Slam Dunk (stylized as SLAM DUNK) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue. It tells the story of a basketball team from Shōhoku High School in the Shōnan area of Japan. It was serialized in Shueisha’s shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1990 to June 1996, with the chapters collected into 31 tankōbon volumes.The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation which aired from October 1993 to March 1996 and has been broadcast worldwide, enjoying much popularity particularly in Japan, several other Asian countries and Europe. (Source from Wikipedia)
Takehiko Inoue (井上雄彦, Inoue Takehiko) born on 12 January, 1967 in Okuchi, Kagoshima, is a Japanese manga artist, best known for the basketball manga Slam Dunk, which has become a success both in Japan and overseas.
Many of his works are about basketball, Inoue himself being a huge fan of the sport, and many Japanese children started to play basketball because they read the manga. This in turn helped make basketball popular in Japan and across East Asia. Inoue has been drawing manga mainly in male-oriented magazines. His name is ordered as Takehiko Inoue on his books sold in North America through Viz Media (Vagabond, Slam Dunk, and Real), although Gutsoon! Entertainment’s earlier Slam Dunk translations in North America used Inoue Takehiko.
STORY OF SLAM DUNK
Hanamichi Sakuragi is a delinquent and the leader of a gang. Sakuragi is very unpopular with girls, having been rejected an astonishing fifty times. In his first year at Shohoku High School, he meets Haruko Akagi, the girl of his dreams, and is overjoyed when she is not repulsed or scared of him like all the other girls he has asked out.
Haruko, recognizing Sakuragi’s athleticism, introduces him to the Shohoku basketball team. Sakuragi is reluctant to join the team at first, as he has no prior experience in sports and thinks that basketball is a game for losers because his fiftieth rejection was in favor of a basketball player. Sakuragi, despite his extreme immaturity and fiery temper, proves to be a natural athlete and joins the team, mainly in the hopes of impressing and getting closer to Haruko. Later on, Sakuragi realizes that he has come to actually love the sport, despite having previously played primarily because of his crush on Haruko. Kaede Rukawa—Sakuragi’s bitter rival (both in basketball and because Haruko has a massive crush, albeit one-sided, on Rukawa), the star rookie and a “girl magnet”—joins the team at the same time. Not long after, Hisashi Mitsui, a skilled three-point shooter and ex–junior high school MVP, and Ryota Miyagi, a short but fast point guard, both rejoin the team and together these four struggle to fulfill team captain Takenori Akagi’s dream of winning the national championship. Together, these misfits gain publicity and the once little-known Shohoku basketball team becomes an all-star contender in Japan who gained a popularity after defeating one of the powerhouse highschool teams at Interhigh.
MANGA COMIC SERIES
Written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue, the series was originally published in Shueisha’s shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1, 1990 to June 17, 1996. The 276 individual chapters were originally collected in 31 tankōbon volumes under Shueisha’s Jump Comics imprint, with the first being published on February 8, 1991 and the final volume on October 3, 1996. It was later reassembled into 24 kanzenban volumes under the Jump Comics Deluxe imprint from March 19, 2001 to February 2, 2002. A 20 volume shinsōban edition was published between June 1, 2018 and September 1, 2018.
In North America, an English version of Slam Dunk was published by the now-defunct Gutsoon! Entertainment, which serialized the title in their manga anthology Raijin Comics from 2002 to 2004. Five collected volumes were published under Gutsoon’s Raijin Graphic Novels imprint. They were released from July 2, 2003 until May 5, 2004. After Gutsoon! went out of business, the license for Slam Dunk was purchased by Viz Media, which published a preview of the series in the December 2007 issue of the North American edition of Shonen Jump. Slam Dunk began serialization in the magazine, starting with the May 2008 issue, as well as in tankōbon format with the first being published on September 2, 2008. As of December 3, 2013, Viz has published all 31 volumes of their translated edition.
Anime Series
An anime series, consisting of 101 episodes, was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Nobutaka Nishizawa. It was first broadcast on TV Asahi from October 16, 1993 to March 23, 1996. It was later aired on the satellite television network, Animax, in addition to four animated movies produced. The anime followed the manga storyline, but left out the National Tournament games. Toei compiled the episodes into a series of seventeen DVDs which were released in Japan from December 10, 2004 to May 21, 2005. Toei once again collected the series in three DVD boxes during 2008. All the three boxes have a total of seventeen discs. To celebrate 20 years since its broadcast, the anime was released on Blu-ray format.
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