#27.4.19

Date : 27 April 2019

Duration : 32 minutes at bedtime.

Depth :

Ok. I seem to be hooked onto recorded sounds for meditation. I repeated the 30 minute recording of waves lashing against South Wales UK shore on Insight Timer. ‘Felt it was too loud. Also ‘felt that it wasn’t really required. ‘Felt like I was indulging in stimulus. If I begin depending on a device to meditate, I am asking for it. This is definitely not how Paramhansa Yogananda intended meditation to be.

This night I had one long suspended breath. The rest of my breathing was less calm than that. The mind doesn’t always allow one’s best meditation experience. All the patience one needs in meditation is with the mind. While working with the mind, there is so much to work on. The conscious (memories and all its tentacles like analysis, planning, etc) took me years to overcome.

After I learnt to abandon the conscious consciously, came the shallow subconscious. One has to exercise patience while waiting for the attention to stay with the technique rather than colourful dream imagery created by the shallow subconscious. Memories weave themselves into entertaining absurdities. The shallow subconscious has made me flop on the bed just so that it could dream away without the interruption of meditation.

Then came the deep subconscious. Here the dream characters and backdrops are unrecognisable. Memories from another life perhaps. All of these images want to play out without being interrupted. The interruption of meditation is thwarted by the deep subconscious by a simple tugging temptation to deep sleep ! Again, patience pays. Patience becomes the lesson through all of this.

I'm watching bodyguard and it's really good (thanks, M)

My dad and brothers came today and we went to wagama for lunch. Also to a big supermarket (my favourite chain) that I hadn't been to before and it was amazing. I got egg custard tarts and fish sticks for easy food, chilli rice crackers because they're amazing, and cheap Easter eggs. One's for my mum.

I phoned my mum a few times this afternoon and she hasn't got back to me. She was thinking about coming down because she's heard about a good farm shop and cafe and was going to take me, but my dad was already coming.

I didn't keep lunch down. I was so full and I couldn't handle it.

S made me go down for dinner (after everyone else had eaten). It was a burger. I just picked at it for ages, but ate it eventually. She asked what I was going to do for the rest of the evening and I said I didn't know and was bored, so she arranged for one of the staff to take me out (more a couple of points down).

I went upstairs after eating, and S asked if I was ok to be by myself and said "I know your eating habits well". I said I'd be fine. She came up and chatted for a few minutes anyway, but then I threw up when she'd gone.

I think it would be helpful if I had help to come up with a plan for breakfasts and lunches. Even if it's really simple like a cereal bar for breakfast every day or whatever, I really need that accountability. I think I've discovered over the last month or however long that I don't really have the capability to make sensible food decisions by myself when there's no one else monitoring it.

My anger at D is subsiding, so if I see him on Tuesday I'll ask him to talk to staff here about that.

One of the staff (he's loud and talks a lot, but that's kind of what I needed) took me back to the big supermarket. We walked up and down every aisle (except cleaning and alcohol) and it was great. I bought way too much food, after saying to myself the other day I wasn't allowed to buy more before I'd eaten lots of what I've already got. Whatever.

I got: 1.25l diet coke strawberry, 1.25l diet coke mango, 1.25l coke zero peach, oreo sandwich chocolate, cake mix (to eat raw), cookie dough (again, raw), writing icing (I'll eat it out the tubes), a big bag of Reese's pieces, 7 jelly pots (2 lime, 2 orange, and 1 each of strawberry, raspberry, and blackcurrant), 2 bags of rainbow drops, chocolate milk powder, and chocolate orange flavoured milk (I drank it on the way back, and it was amazing. It was a 330ml bottle, and I wish they sold big bottles).

Lots of bad decisions. The staff guy I was with also got a couple of things. It was just a really fun trip. We went up and down the escalator with the trolley and it was so cool. We talked about my fear of cooking and doing it wrong, my fear of horses and his strongly held belief that they shouldn't be allowed on the roads, and lots of other things. I was definitely ready for some peace and quiet by the time we got back after almost 2 hours though.

I've gone from not throwing up in the first 4 days, to doing it 4 times in 2 days.

My mood is so all over the place and I don't really know what to do about it.

For the first 3 weeks of the (8.5 week long) summer holiday I might be cat/house sitting for the people I've done it for before. It would be amazing to be away from B2 for that long, although it does also scare me a bit. It's literally just down the road from my mum's though.

