Slam Dunk

Is It March Madness Already?

To this day, March Madness remains one of the year's most exciting events for me. It's on par with baseball's spring training in terms of importance. They are the two surest signs that the current cold snap is about to end. I say this with some caution because people from the north know how dangerous lake-effect snow and cold weather that lasts into the summer can be.

I am going to assume that everyone is aware of the March Madness tournaments, but just in case: The NCAA college basketball tournament, known as "March Madness," is held every year in the month of March in the United States of America. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is in charge of organizing this event, which features 68 of the top men's college basketball teams from all over the country.

When a team loses in the first round, they are automatically taken out of the tournament. The teams compete in one of four regions, each with its own bracket that decides which team from that region will move on to the tournament's championship round. But before we get to the championship round, there is the Final Four.

The Final Four is one of the most-watched and most-anticipated sports events in the United States. It takes place in a different city every year. The winners of the Final Four advance to the NCAA National Championship.

Viewership-wise, the Final Four is almost on par with the National Championship. However, in a winner-take-all tournament like this one, there is simply no room for second place. There may be a song with that title as well, but I'm getting off-topic. Houston, Kansas, UCLA, and Alabama are the favorites to win the 2023 NCAA men's basketball championship, but Gozanga or Kansas State are always possibilities. Now, that's only if sports betting sites like FanDuel or Draft Kings are to be believed.

So despite what the haters will have you believe, weebs and otakus aren't only interested in video games, waifus, and anime. Some of us crave a bit of three-dimensional excitement in our lives. Because it takes time for this excitement to materialize, the tournament selection won't be made for a few more days, so I have some time to kill before the brackets are released. In the meantime, though, what the hell am I supposed to do? Well, there’s an anime for that, and this one is long enough that it should easily tide you over until March 12th.

Slam Dunk is perhaps the granddaddy of all basketball anime. Slam Dunk has been made into video games, a movie, and a stage play, among other things. It has also been mentioned in other anime and manga shows, like Haikyuu! and Kuroko's Basketball. Fans of anime still like this show, and it's considered a classic of the sports anime genre.

It was based on one of Takehiko Inoue's most popular manga series and ran from 1993 to 1996, setting a new standard. Slam Dunk, a classic film from the 1990s, is a humorous and heartwarming account of Sakuragi Hanamichi. I mean, he kind of deserves to be in the history books. The plot is funny and entertaining, and the main themes are friendship and the desire to be the best at what you do.

Nobutaka Nishizawa and Tsutomu Shibayama ran the show, and Masaki Sato was in charge of the animation. Toei Animation produced it. The series became a major hit in Japan and also gained popularity worldwide. The anime series consists of 101 episodes and covers two-thirds of the manga series. The anime series ended at the beginning of Inter-High, right after Shohoku played a practice match against a combined Shoyo and Ryonan team.

Having been rejected 50 times in a row in middle school, Hanamichi Sakuragi enrolls at Shohoku High in the hopes of breaking his record and finding love. He is notorious for his explosive temper, enormous height, and fiery red hair. However, because of his fame, most students try to avoid him at all costs. After a series of bad things happened to him, Hanamichi is sure of two things: "I hate basketball" and "I really need a girlfriend."

Unaware of his mischievous past, a girl named Haruko Akagi randomly approaches him one day and asks if he likes basketball. Hanamichi falls madly in love with her at first sight and gives her an impassioned "yes." Following this, she takes him to the gym and challenges him to a slam dunk. He makes the leap in an effort to win Haruko's favor, but he misjudges his landing and ends up hitting his head on the chalkboard instead. When Haruko tells the basketball team's captain that Hanamichi has almost superhuman physical abilities, he slowly starts to like the teamwork and competition of a sport he used to dislike.

He is willing to give it his all in order to win her heart, and one of the things he is considering doing is getting involved with the school basketball team, whose goal is to win the national championship. Haruko's older sibling also captains the opposing basketball squad. (Insert tension here.)

Just what is the issue, then? Actually, Sakuragi has never played basketball before. He's completely new to the sport. Worse yet, a freshman with unrivaled basketball skills is getting all the attention.

