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The premiere of the Kuroko’s Basketball stage play is still a few months away, but the producers are giving fans of sports anime and/or dreamy boys a sneak peek with the first in-costume cast photo.

The 2016 NBA regular season ends on April 13. But even if your favorite real-life team doesn’t make the playoffs, there’s still some anime basketball to look forward to, with the Kuroko’s Basketball live-action stage play that’s coming to Tokyo this spring.

Based on the manga/anime franchise created by Tadatoshi Fujimaki, the Kuroko’s Basketball-The Encounter production seems to start at the beginning of the story, with high school freshman Tetsuya Kuroko joining the Seirin High basketball team with the aim of taking on his highly skilled former teammates, who are all now attending different schools and playing for different teams. The play’s producers have just released a teaser photo of its three stars in costume.

▼ From left to right: Daiki Aomine (played by Shota Onuma), Tetsuya Kuroko (Kenshou Ono), and Taiga Kagami (Yuya Asaro)

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While all three characters are supposed to be in their first year of high school, making them 15 or 16 years old under the Japanese education system, the actors portraying the trio range in age from 26 to 28.

▼ The characters’ anime versions

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In the series, Kuroko is specifically out to prove himself against five former teammates who are known as “The Generation of Miracles,” one of whom is Aomine. Also included in the play’s cast list are fellow Generation of Miracles members Ryota Kise (played by Mario Kuroba) and Shintaro Midori (Ryo Hatakeyama), although the remaining two, Atsushi Murasakibara and Seijuro Akashi, are currently unaccounted for.

Still, it doesn’t look like Kuroko’s Basketball-The Encounter is a bare-bones production. So far, actors have been announced for 21 characters representing four different schools, so while the play may not be covering the entire Kuroko’s Basketball story from start to finish, the audience will get to see a good chunk of Kuroko’s sporting ambitions play out on stage.

Kuroko’s Basketball-The Encounter is scheduled to run from April 8 to 24 at the Sunshine Theater in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro neighborhood, just a stone’s (or basketball’s) throw away from some of the finest fujoshi-oriented shopping in Japan, which is sure to please the franchise’s passionate female fanbase. Tickets are priced at 7,800 yen (US$65).

Related: Kuroko’s Basketball-The Encounter official website, Sunshine Theater
Source: Comic Natalie via Jin
Top image: Kuroko’s Basketball-The Encounter official website
Insert images: Comic Natalie, Kuroko’s Basketball anime official website (1, 2, 3) (edited by RocketNews24)