Food:

Wagamama (700-800?) - 2:00

Burger (??) - 7:30

I’ve appeared when we were kids, when we were teenagers, and when we were adults.

One of my friends who isn’t really into anime watched this entire series and told me I should do so too. Let’s go.

Kuroko’s Basketball – Season 1

High paced, exciting and fun basketball shounen show. I mean, duh. But I really enjoyed it! It’s as exciting as a shounen should be and the characters are all super likeable, and despite an adequate amount of character backstory and some drama here and there, none of the conflicts ever struggle from feeling forced. Art’s good and there are some neat sakuga moments, and the soundtrack gets your blood pumping like hell which is awesome. Most of my problems were nitpicks (really couldn’t stand most of Momoi’s presence but she’s barely in it so) and all of my bigger problems were ironed out. For example, I was worried that everyone not named Kuroko and Kagami in the Seirin team wouldn’t be relevant whatsoever, but they were. Or I was worried that we’d never lose, but we did. We lost hard. And by the end of the season, we’ve not truly recovered either. All in all this show’s just a crazy fun sports shounen show and I’m super glad I watched it. It’s not especially accurate to real life basketball but it’s got internal consistency so I literally do not give a fuck.

Final rating: 8/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: A Monkey Can’t Win!

By virtue of being A) released after season 1 had finished and B) an OVA, it’s easy to tell that this thing would be inconsequential. And it was. Kagami needs to study for his tests in order to go to the Inter-High, and so he does, but not that well, so plays basketball. And then he does well in his tests. There’s no tension and there’s a good amount of Riko humour which is never especially funny, and for an OVA you’d expect better animation but nah. Characterisation’s still fine though and we get to see some Midorima and Kise, and all in all the whole thing is largely inoffensive.

Final rating: 5/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: Tip Off

Despite being called episode 22.5 I can’t help but feel I should’ve watched this after season 2 (I’m writing this as I complete them so I’ve not even started season 2 yet) because of the presence of the members of the Generation of Miracles that weren’t really in season 1 being pretty prominent here. Alas, I don’t feel spoiled for season 2, so I guess it’s no biggie. More so than it’s about Kuroko, this OVA is about Kise, and he’s my favourite character (again at the time of writing – subject to change) so I had fun. Plus the animation is clean. There’s not much to say about this OVA but it’s short and sweet and stars Kise so I enjoyed it.

Final rating: 7/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: Oshaberi Shiyokka

Did you know? If it’s a fandisc we can do whatever we want. Really boring half-recap half-“comedy” short. It’s not funny and doesn’t serve to be a decent recap, and the animation is hella limited. A complete waste of time, really. We saw Kuroko in glasses though and tbh he was kinda cute so it wasn’t all terrible.

Final rating: 2/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: NG-Shuu

Generally I go into Blu-Ray shorts like these expecting to hate them and give them a 2 or 3 out of 10, but these ones were actually pretty good. They pretty much just take moments from the actual show (ergo they’re already well animated) and add in a joke or two, and some of them warranted a light smirk from me, and occasionally a full on chuckle. They’re still Blu-Ray shorts so it’s hit or miss, but even the worst ones were still decently entertaining.

Final rating: 6/10

Kuroko’s Basketball – Season 2

Largely the same praises I was able to give to season 1, with the added benefit of Kuroko and Kagami being better than ever, Kiyoshi actually becoming a full character, Aomine getting some brilliant development, and the improved visuals you can expect from any second season. This season introduces the idea of the zone which, while not a unique concept, is one that’s super fun and in the context of this series provided us with some wonderful sakuga. I was surprised at the pacing for this season. I didn’t think it was poorly paced but I thought it’d be a case of “play basketball against the remaining two members of the Generation of Miracles” and then season 3 would just be whatever, but instead we have another game against Midorima and Aomine, some miscellaneous games here and there, and then it’s all purple dude whose name is so fucking long that I can’t be bothered remembering it. And he’s definitely my least favourite of the members that we’ve played against up to this point. Akashi barely even appears and the only noteworthy thing he does is attempt actual murder, and while I’ve yet to see season 3 as of writing this section, leads me to believe that Akashi will be a bit too extreme for my liking in this already pretty extreme show. This isn’t really critique though, I just felt like mentioning that it wasn’t paced the way I expected to be, but that’s not a problem so hey. My boy Kise got fucking shafted to shit though, and that’s definitely my biggest problem with this season, but otherwise it’s still a really good and exciting basketball shounen show. Also there’s this one fight against these evil cunts that like cheat and shit and it was so fucking satisfying when Seirin won good god that was incredible.