Slam Dunk is a comedy/drama/basketball mashup. All the characters are fleshed out and have unique traits. Hanamichi Sakuragi, our protagonist, is notorious for his fiery temper and dogged resolve. Several other major players are Haruko Akagi, the girl he likes, Takenori Akagi, captain of the Shohoku team, and Haruko’s older brother, Kaede Rukawa. all-around talent and every girl's husbando, and Ryota Miyagi, a talented point guard who becomes Hanamichi's friend and rival. Ryota makes his appearance around the 20th episode.

Sakuragi is a very good basketball player, but at first, he only plays to get a girl's attention. Despite being gifted with the perfect genetics for the sport, he still has a lot to learn from the beginning, and some of his struggles are just ground-level for those who know the basics of basketball.

Expanding Sakuragi. At various points, you will either laugh at or feel sorry for his utter idiocy. You'll see him mature in every way throughout the series. You'll also get to witness the development of his friendships with his team members. He tends to be proud, but he has the determination to keep going when things get hard. This anime emphasizes the idea that everyone has the ability to excel at something. Even if some people are naturally good at something and others need more practice, anyone can reach their goals if they really want to.

In Slam Dunk, Haruko Akagi is the main female protagonist. She is Hanamichi Sakuragi's best friend and the object of his affection, and she is the sister of the team captain of the Shohoku basketball team, Takenori Akagi. Haruko is a sweetheart who cheers for Sakuragi on the court and always has his back. Haruko is an important part of the show because she helps Sakuragi grow as a person and as a basketball player.

Haruko Akagi is generally portrayed as a sympathetic and positive character. As the story progresses, we see that she is a very caring person who goes out of her way to help those she cares about, particularly her brother Takenori and Hanamichi Sakuragi.

Like most girls in Shohoku, she is completely obsessed with Kaede Rukawa. He has never loved her back, though, and she comes to understand that he can't love her the way she thinks he should. Her feelings for Rukawa are always a problem because they make Haruko and Rukawa fight with each other.

Around episode 20, Ryota Miyagi shows up for the first time. He quickly becomes Sakuragi's best friend on the team after a misunderstanding causes them to fight for no reason. Miyagi, like Sakuragi, is driven to play by his feelings for a girl: his best friend and classmate Ayako, the team manager. They became like brothers because of their shared romantic misfortune, though Miyagi's tally of ten rejections is nowhere near as high as Sakuragi's fifty. Ayako is the team's manager, and it is her job to train Sakuragi in the basics, like keeping the ball and dribbling, so that he can play well in real games.

High marks have been given to the show for how well it shows both the game of basketball and the characters' inner lives. It's also credited with helping spread basketball's popularity in places like Japan and other Asian countries.

The art direction of the characters is superb. Adapting from Inoue-sensei's manga is challenging, but the anime has its own visual style that lives on. As a result of the design's variety, it's possible to feel the vibes of a wide variety of characters and plots. Either it's realistic or it's cartoonish. Haruko is drawn in the typical anime style, while Gori looks more like a real person. Slam Dunk takes a lot of cues from other Toei animated properties, making this feel like a battle anime as much as a sports one. Kudos to the many still frames that make for epic wallpapers.

The players' physiques are spot-on representations of those of actual basketball players. A lean, muscular physique is optimized for sprinting and intense physical activity. The center position is given to bigger players, and early on, you'll see some of the game's tallest players, who look a lot like NBA stars from the 1980s and 1990s.

Most people think that Slam Dunk's animation is better than average for its time. a miracle considering Japan was going through a hard recession at the time. Character animation and basketball action sequences are both fluid and dynamic, with a lot of fine detail. It's assumed that readers know about Toei Animation Studios, which makes a lot of high-quality, long-running shows. Toei makes many popular anime shows, such as One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and Hokuto no Ken. Each of these shows has shown at least 100 episodes. Expect a very diverse cast of characters in Slam Dunk.

With that being said, since the animation budget can only be stretched so far, it's only logical that certain art and animation details will suffer. Cut them some slack; this is all hand-drawn animation done frame by frame.

