Slam Dunk (Manga)

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Slam dunk
Original title SLAM DUNK
genre Sports
Manga
country JapanJapan Japan
author Takehiko Inoue
publishing company Shūeisha
magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump
First publication 1990-1996
expenditure 31
Anime television series
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
Studio Tōei Dōga
length 25 minutes
Episodes 101
Director Nobutaka Nishizawa
music Takanobu Masuda, BMF
First broadcast October 16, 1993 - March 23, 1996 on TV Asahi
German-language
first broadcast		 January 5, 2006 on MTV
Movies
► Slam dunk (1994)
► Slam Dunk: Zenkoku Seiha there! Sakuragi Hanamichi (1994)
► Slam Dunk: Shōhoku Saidai no Kiki! Moero Sakuragi Hanamichi (1995)
► Slam Dunk: Hoero Basketman-damashii! Hanamichi to Rukawa no Atsuki Natsu (1995)

Slam Dunk is a sports - manga by manga artist Takehiko Inoue . It was first published in 1990 and completed in 1996 with 31 volumes. The series is about the student Hanamichi Sakuragi , who starts playing basketball to impress a girl and eventually discovers his passion for the sport. The manga is aimed at boys, so it can be assigned to the Shōnen genre, as well as the sports genre and , as is common in the genre , also contains comedy and drama elements. The work was also adapted as an anime television series and in the form of four anime films.

action

Hanamichi Sakuragi gets his 50th basket from a girl in middle school. Everything should be different at the new high school. In fact, Haruko Akagi speaks to him and he falls in love with her. That Haruko thinks he is a basketball player because of his stature is no problem for him. However, it is a nuisance for Takenori Akagi, the captain of the basketball team and brother of Haruko. Because Hanamichi now wants to become the star of the team, even though he doesn't know how to play basketball. With Kaede Rukawa there is another first grader and real professional in the team who is adored by all the girls, including Haruko.

In the course of the manga, Sakuragi develops into a strong rebound power forward and forms one of the strongest frontlines in Kanagawa with Center Akagi and Small Forward Rukawa . Point Guard Ryota Miyagi and Shooting Guard Hisashi Mitsui are also introduced later . The aim of the team is to participate in the final round of the Japanese university championships.

characters

The main character of the manga is Hanamichi Sakuragi , a red-haired hot spur who calls himself "Tensai" (German: genius). He falls in love with the beautiful, shy classmate Haruko Akagi , who recruits him into the basketball team at the local Shohoku High School and continues to encourage him. Thanks to basketball, the rowdy, childish Sakuragi becomes a dreaded power forward, who intimidates the opponents thanks to his size, athleticism and arrogance. Sakuragi is accompanied throughout the manga by his four best friends Nozomi Takamiya , Chuchiro Noma , Yuji Ookusu and Mito Yohei , who do not play basketball themselves, but are used by Inoue for slapstick or action scenes off the field.

Haruko himself loves the cool super winger and heartthrob Kaede Rukawa , Sakuragi's club mate and intimate enemy. Although Rukawa ignores all advances, Sakuragi is constantly jealous, which is why Rukawa constantly ridicules him as "Dou Ahou" (English: complete idiot). This love triangle persists throughout the manga.

The captain of the Shohoku team is the giant center Takenori Akagi , Haruko's older brother. The defensively strong Akagi is strict to himself and his colleagues and an undisputed leader. As a running gag , he likes to give Sakuragi a head-butt when he misbehaves. Vice-captain is the spectacle-wearing all-rounder Kiminobu Kogure , who, despite limited talent, also enjoys a high reputation in the team. Important supporting roles in the manga have coach Anzai , a pot-bellied, taciturn but wise strategist, as well as the spirited supervisor Ayako . In the course of the manga, the belligerent playmaker Ryota Miyagi , who is in love with Ayako, is added, and finally, distance throwing specialist Hisashi Mitsui . Mitsui once did not accept that Akagi was better than him, left the club after a knee injury and got on the wrong track without being able to forget basketball. Sick with envy, he fights with Miyagi before rediscovering his love for sport. The team's extras are the reserve players Tetsushi Shiozaki , Yasuharu Yasuda , Kentaro Ishii , Kaoru Sasaoka and Toki Kuwata .

In terms of both play and character, Sakuragi resembles the eccentric NBA rebound king Dennis Rodman , the ambitious super player Rukawa has parallels to Michael Jordan and the strict, unconditionally fighting leader Akagi resembles the center legend Patrick Ewing , while distance throwing specialist Mitsui the three-point specialist Reggie Miller and the little one , Fast Miyagi are modeled after the Detroit Pistons playmaker Isiah Thomas .

