by Takehiko Inoue’s 90s legendary classic sports manga is going to be adapted for an animated feature film, the mangaka announced on his Twitter account on January 7. The tweet has received over 392.7K ‘Likes’ and has been retweeted more than 177.7K times as of yesterday. Here is a twitter embed of the same.
Slam Dunk tells the story of Hanamichi Sakuragi, a hyperactive highschool delinquent hopeless bruiser, who’s been rejected by 50 girls in a row, takes up basketball to seduce his classmate Haruko. But as time passes he unhurriedly discovers a true fascination for the sport, and his enthusiasm motivates the riff-raff team at high elevation.
Originally started as a decent casual basketball series, the manga went on to become the best- selling sports manga series in history having sold more than 126 million copies in Japan alone. In 1994, the manga received the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shounen category. And in 2010, the author even received special commendations from the Japan Basketball Association for helping popularize basketball in Japan.
The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation which aired from October 1993 to March 1996. And in between 1994-1995 Toei Animation also produced 4 anime sequels while manga and TV series were still running.
While Inoue’s original announcement did not reveal whether it’ll be a sequel or reboot or live-action or anime but an official website and Twitter account have been created. From there it has been confirmed the movie will be produced and animated by Toei Animation. Though it does not yet have a release date.
