Slam Dunk

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Alternative Titles

English: Slam Dunk

Japanese: スラムダンク

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 101

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 16, 1993 to Mar 23, 1996

Premiered: Fall 1993

Broadcast: Unknown

Producers: TV Asahi, Animax

Licensors: Flatiron Film Company, Geneon Entertainment USA

Studios: Toei Animation

Source: Manga

Genres: Comedy, Drama, School, Shounen, Sports

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 8.52¹ (scored by 93,926 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #94²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #732

Members: 214,170

Favorites: 5,778

8.52

Ranked #94Popularity #732Members 214,170

Fall 1993TVToei Animation

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Episodes: /101

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Synopsis

Hanamichi Sakuragi, infamous for his temper, massive height, and fire-red hair, enrolls in Shohoku High, hoping to finally get a girlfriend and break his record of being rejected 50 consecutive times in middle school. His notoriety precedes him, however, leading to him being avoided by most students. Soon, after certain events, Hanamichi is left with two unwavering thoughts: "I hate basketball," and "I desperately need a girlfriend."

One day, a girl named Haruko Akagi approaches him without any knowledge of his troublemaking ways and asks him if he likes basketball. Hanamichi immediately falls head over heels in love with her, blurting out a fervent affirmative. She then leads him to the gymnasium, where she asks him if he can do a slam dunk. In an attempt to impress Haruko, he makes the leap, but overshoots, instead slamming his head straight into the blackboard. When Haruko informs the basketball team's captain of Hanamichi's near-inhuman physical capabilities, he slowly finds himself drawn into the camaraderie and competition of the sport he had previously held resentment for.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Slam Dunk
Side story:	Slam Dunk (Movie), Slam Dunk: Zenkoku Seiha Da! - Sakuragi Hanamichi, Slam Dunk: Shouhoku Saidai no Kiki! Moero Sakuragi Hanamichi, Slam Dunk: Hoero Basketman-damashii! Hanamichi to Rukawa no Atsuki Natsu
Other:	Slam Dunk Movie

Tsujitani, Kouji
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nishizawa, Nobutaka

Director

Kakudou, Hiroyuki

Episode Director, Storyboard

Takenouchi, Kazuhisa

Episode Director, Storyboard

Shimizu, Junji

Storyboard

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Opening Theme

#1: "Kimi ga Suki da to Sakebitai" by BAAD (eps 1-61)
#2: "Zettai ni Daremo" by ZYYG (eps 62-101)

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Ending Theme

#1: "Anata Dake Mitsumete'ru (あなただけ見つめてる)" by Ooguro Maki (eps 1-24)
#2: "Sekai ga Owaru Made Wa (世界が終るまでは...)" by WANDS (eps 25-49)
#3: "Kirameku Toki ni Torawarete (煌めく瞬間に捕らわれて)" by MANISH (eps 50-81)
#4: "My Friend (マイフレンド)" by Zard (eps 82-101)

More reviews

Reviews

Dec 15, 2007

101 of 101 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

ChrisVarick (All reviews)

231 people found this review helpful

You know that feeling when you don't really want to watch something but when you start doing it, amazingly, you have lots of fun? Well I do because that is what Slam Dunk is doing to me. It is about this basketball team in Shohoku highschool and its main character, Sakuragi, who tries to complete himself as a basketball player and gain the love of a girl, named Haruko. Sounds cheesy but, believe me, it is nothing you have experienced before.

Now, from the first few episodes, you can obviously see that this anime, which received huge acclaim at its time, has a clear goal to read more

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Mar 19, 2008

101 of 101 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

lowell (All reviews)

101 people found this review helpful

Slam Dunk is one of those classics of sports anime. You always hear about it and wonder if it actually is the best thing since sliced bread. Well, it isn't. But it is funny and entertaining and worthwhile if you have the patience for it.

Imagine GTO in high school and determined to learn how to play basketball to get closer to the girl he has a crush on -- tah-dah, Slam Dunk! The story has the expected sort of "learn a skill, show a skill" repetitive story line common to a lot of sports and shounen animes, but it's punched up by a little delinquency, a little reformation, and a tiny bit of one-sided romance. The one real downside to the story is the occasional trips into a DBZ/Naruto-esque timefreeze: sometimes one basketball game takes, like, 3 episodes and you wonder how it's possible that only 2 minutes anime-time have gone by in the last 20 real-time. ;)

The art is a little rough sometimes, kind of typical for the time period. There's a lot of panning across stills and repetitive looks at the same image. It can be a little annoying, but I kept on reminding myself when it was made (1993-1996!) and I got over it. The one thing that I noticed the most was probably the fact that the key on their court looks different from a real key in a NBA or Olympic court, but I decided to stop thinking about it a few episodes in.

The character of the main character is what makes the whole thing entertaining, I think. He is brash, tactless, rough and stupid -- and, for some odd reason, really funny. Even when he gets on my nerves, he does something random and ridiculous and retarded, and it just ends up cracking me up. He's always calling himself a genius (when he doesn't know how to do anything) and laughing in this obnoxious, cocky manner and making awful mistakes, but he's somehow loveable anyway and you end up rooting for him because he's just that charismatic. The thing that's really nice about him is just how flawed he is... he's got natural athleticism, but he's far from being a natural on the basketball court and he's loyal, strong, and dedicated, but he's also impatient and hot-tempered and loud. And he's really nicely backed up by a team of interesting, diverse guys who each (eventually) get their time in the limelight and each have their own personal struggles to overcome while striving to work together as a team.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Slam Dunk -- despite the really slow pacing of some of the actual games. It's funny in that rough, delinquent way that will be familiar to people who've seen Hajime no Ippo and Great Teacher Onizuka. If you're an American basketball-purist, you might have some issues with the show, but if you're just looking for a fun, classic shounen about some rough-and-tumble guys... you've found what you're looking for.

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Dec 7, 2013

101 of 101 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

ParaParaJMo (All reviews)

95 people found this review helpful

This anime has almost everything. Action, comedy, tragedy, romantic tensions, manly moments, etc. The cast is pretty huge and when possible, each character or group gets their chance to shine. A great percentage of the characters each contribute something to the advancement of the story and/or get their moment in the sun so. It doesn’t have to be Sakuragi, or the rest of the Shohoku team. Even Sakuragi’s gang gets their chance to do something every now and then.

But what really touches me about this story is how strong the relationships develop. Especially the loyalty of Sakuragi’s gang and how far they go in read more

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Apr 5, 2015

101 of 101 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

poorqs (All reviews)

75 people found this review helpful

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.

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Recent Forum Discussion

	Poll: Slam Dunk Episode 44 Discussion Jawaese - Jul 31, 2011	13 replies	by TreezyJa »» Yesterday, 5:35 PM
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