Slam Dunk is Takehiko Inoue’s classic basketball manga, finally being re-released in Viz editions. The star of the story is young delinquent teen Hanamichi Sakuraga; he was a huge failure in love, and a member of teen gangs until he fell in love with Haruko Akagi, a first year student at Shohoku high school. He joins the basketball team to impress her (and her brother being the team captain means she’ll be around frequently), but his basketball spirit is starting to kindle…of course, they all still need a lot of work if they’re going to reach the finals! The series is a mix of strong characters, comedy, and a lot of dramatic basketball action.
Slam Dunk vol. 7: The End of the Basketball Team picks up after an exhibition game with one of their prefecture’s top teams; having done quite well despite losing, they’re practicing once more to improve their game. Ryota Miyagi, another player on the team has recently returned after being in the hospital after a fight, and his unruly attitude reminds everyone of a certain other player who may be the star of this manga..
Highlights
The volume begins with Miyagi and Hanamichi in a fight in the middle of practice. Miyagi may be almost as much of a delinquent as Hanamichi is, and the first few chapters of these volumes are hilarious as they come to terms in an unexpected and funny way. I really enjoy the way sports manga develop the characters; it allows someone like myself who actually knows very little about sports to enjoy them quite a bit. The artwork in the scene where the two grab each other’s cheek and yank is quite funny as their rubber-like faces stretch quite impressively.
The majority of the volume, however, deals with Miyagi’s past coming back to haunt him. Mitsui, the punk who he sent to the hospital (well, they both had to go) is back with a bunch of goons and they want to see the basketball team shut down for good. If the team gets caught up in a brawl they could all get suspended for fighting, but nothing less than blood seems like it will satisfy Mitsui. In fact, there is quite a bit of blood and bruising in this arc, more than I expected from the comical art at other times. It would be easy to mistake this volume for a fighting manga, but the underlying tension is there; will they get to play a game again, or will the school close up the team for roughhousing? As a fan of battle manga, I enjoy seeing that Hanamichi still gets time to bust a few heads despite being a full time player now.
Overall
There’s a smaller selection of sports manga than typical shonen tournament mangas, so it’s always a breath of fresh air to read one over here in the west. Hanamichi in particular is a fun and silly protagonist, and I really root for the guy. The art really helps, as the characters have a tendency to go a bit chibi and make funny SD faces; I chuckled quite a few times reading this volume.
My biggest complaint is that we didn’t get to see much basketball this volume; it developed a lot of character (and the scene between Miyagi and Hanamichi in the park is so funny I can’t spoil it in this review) and in comparison to the work as a whole, it’s still quality stuff, but a whole volume going by without much hoop work means I’d recommend picking up a couple earlier volumes first instead of starting with this one.
The overall package is hard to find fault with however, crisp well paced writing and the art is fun to look at (one guy reminded me of Yuske from Yu Yu Hakusho but its probably in part the classic Japanese school uniforms) and in as much as it matters for a basketball manga, the fight scenes are engaging. I look forward to seeing more of the games and how Hanamichi has improved since he didn’t even know how to dribble back in volume 1. This is a classic story of basketball action with likeable characters that delivers where it counts, even when they’re off the court.
ComicsOnline gives Slam Dunk vol. 7: The End of the Basketball Team, 4.5 out of 5 school uniform wearing punks.