Final rating: 8/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: Can we do that one more time

This little OVA was pretty cool! It’s effectively a complete look into Aomine’s backstory and history with Kuroko, and the additional context it provides is all really cool and appreciated, plus really good visuals and all that jazz. Honestly I think from this and season 2 Aomine is probably my second favourite character, still trapped behind Kise, but that might change based on the rest of the franchise I’ve yet to consume.

Final rating: 8/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: Oshaberi Demo Shimasen ka

I have to wonder just how well received the first of these was that they decided to make another one.

Final rating: 2/10

Kuroko’s Basketball – Season 2: NG-Shuu

Not really as funny as those of season 1, and if you asked me to explain why, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Final rating: 4/10

Kuroko’s Basketball – Season 3

Same praises as season 1 and season 2, if you couldn’t guess by this point. What a wonderfully consistent show. Quite a lot more backstories in this season, but I didn’t really mind at all. Akashi wasn’t quite as extreme as his attempted murder introduction in season 2 led me to believe, but I did like him, so I’ll just retroactively think that his introduction was weird and leave it at that. Also Kise was fucking brilliant in this season which kind of makes up for his nonexistence in season 2. I did have some problems early on though, ngl, mostly relating to the fake Kise dude whose name I forgot. First of all I think the reveal that there was another 5th member of the Generation of Miracles that only just got brought up now feels kinda contrived and throws a wrench in the various other backstory moments the show’s given us before. Secondly, I think it’s a plothole that this dude’s ability to pillage moves works on Kise. Because the gimmick is that when he copies your move, he does it slightly differently and that subconsciously fucks with your ability to do that move when you see it. I already think that’s on the stupider side of the fun shounen stuff we’ve had, but surely Kise could just copy the pillaged version of his pillaged moves, and there would literally be no problem for him? I thought of this the second pillaging was explained to us so I doubt Kise was so stupid that he couldn’t think of it. Now thankfully, Kise still wins this game in what is a very, very badass display, so it’s not like this plothole resulted in plot developments I hated, but I felt it was worth mention. Also after Aomine knocks the dude out in one punch (which was super fucking cool by the way) he kinda just, isn’t relevant again, and the developments don’t go anywhere. That’s what movie 4 is for though, so hey. None of these problems are anything I’d deduct points for, and this season is otherwise consistent with the first 2, though these problems kinda make me think season 3 is the weakest one. It’s still a good time though, and if you enjoyed seasons 1 and 2 then you’re gonna enjoy season 3. Kise still best boy.

Final rating: 8/10

Kuroko’s Basketball – It’s the Best Present

This was really good! Seasons 1 and 2 had some slice of life moments here and there that were kinda just okay, but this entirely slice of life OVA was a lot of fun. Maybe it’s because after 75 episodes I have actually gotten to know these characters so I’m more endeared to watching them play around a little for Kuroko’s birthday, but hey.

Final rating: 8/10

Kuroko’s Basketball: Oshaberi Shiyou ka

You know I can’t claim to understand the specifics of how these fan DVDs came into existence or how they were sold/distributed but I imagine if you were a really big fan of Kuroko’s Basketball and went out of your way to invest money into getting this fandisc and then you watched it you’d just be sad

Final rating: 2/10

Kuroko’s Basketball – Season 3: NG-Shuu

The one where Akashi reads the light novel actually made me chuckle but otherwise the biggest laugh I got was from the fansubs giving up on translating a pun in the last one and saying “insert pun I don’t know how to translate here”. Not as good as the other bloopers, and season 2’s bloopers were eh in the first place.

Final rating: 3/10

Kuroko’s Basketball Movie 1: Winter Cup – Shadow and Light

This was probably one of the weaker recap movies I’ve seen in my days. See my initial thoughts were that, because there are 3 recap movies and 3 seasons, and MAL lists each numeric recap movie as the summary for each numeric season, that this would recap all of the first 25 episodes, and I thought that cutting all of that content into one movie would suck. But I was kind of wrong, because this recap movie opts to show Kagami joining the basketball club, Seirin losing to Touou in the whatever competition, the meeting with Akashi where he attempts murder, and then like 50 straight minutes of the Seirin vs Touou game from season 2. They don’t show enough of the losing game for the revenge game to have a lot of impact, and Aomine’s presence as a threat is somewhat lost by extension. Plus of course all the plot cut out means the characters don’t have much character going on and the pacing feels off as hell. Maybe I’m not supposed to have an opinion on this individual movie, and I need to see all 3 to have an informed opinion of them as a collective where they’ll flow better and feel like they opted to only include what was truly necessary, but this movie still just felt totally unnecessary to me, even by recap movie standards. Also I didn’t deduct points for this or anything but why you gotta shaft my boy Kise like this again. It’s a hard life being a Kise fan.

