This Week in Anime

Basketball Anime is a Slam Dunk

Coop
As a wise man once said, "f*ck it, we ball."

If you're looking to get a better grasp on the good vibes emanating from New York right now, dear reader, I'd highly recommend checking out this celebratory chat between Pulitzer-winning Sports Journalist Pablo Torre and Desus Nice (of Desus and Mero fame). Between the Knicks' big win and the World Cup going on, it's been real nice to share in the joy with folks across the globe. Hell, Lucas, I've never been much of a sports fan to begin with... Well, until a few years ago, that is.

I can not stress enough that Slam Dunk is the Rosetta stone of modern sports anime and manga. Yes, Captain Tsubasa is undeniably more influential on the whole, but it's rare when I check out a sports series, and it's not futzing with the Slam Dunk formula in some way, shape, or form. More often than not, it's like I'm sitting there with a Slam Dunk homage bingo card. For more on Captain Tsubasa's gargantuan influence, the two of us talked quite a bit about the series and the many football (Colombia's best team in the world) series it inspired earlier this year. And as a dork who went out of their way to pick up all of Raijin Comics' short-lived localization stab at Takehiko Inoue's b-ball classic, I'm all in for these new deluxe editions. Contrary to popular belief, this white person can jump for Slam Dunk.

Watching Inoue's art become better and better over the course of Slam Dunk's 31-volume run just might be my favorite thing about it. In the early goings, most readers can probably tell that Inoue was once an assistant to City Hunter's Tsukasa Hōjō from the art alone. However, as the series progresses, Inoue evolves into the master storyteller and artist he is today. And this way, before we even start talking about Vagabond.

But to your point on the series being "a quiet hit" globally, it's worth stressing that sports titles have historically had a tough time breaking through into the North American market. This, unfortunately, means that Slam Dunk has been no exception to this market reality. A few years back, I spoke with some of the folks who localized the series for both Raijin Comics and Viz Media to get a better feeling for its publication history on this side of the Pacific. In the process, I learned quite a bit about just how fickle our market tends to be with sport titles—mostly that you need sexy people, superpowers, or one hell of a gimmick to attract an audience. However, I came away from the experience with an even deeper appreciation for Slam Dunk. I know he's busy editing Dogsred and a ton of other titles these days, but I'd really love to see veteran VIZ editor Mike Montesa return to oversee these new deluxe editions. I have nothing but overflowing respect for him and his colleagues, especially after doing a good bit of editing myself.

Not to mention that The First Slam Dunk functions perfectly as both an introduction to the series and as an end cap to the manga. There's really no wrong place to start dunking, be it the 90s anime, this film, or the manga. On the topic of that last avenue, I'm hoping that the manga receives the Captain Tsubasa treatment and just appears on the Shonen Jump App one day. Inoue's gone on record as not being a fan of digital manga since he allegedly prefers his work to be on physical pages. However, Slam Dunk has recently hit digital bookshelves in both Japan and Korea, so I have some hope that North American readers might have an easier way to check it out in the future. For now, hitting up your local library and asking a librarian to nab it for you through their interlibrary loan program is your best bet. Unless you're a dunk freak like myself and just go all in on it. She's The Man!

Girl Got Game is also a perfect example of the many shoujo titles Tokyopop released back in the early aughts. And whoo boy, the poorly aged language sprinkled here and there shows it. While shoujo aficionados of a certain age (my fellow millennials) might be quite fond of that era for the company, it's also worth pointing out that Tokyopop allegedly licensed whatever they could get their hands on in those days—the genre didn't matter. They weren't afraid to change titles and character names, either. For example, Power!! became Girl Got Game, and after a "reboot" of sorts, Harlem Beat transformed into Rebound. Harlem Beat carries a certain amount of significance as it was one of, if not the first, sports manga to be serialized in the United States within the pages of MIXX magazine. Jason Thompson dived a bit deeper into the meat behind the Harlem Beat story in the 94th installment of his House of 1000 Manga column.

It's got a 2003 je ne sais quoi to it, doesn't it?

Funny enough, it seems that Noir Caesar has chosen to play ball with Tokyopop for their recent releases of Deep 3a. Between this and that Princess Ai kickstarter, it seems like Tokyopop's keeping busy whenever they're not running what reads to me as a multi-level marketing scam.

At first glance, most folks might see Kuroko's deuteragonist, Taiga, and say that he's "Hanamichi at home." By the way, Hanamichi's the hero of Slam Dunk—sporting red hair, a brash attitude, and a number ten jersey. However, I think Taiga might be one of Tadatoshi Fujimaki's first masterstrokes in his series. He plays with the audience's expectations by introducing an Hanamichi-esque character and then silently allowing the series' titular character to take the court. It's in these introductory moments that Fujimaki makes it pretty clear to the audience that he's walking out of Inoue's shadow with his own, very different cast of characters. These aren't the Shohoku boys—far from it, in many cases.

Also, I quite dig that Kuroko's Basketball slides nicely into the mid-to-late-twenty-tens oeuvre of Production I.G sports anime alongside Haikyu!! and Run with the Wind. From that perspective alone, I'm super down for more Kuroko.

Speaking of glorious hand-drawn animation, it looks like someone (likely Tencent) couldn't help but throw gobs of cash at the team behind Left-Hand Layup.

Left-Hand Layup is technically a Donghua, but it also goes without saying that Slam Dunk was also a gigantic hit in China. If The First Slam Dunk is the pinnacle of the basketball animation period, this one's a close effort on a smaller scale. The series first episode does feature the occasional wonky CG model or bit of animation, but hot damn, do they not skimp out on the basketball.

The creatives behind Left-Hand Layup make no bones about where their passion lies, and it's refreshing to see that enthusiasm backed up with a whole lot of expertise. Like Fujimaki, these folk simply aren't looking to make "Slam Dunk at home". Though I'll admit, the lyrics to the series' opening sure are reminiscent of Dunk's first intro. So much talk of love.

If we haven't made it clear already, the shadow of Slam Dunk looms large.

In the Western world, it seems like most audiences prefer to see sports being played rather than watching a dramatized story about them. However, I'm glad that we're seeing a bit more of a push for these titles among hardcore animation fans and critics (ourselves included). Not sure if that'll lead to another Slam Dunk x Nike collaboration (that I'll be fiending for despite how insanely expensive those kinds of sneakers tend to be), but it's interesting to see worlds of non-endemic marketing and anime collide. However, it's probably not going to be the sports titles that make up the lion's share of these collaborations. After all, Puma's already set sail with the straw hats, and CONVERSE has been working on their shadow clones.

Wouldn't be surprised if we got some Chainsaw Man chucks sooner rather than later.

Lucas, Slam Dunk is literally the reason I got into sneakers...

...and basketball documentaries.

Again, I've never been much of a sports person, but there's nothing quite like sharing your passions with a raucous crowd in a hella good mood. Or commiserating over how historically terrible all of Michigan's sports teams are—with the noted exception of the Red Wings.