Slam Dunk

SLAM DUNK- A Timeless Classic

__________________________________________ INTRO

Slam Dunk is a manga that defined a genre in its time. The story itself revolves around a bad kid with an attitude named Sakuragi Hanamichi, but we do get an inside of the starting five players' lives. We follow the story of Sakuragi on how he joined the basketball team for a girl to later find love in the game itself. The story is a self actualization story of realizing how important winning and the game is to oneself.
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ART
I think we all know Inuoe can cook up some hot shit when he wants. So to read his first work seeing how he develops his craft is quite beautiful. Seeing him start from such a stylistic art to something out of this world. His art completely changes almost every chapter. The improvement between the first and last chapter is honestly outstanding

As you can see he definitely is an amazing artist. __________________________________________ CHARACTERS Sakuragi Hanamichi: The main character of the whole story. He is inspired by the basketball player Dennis Rodman(my favorite basketball player of all time). Sakuragi in the first couple chapters is definitely a silly character with him being known as a guy who got shut down by over 50 girls in middle school alone. He joins basketball because his new crush Haruko said she likes basketball players. I think it's a funny way for him to join, but lord the spiral he went down is crazy. He slowly finds his love with basketball with every game and through learning new moves and new ways to be better at basketball. He is a very outward character and loveable one at it too. I don’t want to say too much because it really is an experience following him on his journey
Rukawa Kaede: He is another one of the starting five, and is an alright character I wish had more time to be flushed out. He is a very self centered character in the beginning. He laters develops deep trust with his teammates throughout every chapter and game in the manga. His character is inspired by Michael Jordan, who is debatably the best player of all time. And it definitely shows with Rukawa being known as the best freshman in the country. The only reason I do not like Rukawa as much as other players is, because they really don’t go into him as much as I thought they would. It could be just me but he is legit a mystery still.
Ryota Miyagi: Miyagi is definitely a character who I love in the story. I feel like he is really the only one with a love story within the manga. Miyagi is about 5foot 5inches which is very small for a High School basketball player. He comes into the story fairly well introducing new techniques and how funny and likable of a character he is. He really shows how a player can be insecure and unconfident, and how he overcomes it.

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(Him and his girl)

Hisashi Mitsui: Miysui was an MVP player in middle school and he carried over his skills to High school, but sadly got injured during practice. He later got released and got injured again because he tried pushing it harder. The injury definitely messed up his head and he turned into a thug and basically became a bully in school always getting into fights. We are introduced to him around when Miyagi was introduced. Mitsui starts a fight with all the basketball players, because if they were to hurt him they would be disqualified from the tournament coming up. The coach of the team comes in and stops the fight and that was the turning point of the whole manga for Mitsui and in general. He is easily my second favorite in the whole series. He makes the series very grounded in my opinion and just provides moments that get my heart racing.

Akagi Takenori: Akagi is the team captain of the team and older brother role of the series for all the players. He is a teacher for Sakuragi in the beginning, but later in the series he becomes more like an advice giver (if that's even how you say it) once you read the manga you’ll understand. He evolves as a player and captain throughout the whole entire manga. It's honestly satisfying seeing him understand situations and him being put in situations that cause him to excel and realize his own limits and ow he pushes past them.
__________________________________________ Conclusion My thoughts of the whole series is that it's simply a masterpiece. There are definitely flaws and that's to be expected when you realize it's an author’s first work. Then you realize it is Inoue’s first work, there is definitely a level of expectancy. Let me be the first one to tell you that those expectations are definitely fulfilled. The story is riveting and dramatic when it needs to be. I enjoyed every single second of reading this masterpiece of a novel. It brought me tears of sadness and happiness. The ending of Slam Dunk is a very controversial topic. In my opinion I think Inoue is very smart and artistic.

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The ending is a short couple of sentences talking about how they lost in the game right after Sannoh. I think it really shows us how even though you put in all your work not everything is going to work out. I think it is quite brilliant how he showed us in the end a couple of pages how there is always not a good ending. I am speaking of what happens with Sakuragi. It shows him reading a letter from Haruko talking about the new Shohoku team and Rukawa making it on to the National Japanese team. I like how Inoue is really fucking brilliant on how he shows us that theres still hope, but also we must get over the “scars” from our past.

I think the way everything ended and how it changed Japan as a whole is honestly crazy. I mean there are literal scholarship programs called the Slam Dunk Scholarship. I mean he literally defined an era of shonen jump. I think everyone should at least read this manga once, especially if you're an Inoue fan. This manga defined the sports genre and is probably the best sports manga of all time.