Synopsis
Hanamichi Sakuragi has been rejected by exactly 50 girls, all of them for the same reason: she likes someone on the basketball team. His hatred of the sport is personal. When Haruko Akagi — whose approval he desperately wants — assumes he loves basketball, Sakuragi joins the Shohoku High team rather than correct her. What follows is one of the greatest sports manga ever made: Sakuragi's natural athleticism, complete ignorance of the game, and outrageous personality colliding with an increasingly skilled team's drive for the national championship. Slam Dunk (Takehiko Inoue) ran 276 chapters in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990–1996 and essentially defined the visual and narrative language of sports manga. The theatrical film The First Slam Dunk (2022, Toei Animation, directed by Inoue himself) was received as one of the greatest sports films ever made.