Title: Slam Dunk
Volume(s): 32
Creator(s): Inoue Takehiko
Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left
Publisher: Gutsoon
MSRP: $9.95
Genre(s): Sports/Action
Rated: Teen (13+)

 

When "Raijin Comics" first issue hit the racks of specialty stores, this series turned a few readers heads. One was because it was the first REAL sports manga that was picked up for American distribution. Two because they picked up arguable the one sports manga that was considered to be the best sports manga in Japan. And three because this was a "Shonen Jump" title in Japan. And with America getting their own version of "Shonen Jump" it just felt weird for this series to be in "Raijin Comics." The CEO of Tokyopop in an interview once even said that "Slam Dunk" was his favorite manga of all time (Which makes me wonder why Tokyopop didn't pick this up themselves). I have always heard from people who used to import untranslated manga in the past that this was a very good series, but not being able to read much Japanese myself I never could get around to checking it out. Well thanks to Gutsoon I can now say that I have read the famous "Slam Dunk," and it is great my brothers, it is great!

The series is about Sakuragi Hanamichi, a red head high school punk who hates basketball with a passion. The reason? He fell in love with a girl who turned him down because she was in love with someone on the basketball team. Well this crushed him greatly, and now he hates basketball with a passion. Or so he thinks. Shortly after he is turned down by this one girl someone comes up to ask him if he likes basketball. Sakuragi turns around to teach this person a lesson, only to discover the beautiful Haruko Akagi standing before him. He instantly falls head over heals for her, and now basketball is the in thing for him. Now he is on a mission: Make every effort to join the basketball team and win Haruko's heart, no matter what the cost. However joining the basketball team and gaining Haruko's affection will not be as easy as it sounds.

For starters Haruko has crush on a skilled basketball player named Ruwaku Kaede, and unfortunately for Sakuragi, Ruwaku is on the same team! And when push comes to shove, Haruko will always pay attention to Ruwaka over Saguragi any day of the week. Another problem is that Haruko's older brother is the captain of the basketball team, and he HATES Saguragi! Which means that the chances of him letting Saguragi have a chance in the game (Or with his sister) are slim! Add all that to the major fact that Saguragi is really not that great of a player, and you can see that he has a lot of obstacles to overcome. After all he may be able to run, and he may be fast, but he doesn't know the rules of the game, and even basic things like dribbling while walking (Or just plain dribbling) is difficult for him to do. Never-the-less Saguragi is determined to learn to play basketball...even if it kills him. As I stated before "Slam Dunk" is considered by many to be one of the best sports manga's ever written, if not the best sports manga ever written, and after reading this series it's easy to see why people would say that.

"Slam Dunk" is actually one of those series that gets everything right, and it gets everything right good. This series has a likable cast, its got great humor and drama, the artwork is very good with lots of detail all over the place, and of course there's the basketball! If there is one thing that is hard to drawn in comics it's sport games. After all, how to do you draw the games in a way that make them so involving and exciting that people feel like their watching a real game come to life on the pages? Well it's a tricky and time consuming process, but if done correctly it can be very effective. The author for "Slam Dunk" creates great basketball games with great realism, excitement, and energy. Even a non-sports fan like me can get into the games, as they are very involving and fun to read! The fact that the author can give this much detail to this game in amazing itself, but Inoue Takehiko takes it to the next level by having there be a story within the game too. While playing the team mates will constantly be shouting orders to each other, giving the reader (Sports fan or not) a chance to really understand the game and follow it, and ultimately the games are where the this series really shines.

Plus all the characters are developed really well too. The characters in this series are deep, complicated people, and the author makes sure to give each character time to let his or her character develop off the court too! Another great thing about this series is Saguragi himself. To put it bluntly he is just one of the best leads ever. He's strong without being a bully, he's absent minded without being stupid, and he's funny without being annoying. The rest of the cast are multi-layered too (Even if they don't start out deep), and no character that I've seen yet gets the shaft in terms of character development. However there is one major problem with this series that keeps the grade down, and sadly it's not even something that has to do with the series itself. When this was published in "Raijin Comics" the translation was pristine and excellent, there was hardly a flaw to be found with the translation, however for some reason Gutsoon decide to release the "Slam Dunk" books with a completely new translation, and this new translation is very flawed and less then impressive.

Scene's that originally contained funny jokes now have jokes that are either lame or not quite as funny as they originally were. Some names got changed for no reason, and some situations now have completely different dialog completely, making it difficult to fully understand what is going on sometimes. The changes are as worthless as they are confusing (Why DID Gutsoon make a whole new translation when there was a perfectly good one they already had), and I find it strange that "Slam Dunk" is the only title that has had this done (Gutsoons other titles don't suffer from having two different translations). So what would have been an easy A now has a B-, and all because someone had to screw with the translation. "Slam Dunk" is still worth checking out, but not through these books. Gutsoons website has back issue's of "Raijin Comics" for sale, and these back issue's contain the translation this book SHOULD have had! I'm very disappointed in Gutsoon, hopefully they'll fix this problem soon.

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -