It\’s been 25 years ( Slam Dunk serialized from 1990 to 1996 in Weekly Shonen Jump) since both manga and anime came to an end, but Slam Dunk is still a statue today. radio in the heart of many manga / anime fans in general and the orange ball in particular. In 2021, Takehiko Inoue – the father of Slam Dunk manga, posted on his Twitter page that a new anime is about to be released and will be produced by Toei studio.
After a few days of this news being revealed from the author, the above announcement has received more than 388,000 likes, along with more than 211,000 shares on Twitter, which shows how excited the fans are.
Talking about the content, Slam Dunk brought in the breath of a Shonen genre combining sports that was extremely popular in the Japanese manga industry at that time. The story revolves around Sakuragi Hanamichi who initially joined the Shohoku basketball club to marry his favorite girl, Haruko. Here, Hanamichi met his eternal rival, also his teammate – Rukawa Kaede. Over time, he gradually showed his quality with the orange ball and grew to love it even more as he joined Shohoku in the national tournament.
At Slam Dunk is the convergence of classic details such as friendship, competitive spirit in sports, striving to thrive and the virtue of sacrifice for others. More specifically, it shows as authentically as possible the beautiful moves, tactics and skills in basketball.
During the near-end of the series from 1994 to 1995, Slam Dunk released four accompanying short film publications. Each movie is 30 to 45 minutes long, and the content will sometimes separate from the main event stream. Therefore, the brainchild of author Inoue after 25 years is expected to follow his vision.
Now, fans are curious to see what method and content the new anime will be adapted from. Many viewers have long been looking forward to it continuing its unfinished anime series, seeing Shohoku\’s progress in the national tournament. Although there are only 2 matches, but the final arc of Slam Dunk is the convergence of the quintessence that the work can show about basketball.
The National Prize can be adapted into an anime season or potentially more of a movie publication, as the Kuroko No Basket junior did with Last Game.
Regarding the national tournament event, this arc is only limited to 2 matches. In the first match, Shohoku faced Toyotama, a team with a more solid play than necessary and ready to take down the opponent. The duration is likely to be sufficient if it is adapted into a short movie.
Meanwhile, the second match is the event that is most awaited by fans. That was when Shohoku had an extremely intense match with Sannoh, the king of Japanese high school basketball with three times sitting on the throne. This is one of the longest and most intense battles in the entire Slam Dunk, with 60 story chapters in total. Fans at that time were extremely excited with the development as well as the good ending for the Slam Dunk series.
With such a length, the match between Shohoku and Sannoh will have a suitable length for the movie version.
As mentioned above, Toei studio can calculate its plan to turn the national tournament into a separate anime season, just like Haikyuu. But a film publication usually has a much higher investment budget, meaning the overall quality will be guaranteed to be what a legend like Slam Dunk deserves.
Now fans are looking forward to how Slam Dunk will be adapted, how the content will once again follow the footsteps of Hanamichi and the entire Shohoku team. Let\’s welcome the return of a legend together !.
