Slam Dunk is a sports-themed manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue about a basketball team from Shōhoku High School. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1990 to 1996, with the chapters collected into 31 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. It was adapted into an anime series by Toei Animation which has been broadcast worldwide, enjoying much popularity particularly in Japan, several other Asian countries and Europe. As of 2012, Slam Dunk had sold 120 million copies in Japan alone, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history. Inoue later used basketball as a central theme in two subsequent manga titles: Buzzer Beater and Real. In 2010, Inoue received special commendations from the Japan Basketball Association for helping popularize basketball in Japan.It has been 18 years since the pioneer anime basketball series Slam Dunk has ended. Fans were left wondering why the show stopped even if it was gaining tremendous commercial and critical success. The final episode was the conclusion of the game between Shohoku and Shoyo-Ryonan Team where Shohoku team ended up as the victors. It also showed the team of Shohoku and Kainan leave Kanagawa for the Inter High. When Shohoku is about to enter the Shinkansen train, they promised to themselves that they are going to win the championship.
Recent speculations are surfacing that Toei animation is planning to restart production of the anime series.
Seeing how successful another basketball anime series, Kuroko No Basuke is right now, it just goes to show that most anime fans are also sports enthusiast.
As a testament of how successful Slam Dunk was, mangaka Tekehiko Inoue was asked several questions in an interview, he was asked if he was surprised that Slam Dunk became so popular with readers in Europe, Asia and South America as well.
He answered, "I feel that when people from other countries read Slam Dunk, they don't think of the characters as being Japanese. They think of as being the same as the people around them."
Another question thrown at him by the interviewer was "several publishers here in the U.S. and they've said that so far, sports manga has been a hard sell to American audiences. Do you think Slam Dunk will be received differently?"
He retorted, "The United States is a country that loves sports. With Slam Dunk, I'm trying to convey the feelings that people have when they're playing sports, when they love sports. These feelings are universal, so I'm not too worried about people responding to my work when I think of it that way.
Slam Dunk is popular over Asia, especially in the Philippines were the series was dubbed in their native language and has been on and off the air almost every two years for re-run.
If the series shall resume, it would most likely cover Shohoku's match against Toyotama, Sannoh and other inter high bound schools.
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