Final rating: 5/10

Kuroko’s Basketball Movie 2: Winter Cup – Beyond the Tears

This movie recaps the Murasakibara game and the Kise game and it sure was nothing else. At least Kise’s back. Also is it weird that I like the ED song for this movie more than any of the ones used in the TV anime? Watching this makes me feel like I’m not cut out to appreciate recap movies, but then I know I’ve seen and enjoyed them before so like, it must be specific to this one, and the first one. And maybe the third one? I’mma go watch that and then you’ll read it a few lines from now with no break but I have meanwhile written this section, showered, watched the third movie for its I’m guessing 90 minute runtime, and then write a section on that one, all in significantly more time than it takes you to just, go 2 lines ahead from now.

Final rating: 5/10

Kuroko’s Basketball Movie 3: Winter Cup – Crossing the Door

I think the thing about recap movies is that in order to fit X amount of basic plot beats into a <2 hour run time we’ve gotta make major cuts to character arcs and everything not directly and immediately relevant to the base plot. Kuroko is a series where the plot is the basketball games so it’s not necessarily like massive cuts have had to be made to these recap movies compared to what you’d see for even a shorter series with more character drama and interpersonal conflicts, so it does mostly survive the cuts, but the product as a whole is significantly weaker, and since the plot that these movies choose to recap are some of the series’ most memorable moments anyway, I truly think these movies are pointless. But I mean I’ve seen worse recap movies so

Final rating: 5/10

Kuroko’s Basketball Movie 4: Last Game

After the really good season 3 and its really good OVA, I had to sit through the fandisc, and then the bloopers, and then I actually had to go back and watch the season 2 bloopers since my initial torrents were fucked (though I wrote both sections in such a way that you wouldn’t be able to tell oops), and then there were the 3 recap movies. I’ve just been wading through the least interesting parts of this franchise. But now, at long last, I watched the sequel movie. And it was pretty solid. It looks and sounds really good and the actual basketball game that occupies the majority of the movie’s run time is fun as hell to watch, and the ending scene of Kagami’s departure, while it didn’t make me cry or anything, was really well done. Plus, Kise got to get in the zone and do perfect copy at the same time! It was over all too quickly but god damn if my boy isn’t the single best basketball player in the universe. Akashi’s development in accepting both parts of himself was honestly super cool and I think the best possible conclusion for his arc, though the fact that it happened because his opponent’s ability was just his but better felt a little on the lazy side. I also felt like the opponents were perhaps a bit too antagonistic. I get that it’s the last film so they want something a bit higher stakes, and technically these guys aren’t even as extreme as the dishonest bastards we go against in season 2, but these dudes calling everyone fuckers and cocksuckers and telling them to kill themselves (maybe my subs were just weird – I know it was fansubs) as well as kicking Kuroko and straight up breaking Murasakibara’s arm still felt a tad much. In some sense of the word I think this movie can be described as a tad much – as fun as it is to watch it kind of feels like an excuse to see the Generation of Miracles + Kagami and Kuroko play against a team that they can’t secure an easy win against. It was still a fun watch and I did enjoy it, but the feeling that this movie wasn’t a necessary sequel never disappeared. Though to be fair the show didn’t exactly have like, a proper ending, so it’s not like this sequel ruins anything by existing. And again, it’s still a super fun watch. Honestly the best way of describing this movie would be something like “not exactly a necessary sequel but a good one you should still watch”. It’s not as good as any of the 3 seasons, and not that I’ll change my score from this but the fact that the fake Kise fuck from season 3 isn’t in this at all really makes his inclusion in season 3 feel totally superfluous aside from showing off Kise’s perfect copy for the first time even though doing that against Seirin as its first use would have worked just as well but that’s not directly related to this movie as much as it is me thinking season 3 is the weakest of the 3 seasons.  So yeah, movie’s good, not as good as the three seasons, still good though, not exactly necessary but still worth watching, and if you’ve already seen the first 3 seasons anyway then there’s literally no reason not to watch this as well.