Inoue lets the Shohoku team play against three other teams from the Kanagawa area: Shoyo, Kainan and Ryonan. Shoyo is the team of the strong throwing center Toru Hanagata and player coach Kenji Fujima , Kainan the team with "# 1 playmaker" Shinichi Maki , "# 1 three-point thrower " Soichiro Jin , his slender backup Yoshinori Miyamasu and the arrogant but highly talented winger Kiyota Nobunaga , and Ryonan is home to the gigantic center Jun Uozumi (Akagi's friend and rival), the offensive but defensively weak power forward Kicchou Fukuda and the brilliant all-rounder Akira Sendoh . Games against the schools of Toyotama and Sannoh are added later. In all of the games, Inoue uses the watching players (e.g., in a Shohoku Ryonan game, the players from Kainan who watch the game in the stands) to provide the reader (who is often ignorant of basketball in Japan) with an expert comment allow.

Sakuragi has a quirk of giving players more or less flattering nicknames. For example, he calls Akagi a “gorilla”, Rukawa a “fox” (which is a synonym for “coward”), Kogure a “spectacle snake”, Uozumi a “monkey king”, Miyamasu an “alien” and Kiyota a “wild monkey” .

Origin and style

Author Inoue was an avid basketball player even in his youth. When he was 19, he published his first little basketball manga. When he revealed the ideas for Slam Dunk to his publishers , they were very skeptical, as basketball would be unpopular in Japan and hardly attract buyers. When Slam Dunk was successful, it received a lot of fan mail from " people who had never played basketball before, read my manga, started basketball themselves and learned to love the sport ". Inoue's personal experiences made it possible for him to present the sport realistically and to give the reader the feeling of participating in the game himself. Especially at the beginning of the series, many terms of sport are explained to the reader by the series. The drawing style is characterized by the muscular representation of the body, clear lines and angular faces, which give the manga an appearance reminiscent of American comics. The style is also referred to as naturalistic and compared with those of Ryōichi Ikegamis and Tsukasa Hōjōs . At the beginning of his career, the draftsman Inoue worked as an assistant.

Publications

Manga

In Japan, the manga appeared from 1990 to 1996 in individual chapters in the best-selling manga magazine , Shōnen Jump . A total of 276 chapters were written. The Shueisha publishing house also published these individual chapters in 31 edited volumes. Between 2001 and 2002 there was a new edition in the larger A5 format ( Kanzenban ) in 24 volumes.

In 1999 Planet Manga translated the manga into German and discontinued it after two editions. These editions had some spelling and translation errors and were criticized for the poor printing and bookbinding quality. However, they were also printed in the Japanese reading direction, which was still unusual for 1999. In 2002 the publishing house started a revised edition and broke off again after eight volumes. Further translations have appeared in North America, Australia, France, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Taiwan. In Italy, Marvel Italia's 1995 release marked the first ever sports manga to appear in the country.

Anime television series

Under Director Nobutaka Nishizawa was taken at the studio Toei a television series with 101 episodes that about two thirds of manga chapter covers. The scripts were written by Yoshiyuki Suga and Nobuaki Kishima , the character design was created by Masaki Sato . Nobuto Sakamoto was responsible for the artistic direction .

The series was aired in Japan by TV Asahi from October 16, 1993 to March 23, 1996 . Toei also released the episodes on 17 DVDs. There were also three TV specials, each 50 minutes long. This was Ketsui no Shohoku Basuke-bu in 1994 and Rebound-O and Slam Dunk Special in 1995 . The second and third special were a rewrite of episodes 40 and 41 and 62 and 63, respectively. The series was later shown in Japan by Animax and CS Fuji TV Two. An English version was shown by Animax in East Asia and India, was released on DVD in North America and was made available by various streaming services. A Spanish dubbing came on television in large parts of Latin America, an Italian one was broadcast several times and the station Spacetoon showed an Arabic version. ABC-5 and GMA Network showed Slam Dunk on Tagalog in the Philippines . A French and a Chinese version were released on DVD.

synchronization

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū )
Kaede Rukawa Hikaru Midorikawa
Dragon Shiryu Kiyoyuki Yanada
Hisashi Mitsui Ryotaro Okiayu
Hanamichi Sakuragi Takeshi Kusao
Ryota Miyagi Yoku Shioya

music

The music in the series was composed by Takanobu Soda and produced by BMF. The two opening credits were accompanied by the songs Kimi ga Suki da to Sakebitai ( 君 が 好 き だ と 叫 び た い ) by Baad and Zettai ni Daremo by ZYYG. The end credits are:

