The game of basketball has been played professionally and recreationally for over 125 years, all over the world. Yet, the game has experienced several setbacks in Japan during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The game fell out of favor with the people of Japan and became an increasingly unpopular street game. While it was slowly falling out of favor Takehiko Inoue became a fan of the sport and decided to create a manga about it. As basketball hit its lowest point in Japan, Slam Dunk was published, which led to the rival of the sport in Japan.
The Story:
The anime centers around Hanamichi Sakuragi a delinquent gang leader who has been rejected 50 times by girls. In his first year at Shohoku High School he meets Haruko Akagi a girl who is not scared of him, rather she recognizes his athletic abilities and introduces him to the Shohoku Basketball team. Sakuragi at first is hesitant to join as he has no experience playing any sports, but views it as an opportunity to impress Haruko. As a result, he proves that he is a natural athlete and despite having none of the basics he can hold his own against the captain of the basketball team in a one on one match. Thus, the captain chooses to allow Sakuragi to join the team by forcing him to practice the basics while the rest of the team does normal practices. While Sakuragi is forced to learn the basics, he develops a rivalry with fellow player Rukawa due to his basketball skills and the fact that Haruko has a crush on him. This only makes Sakuragi want to improve and master the different techniques of basketball so that he can impress Haruko and defeat his rival Rukawa. While he is mastering these techniques 2 former players return to the Shohoku Basketball team; point guard Ryota Miyagi and a skilled three-point shooter, Hisashi Mitsui. These 2 help to elevate the Shohoku basketball team to have an opportunity at making it to nationals, with their wildcard player Sakuragi becoming the ace up their sleeve. All throughout the several games that Shohoku plays, as they make their way to nationals, we begin to see how the once amateur Sakuragi has become a professional basketball player in only 3 months. During this process we begin to see how his crush for Haruko has led him to find love for the game of basketball as Shohoku sets out to become national champions.
Significance:
Basketball in Japan was rapidly losing viewership throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s, before Slam Dunk was ever published. In fact, the sport was only able to be seen by people playing it on the street, in what has been called street ball. Slam Dunk, when published as a manga and anime, changed this as it captured the true nature of how exciting and competitive the sport could be to play. This revived the sport as it made basketball appealing enough for people to want to play and watch basketball, leading to teams being formed all over Japan. Furthermore, Slam Dunk is considered to be one of the first sports anime/mangas that had received major commercial success as it has sold over 121 million manga books to this day. Due to this success and its profitability the formula it had developed has been wildly copied by many different current day sports anime/manga to include similar plots, characters, obstacles, and pacing. This has led to some of the most profitable show currently available. Without Slam Dunk the sports genre, in both story and money, would not be where it currently is in creating some of the best anime/manga stories out there.
Insightful look at basketball in Anime.