The First Slam Dunk

First of all... Slam Dunk franchise is a life changer for me..

My love of Basketball, and My key illustration artsyles came from Inoue Sensei's Slam Dunk..

Wow! The first slam dunk is a 30 years of payoff, since this franchise hiatus from televison and theaters.

On top of it, we've been delivered a very epic and beautiful feature film in every aspect, the right portion of storytelling, and basketball animation that feel so lively.

The CGI and 2D Animation is combined beautifully, and very eye pleasing.

If i remember the original anime, the voice acting is 85 percent sound exatcly the same, only sakuragi that feels different, but it doesn't matter, their performances is top notch 👌.

The soundtrack, the music, SO EPIC, i feel the adrenaline rush. On the other hand, i start listening to other 10-Feet albums 😅.

The main character change from Sakuragi to Ryota is part of Inoue Sensei perfect exploration to build a storytelling that can be accepted by both sides (Old time fans, and Newbies).

Ryota is the only character who didn't have much background stories in manga and anime.

And i really don't have problem with it, in fact that i'm Sakuragi big fan.

The other characters also get a very right portion of stories and it sustain throughout the movie, and somehow, Sakuragi still feels like he's the main character.

Nostlagia let it be the nostalgia, we already know the whole story anyway..

I can't imagine if this movie is 100% the same as the manga's, the newbies will confused by it.

If theres any panel from the manga that didn't make it to the movie, that shows some reaction and moment from a character, all we got to do is just accept with an open heart... i believe Inoue sensei sorted it wisely..

Its an artwork, we can't please everyone..

I also think that this is part of the film business, thats why inoue packed it that way, so that the movie feels like new to both the newcomers and the old fans, in hope that the newcomers will love slam dunk franchise after it.

My words, to the old fans, if you can't move on, from the old anime graphics, we'll be like stucked in the past, which is not relevant to the market these days.

And that old anime, Inoue Sensei have some problems too back then.

Let the manga and anime became the greatest masterpiece legacy, and we embrace this movie as a new standalone masterpiece in the box office.

If theres any problem with the cut to flashback scenes, i feel like theres nothing wasted here, because those flashback stories never been in manga before.

And that kind of storytelling is also told in the manga, one of the japanese filmmaking style also, and to build a deep emotional story.

I can say that this is type of maturity of art vision that Inoue Sensei does in this movie masterpiece, i hope the fans understand this much as we also grew with Slam Dunk history.

Don't do much complain, if this movie doesn't match with the manga 100%, "the scene should exist" bla bla, we should be grateful..

remember, this movie never been in Inoue Sensei's mind, He's been proposed many times but he rejected it..

Overall, its 9/10, please watch it on theaters, the vibe will rushing through your souls, i guaranteed, still the best sports anime of all time 👌

much love from Indonesia 🇮🇩

I gave this movie a 9/10 but to be honest, big part of the score goes to the original Slam Dunk manga, which is a legend, and big part of my youth growing up.

I seriously thought it was an April fool joke when I read 2 years ago Inoue-san announced he was going to make a movie version of slam dunk. And I've been looking forward to this then, and it did not disappoint.

The biggest headache for Inoue-san was probably how could he re-tell such a classic story, which the fans must have re-read hundreds or even thousands of times by now, without making the movie redundant and unnecessary. And he's made some really smart choices here. The smartest choice of all, imo, is to re-tell the Sannon battle from Miyagi's perspective, and adding a lot of backdrop stories.

And manga fans get to re-live the Shohoku - Sannon battle with new backdrop stories, and re-live all the monumental touching moments in the story. And for fans like me, the 2 hours in the theatre felt like re-watching my first love right in front of my eyes years later, feeling like it's just happening for the first time.

The movie is not without flaw. I think for people who have not watched the original manga, the movie will feel pretty choppy. The editing would feel awkward. Especially in the Mitsui story. That would feel so incomplete and even a lot of "WTH" moments. Or likewise when Sakuraki saw flashbacks from his past when he was injured. But maybe there isn't a flawless way to re-tell a 31 books manga (or even the Sannon battle is like 4-5 books?) in a 2 hours movie.

Which is not to say new audience cannot enjoy this movie, but this would simply be a good sports movie to those not being familiar with the original manga. For the fans though, this is an amazing movie.

I can only hope Inoue-san would come up with the Second slam dunk, the third slam dunk, the forth slam dunk .... but hopefully it won't take another 26 years.

For those who know Takehiko Inoue, the author of the manga, he is definitely not the kind of person who likes to repeat what he did in the past. To him, his work on Slam Dunk is done 25y ago. He declined so many times to reboot the manga. When I heard that a movie on Slam Dunk was in production, I didn't expect him to be the director of this movie but the guy is such a perfectionist and he wanted it to be done in his way so he took the challenge, So it's his first movie and what a movie!

On an artistic level, there is a perfect balance between the 3D actions and the painting styles of the original manga. It gives you feeling that you are really in a basketball game. The whole movie is very detail oriented, I found that truly amazing technically. Bravo to the director and his team on that. The music gave the dynamic to the movie, it was a perfect fit.

For those who know the scenario of the original manga, even though the outcome is the same, it was not the copy paste of the original manga. You will discover the same facts under a total different angle and some additional stories which make the movie very consistent. I like the way how Takehiko Inoue described relationships between some characters. That was done in a very elegant way, never too much, quite inline with the Japanese culture.

One of the main reasons why the original manga is legendary is because the whole story was very inspiring for teenagers with a lot of stories that can be seen as life lessons. Besides the characters have strong charisma but stay very real. If you never read the manga, this movie is a good start to discover it.

I'm not giving it ten points because the 3D crowd was pretty bad in some scenes. Other than that, it's a perfect movie! The pacing, emotion and tension are set up impeccably, and there are several seconds of silence towards the end of the movie where the whole theater was dead silent, some probably holding their breath.

Fans of the manga will recognize iconic scenes that last just long enough. With the same rhythm and comedic timing, you can tell that the manga's author is the director of the film.

It captures the charms of the manga beautifully, while also using the resources of animation to great effect, making it a masterpiece in its own right.

Why I said that? I watched the movie with my 15 years old son who knows nothing about this story.

Like others said, this movie is from Ryota Miyagi's perspective. That's why you won't see many Sakuragi's funny moments or know why he plays basketball as the base story of this title. But Inoue created too much drama and deep story about Miyagi's background and it makes the movie pace slow down drastically many times. Inoue also remove Miyagi's crush toward Ayako. My son got bored in this part. For children this story is too hard to understand. That can be seen from movie rating that <18 audiences gave the lowest score.

Other members don't get enough introduction. For first-timer audience, they won't know that Akagi is so dominant under the ring, Sakuragi has extraordinary body, Mitsui is a 3 pointer or Rukawa the ace of the team. The relation between characters also won't be explain here.

For die-hard fans, this "side story" and Miyagi's perspective is interesting. The animation also amazing. You will get the feel of the match. Every characters look alive. And it's a great nostalgia for us.

The conclusion.is, I still prefer original story as its title The First Slam Dunk, so it also should be for first-timer. My son doesn't attach to this story and still doesn't want to read my Slam Dunk manga collection.