Kuroko’s Basketball – 50

Told you I’d have the last episode of the season for you today, and here it is: Kuroko’s Basketball – 50 on Blu-Ray! Kagami’s in the Zone but Murasakibara has the added power of tying his hair back now, so you know he means business, lol.

This episode features a load of what we call amongst ourselves at Saizen “insert” songs. These are songs that get inserted into the episode itself. They are usually the OP/ED themes and sometimes they have slightly different lyrics from the Opening or Ending theme version. As there is no standard OP/ED theme in this episode, we have 4 of these insert songs in this one, which is quite a lot. The first and last one is the second OP theme from Season 2, Hengenjizai no Magical Star. The second insert song in the episode is a modified version of the first OP theme in Season 2, The Other Self.  The majority of the lyrics in this insert are different from the OP theme version that was featured through the first half of the season and were included in the longer retail version of the song that was released. Both themes were performed by the group Gran Rodeo. The third insert song in the episode is the second ED theme in Season 2, FANTASTIC TUNE, which is performed by Kensho Ono, the guy who voices Kuroko throughout the series.

Anyway, you may be wondering why I’m including all this information in this release post. It’s really rather simple. We know some people absolutely hate having these songs karaoked in the episode, and as these four songs make up a lot of the episode, we decided to include two different subtitle tracks for people. The main default track includes all the regular typesetting, a title screen that overlays the show’s title screen at around the 2:10 mark, and karaokes for all the insert songs in the episode. The secondary track is for all you people who hate insert karaokes. It does include the regular typesetting, but it has the title screen and all the insert songs removed from it.

Okay, so that’s it on the episode itself. Now onto some housekeeping as to what my plans are for Kuroko currently. First off, there is obviously the discussion of a batch for Season 2. We still have three volumes of bloopers to do, so I have to get to translating, timing, and typesetting those before I can get them out to you. After those are done, we can talk batch. I’m sort of curious as to how people feel. I can easily make a quick batch just to group all the episodes and bloopers volumes into one package for you pretty quickly. There won’t be any modification in this instance, but it’ll make things simple for people. Then, I can work on whatever small changes here and there to fix small issues in the episodes and release a final batch later (there would be no timetable as to when this would get released and I could take as much time as I wanted on it then). The other option is to forego the quick batch and just wait for me to make one at a later time once I’ve gone through the entire season again, making all the changes I found necessary. This one as well would have no timetable and would probably take me a few months to complete. Let me know what you think.

All right, the next topic is Season 3. Yay, Season 3! I’m happy to say that we do have the first 2 volumes of Season 3 currently in our possession and I have completed an initial script for the first episode of the season. We’re just waiting on the k-timing, karas, and typesetting to get done on it before QC and then on to you. I have no idea as to when this will all be completed currently, but it is getting worked on. You may have noticed that I said we have “the first 2 volumes,” so you probably know where I’m going with this. We still need to get our hands on Volumes 3-9, so if you see them out there, please let us know, as we would love to have them on hand. I have a sneaking suspicion that they may show up after we start releasing episodes though. That’s what’s happened the last two seasons (Thanks, Chinese pirates ^^;). Regardless, if you come across the BDMV’s for Season 3, please let us know.

The last thing I want to share with you is my opinion on the subs that are currently available out there for Season 3. One is by Daisuki (I think that’s the one Horrible Subs uses) and the other is by Crunchyroll (I think herkz made a batch of them available on Nyaa). Unfortunately, they both have their issues. The Daisuki/Horrible ones are filled with a lot of oddly phrased lines that may leave you scratching your head. I think these are the ones people feel are horrible (excuse the shitty Izuki-like pun). The ones from Crunchyroll on the other hand do flow a lot better in general (not as well as they did the first 2 seasons though. just in comparison to the Daisuki version). What I did find though is that Crunchyroll version suffered from more straight-up translation errors than the Daisuki version when I was going through the first script. So it’s a case of “Strange English/Better Translation” (Daisuki) versus “Better English/More Translation Errors” (Crunchyroll). Neither are ideal and my entirely unbiased opinion believes ours are going to far better than both, but if you can’t wait to watch Season 3, I thought I’d give you my opinion on the two versions that are out there available to you right now so you could make the best decision for yourselves moving forward.

Wow, that went on longer than I thought it would. Oh well. Enjoy the last episode of Season 2 and I’ll see you when I see you!