I had some time to kill over the Golden Week period (this happens at the beginning of May in Japan) so I decided to challenge myself to the comic book series, Slam Dunk, written and drawn by Takehiko Inoue.
To Japanese people from the same generation as me, this may have been the ultimate comic to read at the time. The beginning is about a misfit that joins the basketball team to get the attention of a girl that he likes. Others join the team and through hard work, the team achieves a level of success that surprises the high school basketball world in Japan (yeah, yeah, I know... this sentence sounds pretty weird mixing world and Japan).
This is a very simple explanation of the comic. What’s lacking in this explanation is that each member of the team has unique characteristics. There’s Rukawa, an atypical boy who has the Ichiro Suzuki kind of mentality -- focus, focus, focus. Then there Ryota, a second-year student who plays hard for the girl that he’s in love with. Mi-chan took a few years off from playing due to hanging out with the wrong crowd but we find out dramatically about his basketball past. Akagi is the stereotypical fearless captain that abuses his team and gets them in shape. The coach is a fat old man that looks like Colonel Sanders. Finally, there Sakuragi Hanamichi, the protagonist, who develops his skills, slowly and painfully to become the “savior” of the team.
A good question to ask males about this comic series is which character they identify with (I like Sakuragi-kun the most due to his simple-mindedness). For females, it’s which player they would have a crush on.
The first time I read this comic must’ve been when I was about eighteen years old. I read the first ten or so books and I was immediately hooked. The beginning of the story incorporates a lot of humor with the protagonist, Sakuragi-kun. He’s a juvenile delinquent and the leader of a small gang. He doesn’t care about school and the only thing that concerns him is getting a girlfriend in the purest sense (at the beginning his friends cheer him on after he gets dumped by the fiftieth girl).
Sakuragi-kun is a first-year high school students and a girl called Haruko approaches him mentioning that he’s quite tall. It’s love at first sight! Haruko introduces Sakuragi-kun to basketball and his only thoughts are to get that perfect slam dunk to win the heart of the girl that he’s in love with.
After this ever so corny intro, the other members are slowly introduced. Each individual has their own special reason for joining the basketball team.
Over a course of thirty-one books the team takes on various teams (we learn the background of some of the opposing team members, too). There’s lots of passion in each match and Sakuragi-kun (and the readers) slowly learn the various rules of basketball... towards the end of the story the story becomes very serious and I’m sure many sentimental people might even shed a tear while reading.
Slam Dunk was written over a period of seven years which is probably why the characters’ features change throughout. For example, Akagi’s hairstyle at the beginning looks like a black rapper’s hairstyle from the late 80’s -- quite similar to a Bel Biv Devoe hairstyle -- but towards the end it looks rather normal, like a typical “sportsman”.
Another things to notice is the amount of sweat that comes out of these players. There’s probably enough sweat in this comic series to fill an entire swimming pool full!
I bought this comic series about six years ago, in Japan, and six years later there are still lots of Japanese words that I still don’t know (and will probably never be able to remember!). In particular, the words that the coaches use are tough. Lots of complicated words that most people wouldn’t use in daily life. Overall, the language used in this comic series isn’t that tough... but there’s a lot of slang to put up with.
Now that I’ve finished reading this comic, I’m wondering what I should challenge next...
