Haikyuu is basically a conscious attempt by Furudate to improve on Slam Dunk's shortcomings

DarkFirefly72 said:
I actually uploaded this in the general anime discussion forums but since I think basically nobody is going to reply there I'm putting it here as well XD.
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING. I don't mean that Haikyuu is inherently better than Slam Dunk because of what I'm going to try to convey in this thread (as both mangas are incredible), it was just an interesting thing to think about and I was curious if anyone else had thought about this before. I have both mangas rated as a 9 for anyone wondering so this is not a slander in any way.
A couple of years ago I watched Haikyuu until the Inarizaki match and later read the rest of the manga. Of course I always heard about how legendary Slam Dunk is but I never really got to reading it until recently. While reading it I naturally noticed all of the similarities between both stories (as I would presume Haikyuu was greatly influenced by Slam Dunk) and it was a great read. But after finishing it I actually had some complaints about the story as a whole that I discussed with some of my friends and a thought came to me: Haikyuu actually solves all of Slam Dunk's big problems.

SPOILERS AHEAD (in any case XD)

The complaints I have regarding Slam Dunk are basically 3 big problems that I have with the story: the first 70-ish chapters (of 276 total chapters, so it is a pretty big part), the lack of more character development for basically every important character and the ending of the story. The 3 points would be basically fixed if the manga had 100 more chapters, but I will get to that later.
Now, starting about the complaints, there is practically no basketball until you get to chapter 75 (or smth like that) and before that the story only revolves around Sakuragi being an idiot and not knowing a single thing about basketball, and a 25-30 chapter boring fist fight between the team and some 3rd rate punks. So imo basically 1/4 of the manga is already really bad and wasted. Then, even if the characters are pretty entertaining and they certainly fill their roles pretty well, they don't have character development or anything close to what they should have. Only Sakuragi has really important character development and even with him it feels like there could have been much more to actually be explored. The only other guy that perhaps had a character arc was Mitsui and even that felt pretty rushed. The rest of the cast, even though they are pretty good characters, had only what felt like the start of an interesting character arc or had no arc at all. Finally, the end of the story. The final match against Sannoh is one of the greatest things I've ever read, but the aftermath is just striaght up bad. We have no follow ups, Sakuragi is left on the shadows and 'rushed' would be an understatement.
Of course Haikyuu has some problems of its own, but I would actually say that as a story Haikyuu is much better structured. It feels like Furudate saw all these shortcomings that I already mentioned and 'consciously' improved on them. We get volleyball from day one, no weird tangents, no weird fist fights, straight up character interactions and actual practice matches. Haikyuu has an insanely big cast with a plethora of developments and arcs from basically every team and every important character. We have several backstories, practice camps and improvements from players from all over the vast cast of the show. To name a few: Hinata, Tsukishima, Oikawa, Daichi, Asahi, Kenma, Nishinoya, Tanaka, etc. Every character has an important character arc, great developments inside of matches and is very fleshed out throughout the manga. Finally, the ending. After Kamomedai's match we have 30+ chapters of aftermath, where we basically have all of the payoff of the story as a whole. No rushed endings, nothing left in the dark, just straight up a really cohesive and planned out ending to the story, respecting every character and every plot point.
My point is that when you finish reading Slam Dunk, imo of course, you feel like it could have been much more, something that doesn't really happen with Haikyuu. The ending of Slam Dunk felt like if Haikyuu ended after the Shiratorizawa match. Just when things were going perfectly and the story felt like it hit its stride, it just ends. You feel that characters were left half-finished. There could have been so much more to explore with Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, Mitsui and the rest of the crew. And that is my "it would have been better with 100+ more chapters" argument. The bad start wouldn't have been so damaging, the characters could have been more fleshed out and the story wouldn't have had such a rushed and unexpected ending had it simply been longer.
Well, that basically summarizes my thoughts at the very least. It is a pretty long yapping session but I had to say everything.

PinesDevoker said:
but the story never was about the background, but the character's growth as a team in Shohoku

GyroZ2A said:
except they're done horribly since they're aimed at women and younger audiences.