Ro-Kyu-Bu!/Awesome

Don't let the Moe Moe aesthetic fool you. True to form as the Distaff Counterpart Spiritual Successor to Slam Dunk, Ro-Kyu-Bu! definitely has its share of awesome moments as a sports series.

Ro-Kyu-Bu!

• Subaru making 10 free throws in a row in the arcade. While not as impressive as it sounds, keep in mind that he has been out of basketball since his own high school team disbanded.
• Tomoka taking on boys her age all by herself during gym class, inspiring Maho take up basketball and form the Keishin girls' team.
• Tomoka challenges Subaru one-on-one in their first ever practice session together on the condition that he continues coaching her team if she wins. He wiped the floor with her without even jumping to block. To be fair, he did place a handicap on himself not to jump and she did not take any jump shots either.
  • However, when Subaru learned of Tomoka's back story, he was so moved by her dream to play basketball with her newfound friends even if she has to quit otherwise that it got him back to basketball and he decides to stay on anyway to protect it.
• The Boys vs Girls match is arguably the first Crowning Moment of Awesome in the series. Without the game ending up like it did, the story would have ended then and there.
  • With a bit of trickery, he had Airi feast on the boys' non-existent frontline to draw double teams on her, freeing up either Maho or Saki for an open jump shot. If that fails, it's down to Tomoka going one-on-one on Natsuhi, and if that fails, Hinata's Innocent Charm should do the job.
  • With the game and her team on the line in the final minutes, Tomoka once again takes on the boys by herself. But when they triple-teamed her on the last play, it was Maho of all people who won the game for the team at the buzzer!
  • It was stated by Mihoshi that Subaru managed to take his weak middle school team to the regional final the previous year. He then trained a bunch of cute little girls, most of whom know nothing about basketball at all, to beat the boys team which was all but stated to be the defending regional champions. A bunch of cute little girls defeated the best boys' basketball team in their region!
• Tomoka taking on Mihoshi's challenge to make 50 free throws in a row so that Subaru can keep coaching her team, and with massive persistence, eventually pulling it off in the rain! Shiny Gift, indeed!
• In Episode 8, with Subaru on the line Airi managed to block Aoi's potential game-winning shot, and lands on her boobs.
• The practice match between Keishin and Suzuridani at the latter's training camp.
  • Saki proving to be an effective Point Guard, allowing Tomoka to focus more on scoring. She may have failed to win the game for her team in the end, but it was thanks to her and Subaru's strategy that Keishin managed to hold their own against the best girls' basketball team in the region, and as revealed later on in the Light Novels, in the entire country!
  • Manaka calling out Miyu for constantly underestimating Keishin despite getting stomped by Tomoka and Maho.

-> "Keishin is strong. If you have no intention of taking them seriously, go home."

Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS

• The first of many duels between Tomoka and Mimi. The French girl showed off skills beyond most elementary schoolgirls, but Tomoka's experience won her the day.
• Masami threatens to upload to the Internet a rather suggestive picture of Saki and Subaru at the firing range during the festival. Saki basically tells her to Bring It, to which Masami responds by caving in and deleting the picture.
• With the fifth graders' collective asses getting kicked, Subaru's father Ginga takes over as coach and cooks up a strategy where they take turns shooting the ball and persuaded them to stick through it far smoother than Subaru ever did with the sixth graders. This allowed the fifth graders to compete so well for a hastily-formed team, but Tomoka and the gang held their ground to win the dojo match in the end.
  • When you realize how badass Ginga was both as a player and as a coach and Subaru had to get his own skills somewhere, you now know where the awesome comes from.
• Subaru's Heroic Rematch with Ryuichi and his gang.
  • After at least a night of bonding with Tomoka, they are now in perfect sync with each other, allowing her to successfully receive his backdoor pass she couldn't before.
  • Airi finding the strength to finally defeat the center player in Ryuichi's gang, with words of encouragement from Banri.
  • Subaru spamming his newly-mastered scoop shot to finally defeat Ryuichi one-on-one.
• While the ForM exhibition tournament isn't as great as the regional tournament later on, it also has a good amount of awesome on its own.
  • The two Keishin teams and Suzuridani's B-team easily making it to the semifinal is a true testament to the strength of both schools.
  • The Keishin fifth graders run-and-gun strategy courtesy of Aoi and taken straight out of Mike D'Antoni's "Seven Seconds or Less" playbook with the Phoenix Suns. This allows them to set up their offense before the defense could react, and cruise to a halftime lead against the sixth graders.
  • Subaru countered the above by reducing their offensive rotations to only three players and have the Saki and Airi duo focus on defense. He has Airi roam around the free throw line to deter penetrations from Mimi and TsubaHii, forcing them to pass to Masami, who will always attempt a long-range jumpshot. Saki then proceeds to slowly take Masami farther and farther out of her shooting range. Masami then responds by making a long range shot from near the half court line.
  • Tomoka wins the semifinal game with her own version of the scoop shot, complete with angel wings sprouting out of her back.
• THE Heroic Rematch against the Opposing Sports Team in the first round of the regional tournament.
  • Airi and Hinata managing to outplay their respective matchups who gave them a hard time before as Tomoka leads the charge to give Keishin the lead in the first quarter.
  • Masami guarding Rena despite the gap in their abilities in order to figure out her playstyle, leaving it to TsubaHii's Twin Hell to completely contain Rena in the second quarter. She's not even done yet, as she throws this potshot to Rena before firing a long-range shot over her: "Take this, Rena Ashihara, and choke on it!"
  • Aya calling Rena out for her hero ball antics, capping it off with an epic Armor-Piercing Question: "Do you want our team to win because of you, or do you want our team to lose because of you?"

Miscellanous and Meta

• Hinata's Character Development is definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome in itself. To wit:
  • She made the game-winning shot against the boys' team, this time in the inter-class tournament.
  • The BOSS HAND reverse shot against Suzuridani in their practice match, which she does again in their official match.
  • In SS, she managed to curb-stomp an opponent who was giving her a hard time before.
• While Ro-Kyu-Bu! certainly did not influence the rise of Japanese basketball the way Slam Dunk did in the 1990s or the way Kuroko no Basuke did in the 2010s, it may not be a mere coincidence that the Japanese women's national basketball team managed to win the Asian championship four times in a row since the anime series aired in 2011. Special mentions go to their incredible championship runs in 2017 (with no less than their B-team) and in 2019 (with their returning veterans) under American coach Tom Hovasse as their own Subaru.

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