During the opening title sequence of The First Slam Dunk, we are introduced to the five players of Shohoku High School’s basketball team, done where they transitioned from paper sketches to 3D character models as they head towards challenging the inter-high basketball champions, the Sannoh school. Having created these characters in the pages of manga, creator Takehiko Inoue steps in as the writer-director to bring them to the big screen.
Running from 1990 to 1996, Slam Dunk remains the best-selling sports manga of all time, which spawned its own anime series that ran for 101 episodes. While he currently has two ongoing manga titles with Vagabond (on hiatus since 2015) and Real (exploring the world of wheelchair basketball), Inoue made his directorial debut with an ambitious, if unusual anime film adaptation of the title that made him a household name in the manga industry.
When it comes to long-running Shonen manga, when a title is successful, it will be franchised, catered to just that fanbase. Even when we get theatrically released movies of One Piece, Dragon Ball, etc., newcomers are not going to be well immersed in the world-building that these franchises have established. Despite its title, the film actually adapts the last match in the manga, while flashing back to each player as they remember the journey that brought them to this point.
The story, particularly, focuses on Ryota Miyagi who lost his older brother who inspired his love for basketball. This loss causes a rift between Ryota and his mother, as the latter is painfully reminded of her lost son through the sport that her other son continues to play. Shifting the focus away from fellow player Hanamichi Sakuragi, who served as the main protagonist in the manga, may seem like an odd choice for longtime fans, but the personal struggles that Ryota goes through, cross-cutting the central set-piece, is a compelling narrative that sustains the two-hour running time.
At the start of the central match, it does feel like you are thrown in the deep end where there are so many characters from Shohoku High that are more fleshed out throughout the 31 volumes of the manga. However, when we center on the five players who are going up against the best in their field, we understand their dynamics, not only during their match, but through the flashbacks, establishing how each of them are outsiders in their own way and that’s how they function as a team.
Given that this is his story and characters, Inoue makes quite the ambitious directorial debut, which uses “3DCG”, a divisive technique that uses CG animation to approximate the look of traditional 2D drawings. Considering Toei Animation used this process for last year’s Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which felt unusual in that series, The First Slam Dunk is more successful, even going as far as using motion capture to help showcase the fluidity and intensity of a basketball match, which gets balanced with the daily lift scenes that use hand-drawn 2D animation.
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