Final rating: 7/10

Kuroko’s Basketball Movie 4: Last Game: NG-Shuu

I downloaded these fansubbed off of fucking Facebook because it was the only place I could find a download and I needed one since I’d be watching all of this franchise mostly without internet since I needed it done before Tuesday the 23rd of July since that’s when I would be back in school and I had to finish it all before that because I promised the friend. Anyway it turns out the subtitles were in like, Hungarian or something. I don’t know, not a language I understand. So this review will be like, partially a guessing game. Thankfully, the two shorts were easy enough to understand. The first one because the joke was Kise and Aomine having garbage English, which I understood perfectly and found genuinely funny. The second joke was Riko’s dad genuinely forcing the enemy basketball team to paddle back to America by raft, which was less funny. I didn’t need to read Hungarian or understand Japanese to get the first bit and find it funny, and I didn’t need to read Hungarian or understand Japanese to get the second bit and find it kinda unfunny.

Final rating: 5/10

Kuroko’s Basketball April Fools Day

Genuinely surprised by their commitment to selling this joke. These dumb birds were fully animated fam. The only reason I’m even rating this by the way is because it has an entry on MAL, and every blue moon I like completing franchises on MAL since it looks good as shit on MAL graph.

Final rating: 5/10

Overall thoughts

I honestly really liked this show! My experience with sports anime is extremely limited so going into this, I had no idea what to expect. My friend said it resonated with him more than any other piece of media and he picked up basketball because of it, and despite the fact that he’s only ever recommended me one thing, I do generally trust his judgement. But I’m also occasionally jaded and cynical and end up hating things that other people love, finding a lot more faults than they themselves did. Because of this, I was kinda worried that I would go into it and end up hating it, and I’d probably feel bad if that were the case since my friend loved it so much. Thankfully, I didn’t need to worry about that. I can’t give any more praise than I’ve already given, this show’s wonderful fun and I’ll probably check out more sports shows in the future – if they’re even half as good as this I’ll enjoy myself.

To get into some issues I had throughout real quick, I felt like the female characters were kinda shit. The only three female characters are Riko, Momoi and Alex, and Riko’s the only one with a shred of development, namely she’s sad that people hate her cooking and happy when they eat it anyway. I’m not trying to imply that this show is like, misogynistic or anything, there are plenty of underdeveloped male characters too, I just felt that, with at least the first 2 of these females being really prominent, they could have used a bit more development. I mean Momoi gets so much screentime but if she’s Aomine’s “second” in the same way Takao is to Midorima, you’d think she’d get at least as much development as Takao, but nah. I mean why does she crush so hard on Tetsu? Who knows. Not the biggest issue, and the average cast member is great anyway, but still, this bugged me.

I also found myself growing to dislike the zone. It’s cool at first, the concept of the state of flow one enters when they’re solely focused on one thing isn’t a distant idea for any of us in the real world, so turning it into this almost transformation in this sports anime is a really good idea and I think it’s easy to relate to. But it kinda just pops up on Aomine with little (not no, but little) foreshadowing, and then Kagami drops it as well. Next game with Seirin, they drop it against Murasakibara, who pulls it off too, and then after Kaijo, they drop zone on Akashi, but so does he, so they go zone to the power of zone. And then comes the movie and Kagami and Aomine spend most of the game in zone, and Kise ends up dropping it, and zone just loses a lot of impact at this point. It’s still a cool idea and leads to awesome sakuga and other hype moments, but it stops feeling earned and just becomes that thing we’re doing in every game because it’s easy. Though that being said it’s a real fucking shame that Midorima never got to use it – I get that he’s arguably the most perfect at what he does of the Generation or Miracles but still if you’re a big fan of the dude it’s gotta suck to see him get shafted compared to everyone else like that – even Kuroko kinda gets to zone at one point when Kagami goes team zone against Akashi. But yeah, zone, initially cool and does always lead to cool moments, but starts feeling a bit lazy and like the concept gets overused.

Honestly, those two are probably my only noteworthy gripes with the franchise at large. By which I mean the three seasons, four OVAs and fourth movie, because everything else is easily ignored. Other than that it’s a really good time all around. If you’re into sports anime you’ve probably checked this out already, but if not, get on it. If you’ve not got experience with sports anime then definitely give this a go, it was my first proper sports anime too and I really liked it. If you dislike sports anime, then uh, not much I can say. You just keep on keeping on, I guess. Why are you still reading this…?