Reviews

Apr 5, 2015
Slam Dunk is considered a pioneer of sports anime. All from its witty jokes to its inspiring speeches, it’s a masterpiece from the 90s. It teaches many valuable morals of life such as establishing strong bonds with each other, and to never give up. It’s an anime that’s been a part of my childhood, and I knew from its first episode that it would be hilarious.

[Story]
The plot was centered on our self-centered protagonist Sakuragi Hanamichi, a 189cm tall, 16 year old, delinquent who hates basketball. And in order to impress a girl, he attempts to play the sport, fails miserably at it, and even managed to pants the opponent who was the captain of the basketball team as well as the girl’s older brother. But even after all that, he still somehow managed to get on the basketball team.

The anime itself is mainly set in the Shohoku High School. It’s the home to the Shohoku basketball team, a team that isn’t considered a threat in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan. Mainly due to its lack of skilled players, the team is really a one man team, consisting of the team captain Akagi Takenori, or Gorilla as Sakuragi likes to call him. But with the new year rolling in several new players joined the team including the superstar first year Rukawa Kaede, and our protagonist the self-proclaimed genius Sakuragi Hanamichi. The entire story pretty much revolves around the idea of making it to the nationals, since it’s been the dream of the 3rd years on the team.

Now that I mention it, dreams, and goals of all the characters really play a huge role in the anime. It’s been the major reason for a lot of the determination, passion, and character development in the show. I love this aspect because I find it relatable since in real life we all have dreams of our own, and it inspires us to work hard to achieve them. It’s also this aspect of the show that makes it one of the best slices of life animes ever.

[Characters]
The anime focuses in on a huge cast of characters, not only the Shohoku basketball team but also players from other teams as well as Sakuragi’s troupe of nutjobs. Now having a large cast of characters can be a definite problem if not done right, but Slam Dunk takes its characters and uses them to its full potential. All the characters possess intricate, diverse, and likeable personalities. But the most important reason I love this anime was the immense amount of character development the characters portrayed. When the Sakuragi first debuted, I can’t say I enjoyed his character a lot because he seemed like a really arrogant, and selfish person, but by the end of the anime, he learned how to rely on his teammates, and treat them with respect, and because of that he became one of my all-time favorite characters in anime.

Something I realized after doing some research was that the characters in the anime were actually based on real life basketball players in the 90s. Which is really cool because if you know basketball players, and watch the anime, you'll begin to figure out which character is which player in real life.

[Art]
Now for the biggest gripe people would probably have about this anime, I’m not sure about others, but I tend to hate outdated art styles, and if I hadn’t seen it when I was younger I probably would’ve never watched the show. The show was made in the mid-90s, so it’s typical 90’s art style, if you’ve watched other shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion you would probably be familiar with it. It’s usually a bit rugged, and rough since the art was hand drawn. And the character designs aren’t what we’re used to today, they actually look more lifelike. But it turned out to be not as much of a problem as it seems when I rewatched it, because you get used to the art after a couple of episodes. But if you seriously have major problems with watching animes with old art this might be a problem for you.

[Sound]
This show has the most amazing OP and EDs ever, they're old school Japanese pop music. They are absolutely excellent, they go along with the show so well, and complements the feel of sports. I've read some of the other Slam Dunk reviews and I think they deserve a lot more recognition that they're given. The BGM were pretty compatible with the anime, I'd really like to comment more about it but to be honest there wasn't much of it. Compared to modern sports animes Slam Dunk pretty much has a very little amount of BGM, but you'd hardly notice it since it has tons of sound effects.

[Overall]
Overall though, Slam Dunk is amazing, no matter if you're watching it back in the 90s or right now. The art style might be a bit rusty but the amazing story and characters definitely make up for it. And if the thought of watching a sports anime turns you off, then watch it for the comedy, I'm sure you'd enjoy it anyways. I'd throughly enjoyed re watching the series recently and it seems just as amazing as it was 10 years ago, it's truly a masterpiece, a masterpiece that inspires people for decades to go out and play some basketball.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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