Slam Dunk (manga)

AUTHOR: Inoue, Takehiko

ARTIST: Takehiko Inoue (illustrator); James Gaubatz (letterer); Sean Lee (cover artist)

PUBLISHER: Shueisha (Japanese); Gutsoon! Entertainment (English); VIZ Media (English)

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION:Suramu danku, 1990-1996 (English translation, 2002-2004)

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1991-1996 (partial English translation, 2003-2004)

Publication History

Slam Dunk debuted in 1990 in Weekly Shonen Jump and ran for 276 chapters until 1996. Shueisha, via Jump Comics, collected and published chapters in thirty-one paperbound tankobon volumes between 1991 and 1996. Shueisha reprinted Slam Dunk between 2001 and 2002 in twenty-four kanzenban volumes for its large-format Jump Comics Deluxe line.

Between 2002 and 2004, Gutsoon! Entertainment published an English-language version of Slam Dunk in a monthly manga anthology, Raijin Comics. Gutsoon, via Raijin Graphic Novels, published five collected volumes of the series in 2003-2004 before the company went bankrupt. Afterward, VIZ Media acquired licensing rights for Slam Dunk and began serializing the manga in English in the monthly North American edition of Shonen Jump in early 2008. Later that year, VIZ released the first volume of the collected series, featuring English adaptations by Kelly Sue DeConnick, translations by Joe Yamazaki, touch-up art and lettering by James Gaubatz, and covers and graphic design by Sean Lee.

Plot

A Japanese-style Hoop Dreams (1994), Slam Dunk presents the high school experience in all its joy and humiliation. A saga of teen angst, complete with peer pressure, individual rivalries, and the bloom of romance, the semiautobiographical series centers on the unifying power of sport. Specifically, it deals with the game of basketball, which serves as a metaphor for the trials of youth and the process of growing up.

The viewpoint character of Slam Dunk is Hanamichi Sakuragi, a gangling, redheaded bad boy. A gang leader, Sakuragi is often shunned by girls in junior high school and is desperate to have a girlfriend. On his first day at Shohoku High School, he meets pretty Haruko Akagi, younger sister of Takenori, the star of the school’s basketball team. Smitten, Sakuragi joins the team, hoping to win Haruko’s affections (though she has eyes for another player, the talented, enigmatic Kaede Rukawa) and ends up enjoying the competition and camaraderie of team play on its own merits. Along the way, the athletic but undisciplined Sakuragi must learn not only the rudiments of his new sport but also to sacrifice his innate egotism in order to play as part of an effective unit.

Slam Dunk covers a season of play as the Shohoku team coalesces from a motley, sometimes immature group of individuals to a smooth-running team capable of great feats. The ultimate goal is to improve on a game-by-game basis in order to qualify for play in the national tournament. For that to happen, Sakuragi and his teammates have to accomplish a difficult task: set aside personal differences for the sake of a common cause.

Volumes

This list reflects VIZ Media’s publication of the series, which began in 2008 and is ongoing.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 1(2008). Collects chapters 1-9. Sakuragi endures numerous rejections from junior high school girls before entering Shohoku High School, where love interest Haruko Akagi suggests he try out for basketball.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 2 (2009). Collects chapters 10-18. Sakuragi begins learning basketball fundamentals and resists an offer to become a member of the school judo team.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 3 (2009). Collects chapters 19-26. Sakuragi learns to shoot a simple layup and how to rebound.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 4 (2009). Collects chapters 27-35. Sakuragi chafes to play in an exhibition game against rival Ryonan.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 5 (2009). Collects chapters 36-44. Though inexperienced, Sakuragi shows flashes of brilliance during an exhibition game.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 6 (2009). Collects chapters 45-53. Shohoku loses a game by one point, despite heroics from rapidly improving Sakuragi.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 7 (2009). Collects chapters 54-62. Sakuragi and Myagi become friends after confessing their bad luck with girls. The team has a run-in at the school gym with Mitsui’s punk gang.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 8 (2010). Collects chapters 63-71. The fight between the street punks and the basketball team escalates until everybody is bloodied.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 9 (2010). Collects chapters 72-80. The fight results in suspensions. Shohoku advances to the tournament quarterfinals.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 10 (2010). Collects chapters 81-89. Shohoku is bracketed against powerhouse Shoyo. Sakuragi begins to dominate in rebounding.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 11 (2010). Collects chapters 90-98. Sakuragi inspires the team to the Final Four against perennial nationals qualifier Kainan.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 12 (2010). Collects chapters 99-107. Shohoku goes against formidable Kainan. Meanwhile, Ryonan’s Sendoh leads his team against Takezato.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 13 (2010). Collects chapters 108-116. Sakuragi helps rally Shohoku, to a tie game.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 14 (2011). Collects chapters 117-125. The game against Kainan is still in doubt, as Shohoku trails with just two minutes left.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 15 (2011). Collects chapters 126-134. Shohoku loses but can still advance. Sakuragi gets a buzz cut because he feels he lost the game for his team.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 16 (2011). Collects chapters 135-143. Sakuragi learns to shoot. Shohoku beats Takezato as Ryonan and Kainan face off.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 17 (2011). Collects chapters 144-152. Kainan defeats Ryonan, despite Sendoh’s heroics, to qualify for the nationals. Shohoku begins play against Ryonan.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 18 (2011). Collects chapters 153-161. Shohoku and Ryonan’s rivalry continues. Sakuragi is injured, though his team leads by halftime.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 19 (2011). Collects chapters 162-170. In a back-and-forth game, Shohoku takes a significant lead with just eight minutes left.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 20 (2012). Collects chapters 171-179. Shohoku extends its lead against Ryonan, but Sendoh’s deadly shooting and outstanding defense cut the deficit with two minutes left.

