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Review: 黒子のバスケ ―Replace― [Kuroko no Basuke -Replace-]

黒子のバスケ ―Replace― [Kuroko no Basuke -Replace-] 黒子のバスケ ―Replace― [Kuroko no Basuke -Replace-] by Tadatoshi Fujimaki
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

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Okay so first of all: Prior to reading this I did not know that this is not a novel, but in fact a collection of five short stories (written in prose). So that caught me by surprise, but now you've been warned. I'll review each story separately here. ("Game" in the titles mean chapters.)


The First Game: Teikou Middle School's Eventful After School ★★★★★
I very thoroughly enjoyed this first chapter. It's about the Generation of Miracles way back in their middle school days when they had yet to earn that title for themselves. This is what I thought the whole book was going to be about, but unfortunately that was not the case. Nonetheless it is always so great to see the GoM in their sweet innocent days. It follows one of the kids' afternoons from the perspective of Momoi. It was a very nice read from my perspective as a Momoi x Kuroko shipper.

The only thing I was slightly bothered by had nothing to do with the story itself, but rather, the format. The whole time I was reading I just wanted to be able to see the character's faces so badly! Because they're so beautiful... QAQ So that was slightly annoying. This also probably has to do with the fact that this is the first light novel I've ever read, so I'm really not used to this. But on the other hand, the prose format was able to provide more information than the manga would be able to. I know this for a fact because I also read some of the manga.

So yeah, other than that little hitch this was great and just what I had been wanting from these books. Sadly, it only went downhill from here.


The Second Game: Kaijou High School's White Book of Youth ~Summer Vacation's Still Not Over Yet~ ★★☆☆☆
This story is about Kise and his high school teammates on the prowl for some summer lovin'. It was alright. I think the main reason I was unable to really enjoy the rest of the stories in this collection was because they're all about the present day (so no more sweet innocence...) and because of that, they're also all about the other teammates who I don't really care about.

So yeah... Kise and friends tried to pick up girls. Cool. I guess their attempts were supposed to be humorous, I don't remember if they actually were though. I remember I did chuckle once but I don't remember if it was in this chapter or in chapter four. I think it was this one? Whateves. I still liked it, yenno, three stars. But yeah. Eh.


The Third Game: Seirin High School Basketball Club's Biggest Crisis? ★☆☆☆☆
You know what, this chapter was just so BOOOOOORING. Whatshisface, the ace or whatever, the derpy guy who gets introduced later in the series because he was injured, his name starts with K, yeah, that guy, he loses something and so the whole story is just them wandering around looking for the thing he lost. Um. Who thought this was going to be interesting??? I think the humour is what's meant to drive the story, but it was not even close to being enough. The ending was good I guess, but at one point while I was reading I suddenly realized how uninteresting and lame this was. Very sad. Bring back the GoM plz, that's the only reason I'm here.


The Fourth Game: Kaijou High School's White Book of Youth ~Summer Vacation Can't be Allowed to End Like This~ ★★☆☆☆
This one is a continuation to chapter two. Talking about this one would spoil that chapter sooo.... Yeah. But it was the same okay-ness. I know that on Goodreads' scale (which is the scale I follow) if it was "Okay" it means it's two stars, not the three I gave these. But I dunno, I feel like I liked it more than two stars.


The Fifth Game: Terror! The Tragedy at the Mountain Resort!! ★★☆☆☆
This was some kind of an attempt at horror I think? I mean I could tell it was also probably supposed to be funny, so maybe it wasn't actually supposed to be scary? I don't know because I didn't feel any emotions while reading this. At the end of some training camp Riko makes the team do a "test of courage" and they have to go in some old spooky house and get some protein and get out. There's lots of things that spook the characters which I think was supposed to be funny. Yeah. Another meh story.


In Conclusion
This was very... Okay... I think the first chapter is the only one really worth reading, otherwise the rest are pretty useless. But I dunno, maybe if you're a huge Kise fan or Kaijou fan you'll enjoy those chapters, or if you really love everyone at Seirin. I mean I thought I liked the whole Seirin gang, but damn, not enough to watch them just stumble around for a dozen pages. Maybe I didn't like the last chapter just because by that point I was so done with this mediocre collection, because in theory it sounds like it should be good. Ehh...

I'm really thinking about whether I should be lowering each of these chapter's ratings by one star (besides the first chapter, that's a firm 5/5). But I do this sometimes where I have a relatively enjoyable reading experience, but in hindsight, when I'm writing my review I completely roast the book and only remember the bad things and don't remember enjoying it anymore even though I know I did. This is why I hesitate in lowering my ratings, because I feel like I'm being dramatic and overly negative right now. Who knows!?!?

Either way, I want to rate this collection 3/5 stars and that's what the math rounds out to so whatever. *EDIT* I lowered my rating to 2/5 stars, lol, rip. I ended up beefing this book on another one of my reviews, and I think I summed up this book pretty well:
I think what didn't work for me with Kuroko no Basuke -Replace- ... was that it seemed a bit pointless. It might as well have been a collection of five fanfictions, because they didn't really actually add anything to the existing story, provide new insight, or anything like that. That definitely compromised my enjoyment of it, but it was even worse because it wasn't like the stories were at least also entertaining or enjoyable on their own (with the exception being the first story).


Read all of my reviews for Tadatoshi Fujimaki's books:
✪ Kuroko's Basketball: Extra Game
✪ Kuroko's Basketball -Replace-
✪ Vanguard of Archer
✪ ROBOT×LASERBEAM 1

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