The NBA served as a major inspiration for the 101 episodes of the show that ran from 1993 to 1996. There are numerous references to and celebrations of the NBA throughout the show. The animated versions of many of the main characters look like famous NBA players from the 1990s. Due to the length of this anime, even I missed some of the tropes that were strewn about; therefore, most of the information listed below is credited to tvtropes.org.

The man who made the Slam Dunk manga, Takehiko Inoue, based the covers and game poses on real photos of NBA players. There are those who would call it plagiarism, while others would call it an honorable homage. There are those among the fandom and art community who see this as blasphemy, and they may be correct and wrong at the same time. Correct in that Slam Dunk honors the many players of a golden era of basketball, but wrong because of image and licensing rights, or basically money. But I feel like I’m torn on this issue, even as I read an article from 2016 in the Guardian regarding a lawsuit brought against Richard Prince.

Moving on. Since the original story was written in the 1990s, when Michael Jordan's Bulls were the best team in the NBA, there will be many references to them in both the manga and anime versions of Slam Dunk. A few of these are listed below:

Akagi has a picture of Michael Jordan making a layup on his wall. Rukawa's Air Jordan Vs are identical to the pair Michael Jordan wore to win his fourth scoring title in 1989. In Mitsui's hospital room, you can find two posters of Michael Jordan dunking the ball. The first is a fake finger roll dunk, and the second is a reverse dunk with the player looking away. Sakuragi became famous for his iconic use of the Air Jordan 6 basketball shoe.

The basketball-obsessed shopkeeper ultimately gave him a pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s. Scottie Pippen was shooting a free throw, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was trying to make a "Sky Hook," or hook shot, on an earlier version of Akagi's Jordan poster. Ewing, Abdul-Jabbar, and Pippen all sported No. 33 in the 1980s and 1990s. (Source: tvtropes.org)

Adding to all this nineties nostalgia is Kimi Ga Suki Da. To Sakebitai, the original theme song for the show's opening gets an easy 10 for sound quality. It has this vitality and intensity that fits perfectly with the series' theme of trying one's hardest to win over a girl. It's probably second only to "The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News. The guitar licks and drum fills make you feel like you're part of the music. a universally relatable tune. Just hearing the opening track took me back to the early '90s and reminded me of how much I enjoyed the music of that time.

Most people agree that the voice acting in Slam Dunk is very good. The anime features a talented cast of voice actors who bring the characters to life with their performances. The voice acting for Hanamichi Sakuragi, the main character, is particularly good. Takeshi Kusao is Sakuragi's voice actor. His voice is lively and expressive, and it shows everything about him and how he feels throughout the series. Takeshi Kusao is known for his work on shows like Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

In the anime series Yu Yu Hakusho, Takeshi Kusao voiced the character of Kazuma Kuwabara. The other members of the Shohoku basketball team, including Rukawa, Mitsui, and Akagi, are also convincingly voiced and bring a lot of depth and personality to their characters.

Slam Dunk is an anime comedy about a high school basketball team and a new player named Sakuragi Hanamichi. After putting in a lot of work on the court and discovering a rival in both basketball and the pursuit of women, Sakuragi naturally develops a passion for the sport.

The story is satisfactory overall, if a tad formulaic. Although the basketball matches may not have the same level of intensity as, say, an NBA game from the 1990s, they are still entertaining to watch, and, at key points, the anime will explain the basics of basketball to viewers who are unfamiliar with the game. magazine spreads, and the characters' layup and slam dunk forms are on par with what you'd see in real life.

Looking for an anime to watch? While some of the games moved at a glacial pace, I still enjoyed watching Slam Dunk as a whole. The humor is great, and I agree with other reviews that the style is similar to that of Hajime no Ippo and Great Teacher Onizuka in that it is rough and a little bit bad. On a lighter note, the comedy reminded me of Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

If you have strict standards regarding how things should be done in basketball, you might find the show problematic. Although you may be having issues with the 101 episodes, keep in mind the following: In the first round of March Madness, 68 teams compete for the chance to play in the Sweet 16. Unless you're a huge basketball fan or are still paying off student loans from your alma mater, you probably won't be tuning in until then. Well, at least that’s when I officially start watching!