• Slam Dunk, Volume 21 (2012). Collects chapters 180-188). Mitsui collapses from exhaustion. With key blocks from Sakuragi and Akagi, Shohoku wins by four points.

Characters

• Hanamichi Sakuragi is the hot-tempered main character of the series. Tall, red-haired, arrogant yet sensitive, he is smitten with classmate Haruko Akagi. He takes up basketball hoping to impress her and proves to be a natural athlete.

• Haruko Akugi is a pretty freshman and the sister of Takenori Akagi, who admires basketball player Kaede Rukawa.

• Takenori Akagi, Haruko’s brother, is a third-year player at Shohoku, nicknamed “the Gorilla.” Tall and powerful, he is the star, the center, and the captain of the basketball team.

• Kaede Rukawa, an outstanding basketball player since junior high, is a new member of the Shohoku basketball team. A strong, silent power forward, he is shaggy-haired and attractive to girls.

• Ayako is the pert, tomboyish manager of the basketball team, who usually wears a baseball cap turned backward for team practices.

• YukiOhkusu,YoheiMito, Nozomi Takamiya,and Chuichiro Noma are members of Sakuragi’s gang.

• Coach Anzai is the team coach. An older, fat man who wears glasses, he is nicknamed “the White-Haired Buddha.” He once played on the Japanese national basketball team.

• Kiminobu Kogure, a member of the basketball team, is a small forward that wears glasses and is nicknamed “Four-Eyes.”

• Tatsuhiko Aota, captain of the Shohoku judo team, tries to recruit Sakuragi.

• Sendoh Hikoichi, a skilled but modest rival basketball player from Ryonan, recognizes Sakuragi’s raw talent.

• Ryota Miyagi, a quick, earring-wearing sophomore guard, sustains a knee injury before returning to the team. He is fond of Ayako.

• Hisashi Mitsui, a long-haired punk, once a junior high most valuable player and former member of the basketball team, returns to play for Shohoku.

Artistic Style

Inoue’s predominant style in Slam Dunk is realistic line art, enhanced with cross-hatching and shading to produce lifelike, easily readable renderings of individual characters. The illustrator’s strengths are particularly evident in action scenes of basketball games, where full pages or panels take on the quality of snapshots from a sports magazine, freezing the heroic, samurai-like players in midshot. Such scenes are highly detailed, showing sweat on players’ foreheads and looks of determination in players’ eyes. Sound effects, such as the squeak of rubber soles on hardwood, the thump of a dribbled ball, the referee’s whistle, or the roar of the crowd, are often underlaid within the panels. Starbursts focus the reader’s attention on important details of scenes, and background motion lines are used to direct the eye in specific directions. Perspective changes often; Inoue uses close-ups and long shot and mixes in low-angle or overhead viewpoints to keep visual interest high.

When players (especially Sakuragi) are acting less than heroic or juvenile, they are shown in crude, cartoony fashion, with stylized features: mere slashes for eyes, dots to indicate noses, and blank ovals for mouths shaped to express joy, sorrow, or anger. Female characters are idealized and typically have large eyes, button noses, and shapely lips.

Over the course of the series, Inoue became more skilled in varying the dynamics of his work from page to page. In quiet, nonaction scenes he establishes an irregular succession of small rectangular panels (typically five to seven per page) that effectively advance the narration. When capturing the excitement of basketball games, however, he explodes the pattern with numerous full-page illustrations, occasional across-the-gutter scenes, and infusions of diagonal lines that produce trapezoidal panels to effectively increase the tension depicted in the story.

