fighting game J-Stars Victory VS. Stage plays A series of 2.5D musical stage plays began in 2016. Kensho Ono reprised his role as Kuroko from the anime series. Additions to the main cast included Yuuya Asato as Taiga and Shota Onume as Aomine. The plays were directed by Norihito Nakayashiki, who also directed Hyper Projection Engeki Haikyu!!. Reception The Kuroko's Basketball manga series sold nine million units in Japan by September 2012. In May 2013, the manga has over one million copies of volume 1 in print. As of 2013, the manga had over 23 million copies in circulation, a number that grew to 27 million by April 2014. As of November 2020, the series has over 31 million copies in circulation. Individual volumes frequently appeared on Oricon's weekly lists of the best-selling manga in Japan, and many of them were some of the best-selling manga in the year 2012. Kuroko's Basketball was the third best-selling manga series of 2013, with 8,761,081 copies sold in a year. In between 2013 and 2014, it became the 3rd best-selling manga from Shueisha. It was the 7th best-selling manga from Shueisha in between 2014 and 2015. The Kuroko's Basketball light novel series was also sold in Japan in 2014. The first light novel Replace was ranked the 9th best-selling light novel series, while the volume ranked 6th with 215,859 copies sold. DVD sales of the anime series have also been featured on Oricon's weekly Japanese anime DVD rankings various times. Kuroko's Basketball is often compared to Weekly Shōnen Jumps earlier basketball-themed manga Slam Dunk. However, Azusa Takahashi of Real Sound pointed out whereas Slam Dunk was very realistic, the newer series is more focused on entertainment and is strongly based in fiction with each character having a "special move." The anime series was awarded the 2013 Tokyo Anime Award in the Television Category. Controversies After the anime began airing in 2012, the series became popular with dōjinshi circles, particularly for yaoi dōjinshi, though there is no yaoi in the series itself. Several events at which dōjinshi of the series were to be sold, as well as several other locations linked to the series and the author Tadatoshi Fujimaki, including a television station airing the anime, a convenience store chain selling items of the series, and Fujimaki's alma mater Sophia University, received threatening letters containing a powder or liquid substance. It is still unknown