  • Anata Dake Mitsumete'ru from Ōguro Maki
  • Sekai ga Owaru Made Wa by Wands
  • Kirameku Toki ni Torawarete by Manish
  • My friend from Zard

cinemamovies

Four films were also made for the manga and television series:

Video games and merchandise

The Banpresto company developed several Slam Dunk games that were then published by Bandai . The two basketball simulations Slam Dunk Gakeppuchi no Kesshō League and Slam Dunk 2 were released for the Game Boy . For the Super Famicom console , the games Slam Dunk: Shi Tsuyo Gekitotsu , Slam Dunk 2: IH Yosen Kanzenban !! and SD Heat Up !! out. In addition, games for Game Gear , Mega Drive and Sega Saturn as well as a game for arcade machines appeared in 1995 .

In Japan, merchandise such as trading cards and an ice cream line for Slam Dunk also came onto the market.

Success, Criticism and Aftermath

Slam dunk was very successful in Japan in the 1990s and led to great interest in the previously little popular sport of basketball. Volume 21 had an initial print run of over 2.5 million copies, with an average of over three million per volume sold. The total number of volumes sold in Japan in 2012 was 119 million copies, making Slam Dunk the fifth best-selling manga by Shōnen Jump magazine and one of the most successful manga series in Japan. In 1995 the manga was awarded the 40th Shōgakukan Manga Prize in the Shōnen category.

Slam Dunk pioneered new visual and narrative techniques in the sports series genre. The narrative flow focuses on the action-packed and exciting moments of the games, stretching a basketball season from four months to a six-year series. The series is therefore also referred to as a parade example of a sports manga.

Jason Thompson praises the great characters and comedy, and especially the intense rendering of the basketball game, which together would make the series a " terribly entertaining shonen manga" . About.com gave the first volume of Slam Dunk four stars out of five. The “ gripping and coherent basketball representations that are loosened up with successful slapstick ” were praised, the “ rather weak female characters ” criticized , but it was pointed out that “ the later works would compensate for the imperfect opening volumes ”. The anime as well as the manga were dedicated to the topic of basketball with great attention to detail, according to the Anime Encyclopedia . And the development of characters and story are good enough to interest non-basketball fans in the series. The German magazine Animania writes, " The story is told at high speed and at high speed and is definitely worth a look, especially of course for sports (series) fans" . The material is told " neither dry nor sensationally brutal" , but humorous and appropriate to the age of the target group. The games are " rousing and intense" , the reader is carried away by the atmosphere of the championships. The portrayal of the characters is lively and humorous, and these are still clearly different. The series aimed at boys has also acquired a large female readership. However, the first German edition is very much criticized because of a very poor translation, many printing errors and poor binding. So the volume falls apart very soon and the writing disappears in the glue fold.

controversy

The illustrator Yuki Suetsugu was accused in the fall of 2005 of having copied some scenes in her works of Slam Dunk and other manga. She confessed to having signed off and was fired from her publisher. All of their works were withdrawn from the market. Shortly after the plagiarism allegation, there were voices claiming that Slam Dunk author Takehiko Inoue had drawn some of the poses in the manga from photos.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Slam Dunk! ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Eugene Cheng, ex.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ex.org
  2. ↑ Slam Dunk ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , ANIMEOTA. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / news.animeota.com
  3. ^ Slam Dunk, Issue 276, author's afterword
  4. ↑ a b c Miriam Brunner: Manga . Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-7705-4832-3 , p. 41 .
  5. ↑ a b Jason Thompson: Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-345-48590-8 , p. 341. (English)
  6. ↑ a b c d Animania 4/99, p. 66 f.
  7. ↑ a b c Animania 4/2001, p. 24 f.
  8. ^ Paul M. Malone: The Manga Publishing Scene in Europe . In: Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2938-4 , pp. 322 .
  9. ↑ a b Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy: The Anime Encyclopedia. Revised & Expanded Edition. Berkeley 2006, Stone Bridge Press, ISBN 978-1-933330-10-5 , pp. 589 f.
  10. ↑ Helen McCarthy: A Brief History of Manga . ILEX, 2014, p. 46.
  11. ↑ Mio Bryce and Jason Davis: An Overview of Manga Genres . In: Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2938-4 , pp. 49 .
  12. ↑ Angela Drummond-Mathews: What Boys Will Be: A Study of Shonen Manga . In: Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2938-4 , pp. 64 .
  13. ↑ Slam Dunk Volume 1 , manga.about.com
  14. ↑ Slam Dunk Plagiarism Scandal , Anime News Network, December 22, 2005

Web links