A Film Directed by

While I am aware of Takehiko Inoue’s classic sports manga Slam Dunk, I have never had the opportunity to read it, nor have I watched the original anime produced from it. That’s why when I saw a big poster at my local AMC Theater for The First Slam Dunk, I knew it would be a great way to support Sony and Toei Animation for bringing the film out over here as well as a great introduction to the franchise. I normally don’t watch too many sports movies of any nature, but the trailer looked very promising and showed some absolutely gorgeous animation that (for me) seems very uncharacteristic for Toei. If Dragonball Super: Super Hero was a proof of concept on them utilizing cel-shaded animation, The First Slam Dunk is definitely the benchmark for them moving forward. With an engaging story and great visuals, The First Slam Dunk is a surprise hit for my son and I that I never assumed I’d enjoy so much.

Confusingly, despite being called The first Slam Dunk, which would seemingly indicate a prequel, this seems to be a sequel and re-writes the end of the manga or continues the anime, which never made it to that point in the story.

“Shohoku’s “speedster” and point guard, Ryota Miyagi, always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Born and raised in Okinawa, Ryota had a brother who was three years older. Following in the footsteps of his older brother, who was a famous local player from a young age, Ryota also became addicted to basketball. In his second year of high school, Ryota plays with the Shohoku High School basketball team along with Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, and Mitsui as they take the stage at the Inter-High School National Championship. And now, they are on the brink of challenging the reigning champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School.”

In terms of plot, I understand that Inoue shifted the focus from the original main character, Hanamichi Sakuragi to one of the other characters from the franchise – “Shohoku’s speedster” Ryota Miyagi. We see flashbacks of Sakuragi, much in the style and in reference to the original manga, so one could surmise that this is an alternate take on the “big game” that ended the original source material. The story in this film has some fairly BIG changes. First of all, the point of view character has shifted to another team mate, Ryota Miyagi, which gives the franchise room to grow into this new era. Second of all, the film somewhat shows what happens after the original manga with Miyagi, and it could lead up to more content in the future.

With the film being called “The FIRST Slam Dunk”, one can imagine there could be more coming if this was successful in Japan. I have no doubt the film likely did not get much traction in The West, seeing that most have never heard of the franchise, but I’m glad they released it nonetheless. Considering the current global box office of over $212 million, and status as the 24th highest grossing film of all time in Japan, I’d be amazed if more doesn’t get made.

Speaking of the original, the Slam Dunk manga has an extremely controversial and polarizing ending, where Sakuragi suffers a career-threatening back injury and has to bow out for a while. His fate was never revealed as far as I know, although the character vowed to return to basketball. With the absence of Sakuragi, Shohoku lost terribly against another big school, Aiwa, and were eliminated from Nationals. They basically gave their all to beat Sannoh School, and it just ends there.

The story of Ryota Miyagi is both frustrating and heartwarming at times. He’s one of those characters that could have easily fallen into a void of unhappiness and spiraled into being troubled youth (more than he was), but he channeled his inner turmoil into trying to be the best point guard in all of Japanese High School basketball, so it feeds him and keeps him sane. After suffering the death of his father and later his brother in a freak fishing boat accident, Miyagi was forced to move away from his home and into a rather hostile school. His family life crumbled around him as his mother, unwilling to accept the fate of Miyagi‘s brother, is seen lashing out at her youngest son or seemingly resenting him for playing basketball when his brother also played the sport. He accepts this, despite the pain it causes, and moves forward to try and achieve the goals his brother worked so hard for years before. Miyagi makes friends and becomes a starter for the basketball team, hoping they can win nationals.

This “flashback” narrative is interspliced with sections involving that grueling battle against Sannoh School, and shows scenes involving Miyagi throughout his time in high school including how he ended up meeting all of the players we see in the final game. Usually the “big game” will get to a point where one character is being highlighted and the scene will shift back to see how they got their reputation or how far they’ve come etc. I really need to go and at least watch some of the original anime, because what is shown here is really good, and it looks like a fairly engaging story.

I actually enjoyed the way this was structured because it was enjoyable to both old and new fans alike. I’m sure people familiar with the original would be able to recognize scenes being referenced and know more insight into the plot and characters, but there’s just enough plot there for people like me, who have never seen any of this, to still understand the story being told. Some movies like this have a tendency to just outright assume everyone knows what’s going on, but the way The first Slam Dunk is paced and plotted makes it stand on its own despite being the end of a much longer story.

The chief test of this was watching my son, who is seven years old, absolutely loving this movie. He spent the better part of the rest of the day throwing trash away by yelling “SLAM DUNK!” each time he did it. This is a testament to the entire production team that they made a film so accessible that they can build a new generation of fans.

I mentioned before that the animation was top notch here, and I feel like most anime companies wanting to use cel-shaded CGI graphics should watch how this movie was done. The film blends gorgeous 2-D backgrounds and 3-D characters in such a way that it escapes the tired old cliché of Japan not really doing well with CGI animation. Nothing looked like an alien artifact dropped onto the top of an unrelated background, and everything moved smoothly. Hopefully the days of watching CGI abominations that run at terrible refresh rates with intentionally dropped frames (apparently, they try to imitate the limited animation style of 2D anime) has finally ended, and for that I am very excited.

The opening credits scene, for example, exudes the same sort of character and style of an 80’s OVA (for example 1987’s To-y), and it almost gave me goosebumps for that reason. The scene in question involves a hand-drawn version of the main character, straight out of the manga, come to life from a single pencil stroke and slowly get joined by his teammates one-by-one. They walk towards the camera and down some stairs as they get ready for the big game. This is all set to a cool theme song that really sets the tone for the film. Stuff like this really made the movie something special for me.

Overall, The First Slam Dunk was a real surprise for me considering I don’t really seek out this sort of film. I went in expecting something akin to a random episode of a show I’ve never seen, and ended up with an instant classic that reminds me of anime and manga of the past. The movie exuded style and was full of gorgeous animation. Do yourself a favor and see if this is showing in your area, because this is a hidden gem for 2023 and every anime fan should look into this. You never know, I may start watching the older anime now, especially since it got legally tossed onto YouTube recently!