm intensity that really scares the crap out of Kagami.
That’s a small but important part of the episode overall, which deals with the characters pretty well. The second half wants to focus on the character side as well as we get several minutes off jockeying going on in small and careful ways between the players of various teams as they all have their goals and ambitions as well as a few grudges, which sets the intensity pretty nicely for what’s at stake in the competitive nature of these young men. While most of the episodes focus on the game itself and the kind of thoughts and moves that comes from it, we do get thes emixed in and there’s a lot to like with the pep talks that are given and the sizing up of opposing players on both sides of it. And in the mix of it all, as we get Seirin going up against their opponents, others are watching from the stands that know they’ll be competing against them next and gaining a lot of useful information. This is even more impressive when you see the way Seirin comes bombing out of the gate and pushes back against Shutoku in a way that nobody could have foreseen.
In Summary:
Seirin has gone through its changes over the course of the series in general and seeing the way that they push each other and grow – and certainly deal with the kind of variety and ability that they face from other times – is a wonder to behold. They know the need to grow and change and they embrace it for the most part but sometimes there’s just the fact that some teams, especially those that are powerful and riding high, get complacent. While Seirin has been forced to grow their abilities and obtain new skills, others are just confident that they’re in the best place possible and have no need to grow as everyone is underneath them. That can work in a lot of ways, but with someone like Kagami, it just makes them strive even harder and higher, which can upset the balance of things.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
