Slam Dunk, classic Japanese anime comes to DVD

I lived in Japan when Slam Dunk was on television there.*  That’s something I mention because I remember what a big deal it was in its heyday. The manga sold hundreds of millions of copies, there were a couple movies made with the characters and the show is credited with starting the rise of basketball as a sport and cultural relevance over there. Slam Dunk is the story about a middle school kid whose height makes him a natural for basketball.

The only problem is that he’s socially clumsy, doesn’t have much luck with girls and has a nasty temper. All of these things intersect as he meets a girl who loves basketball and encourages Sakuragi to play. Of course, one of the reasons he’s bad with girls is that a girl that he used to like dumped him to date a……basketball player.

He gradually learns that he has the height to play, but doesn’t yet have the finesse and patience that actually make a good basketball player. Over the course of a couple episodes he meets other players who are better than him, teach him lessons about life and basketball and he manages to get into several fights.

Slam Dunk was initially released in 1993.  Keep that in mind when you see the anime because it does look dated and quite different than today’s anime. Having said that, the hallmark anime effects, like detailed landscapes, static shots with panning cameras and more are throughout the show. If you’re a fan of anime, you’ll like Slam Dunk and enjoy its kitschy flavor.

It comes on two DVDs and is dubbed into English. The DVD menu does not offer viewers the chance for Japanese audio. The show’s opening is original and offers fans the real Japanese audio. I like this because the songs that open anime are good. You don’t need to speak any Japanese; you can immediately recognize that this is much more than a jingle.  This is a song that needs to last longer than :30.

Slam Dunk does have some vocabulary that is too rough for children under 14. Its language that really isn’t needed either, but it reflects the way that a frustrated teen would speak.  Slam Dunk is an interesting look at early to mid 90s anime. It would be great for the releases to have more options in the DVD settings, such as more language options, but I suspect that anime fans will be content seeing that this has finally been released.

*While hesitant to use the word ‘classic’ in the title it is in the country that it was released. It’s akin to someone calling Different Strokes classic television. The show is a classic that for one reason or another is remembered by people who grew up with it.