Themes

A major theme throughout the Slam Dunk series is the healing power of sports. When introduced, Sakuragi is shown to be a self-centered troublemaker obsessed with romance. Though he joins Shohoku’s basketball team for purely selfish reasons, he eventually sublimates his desire through play. Though he does not succeed in his initial quest, he gains newfound capabilities and is thus victorious in maturing as an individual.

A related theme is the synergistic effect of teamwork. Though Sakuragi is naturally athletic, he must learn to channel his abilities by studying the rudiments of his new sport. A complete neophyte, he has to be schooled in dribbling, shooting, passing, and rebounding. Only in the last of these skills does he truly excel, and only by accepting his limitations and working to improve his rebounding can he significantly contribute to the efforts of the Shohoku team. Sakuragi’s triumph is shared, rather than personal, which reflects the collaborative nature of most sports.

To Inoue, sports in general, and basketball in particular, are a kind of warfare. The game features strategy and capitalizes on a full range of skills, from the finesse of the playmaker to the brute power of the slam dunker. The lessons learned on the basketball court, the author seems to say, can be applied elsewhere in the battlefield of life.

Impact

From its debut, Slam Dunk has proved to be a highly popular manga. More than 100 million copies of the magazines and collections have sold worldwide since the early 1990’s. The series also inspired four anime films and an animated television series in the mid-1990’s. Inoue won a major manga award for his work and, in 2010, was recognized by the Japanese Basketball Association for stimulating basketball as a sport in his native country.

To help build upon the momentum he helped create, Inoue established a Slam Dunk Scholarship through Shueisha, which is funded through royalties and contributions from the publisher. The scholarship aids second-year Japanese high school students with tuition and living expenses so promising basketball players can attend American prep schools to improve their skills.

In 1997, Inoue began a second basketball-based manga series: Buzzer Beater, with a new set of characters and a new story line involving intergalactic competition, which appeared in Monthly Shonen Jump, was reprinted in four volumes, and spawned two anime television series between 2005 and 2007. Inoue’s third sports-oriented manga series, the award-winning Real, which began in 2001 in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump magazine, focuses on a group of individuals who play wheelchair basketball and is aimed at a seinen audience. In 2004, Inoue also creatively continued Slam Dunk, with a chalk-drawn sequel, Slam Dunk: Ten Days After, which was reproduced in 2005 in Switch, a Japanese arts and media magazine.

Films

Slam Dunk. Directed by Nobutaka Nishizawa. Toei Animation, 1994. An anime adaptation of the series, this thirty-minute film stars Takeshi Kusao as the voice of Sakuragi, Akiko Hiramatsu as Haruko, Hideyuki Tanaka as Kogure, Hikaru Midorikawa as Rukawa, and Kiyoyuki Yanada as Takenori. Sakuragi leads Shohoku in a game against Takezono High in a film that captures the look, feel, and spirit of the original manga.

Slam Dunk 2.Directed by Toshihiko Arisako. Toei Animation, 1994. A forty-five-minute anime featuring the same voice actors in the primary roles as the previous film, this sequel centers on Shohoku’s game against Tsukubu High School.

Slam Dunk 3. Directed by Hiroyuki Kakudo. Toei Animation, 1995. A second sequel with the regular cast of voice actors. After losing to Kainan, Shohoku faces a strong opponent in Ryokufu in this forty-minute animated film.

Slam Dunk 4. Directed by Masayuki Akihi. Toei Animation, 1995. Featuring the regular cast of voice actors, this forty-minute animated sequel provides background on Sakuragi’s teammate Rukawa, as the players set out to fulfill the wishes of a former basketball player crippled by disease.

Television Series

Slam Dunk. Directed by Nobutaka Nishizawa and Nobuto Sakamoto. Toei Animation, 1993-1996. This animated, full-color 101-episode series stars many of the same voice actors featured in the Slam Dunk films. The television series expanded upon and supplemented the manga with more basketball tales detailing Sakuragi’s growth as both a player and a person.

Further Reading

Higuchi, Daisuke. Whistle! (1998-2003).

Hotta, Yumi, and Takeshi Obata. Hikaru no go (1999-2003).

Konomi, Takeshi. The Prince of Tennis (1999-2008).

Bibliography

Gravett, Paul. Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. New York: Harper Design, 2004.

Hart, Christopher. Mangamania Shonen: Drawing Action-Style Japanese Comics. New York: Chris Hart Books, 2008.

Thompson, Jason. Manga: The Complete Guide. New York: Del Rey, 2007.