Useless Effort (ムダな努力だ, Mudana Doryokuda) is the thirty-ninth episode and the forteenth episode of the 2nd season of the Kuroko no Basuke anime.
Synopsis[]
Ignite Pass Kai passes Aomine
Seirin gets their first points through Kuroko's new improved version of Ignite Pass, powerful that it even goes past Aomine's hand, followed by Kiyoshi's Right of Postponement to provide a lob for Kagami to slam. As Tōō gets more points and are not affected by the Ignite Pass Kai, Hyūga volunteers to start his attack on the outside. This initiated a 3-pointer shootout between Hyūga and Sakurai. The last 5 seconds of the first quarter finishes with Kuroko doing a Vanishing Drive through Susa, then passes to Hyūga to tie the game at 22 apiece. Tōō, by then, expected how the Vanishing Drive works.
Aomine stops the Vanishing Drive
At the start of the second quarter, Kuroko attempts to break past Aomine with Vanishing Drive, but Aomine closes his eyes and relies on his past relationship with Kuroko to quickly stop Kuroko from passing him. Kuroko tries another Ignite Pass Kai through Aomine, but the latter stops it with one hand. Upon seeing this bad situation, Kuroko gets subbed out. How will Kagami show Kuroko that there is no such thing as "useless effort"?
Characters in order of appearance[]
- Shun Izuki
- Ryō Sakurai
- Junpei Hyūga
- Daiki Aomine
- Taiga Kagami
- Tetsuya Kuroko
- Shoichi Imayoshi
- Teppei Kiyoshi
- Riko Aida
- Shinji Koganei
- Rinnosuke Mitobe
- Satoshi Tsuchida
- Kōki Furihata
- Kōsuke Wakamatsu
- Kōichi Kawahara
- Ryōta Kise
- Atsushi Murasakibara
- Tatsuya Himuro
- Kazunari Takao
- Shintarō Midorima
- Seijūrō Akashi
- Hiroshi Fukuda
- Yoshinori Susa
- Kagetora Aida
- Kōji Kobori
- Yukio Kasamatsu
- Yoshitaka Moriyama
- Satsuki Momoi
- Katsunori Harasawa
- Masaaki Nakatani
- Taisuke Ōtsubo
- Kiyoshi Miyaji
- Shinsuke Kimura