Happy (now officially late) 4th of July, everyone! I did all of my celebrating with the family on the 3rd, so I spent today starting up yet another baseball anime series. It seems that I've been bitten by the sports tournament anime bug; I've always been a sucker for shounen action series, and sports anime are basically the same thing (except with less killing).
Just as a forewarning, this isn't going to be nearly half as intelligent as the last post. Slam Dunk is the type of anime that begs fangirlish wailing when writing about it. ^^;
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Slam Dunk was first aired in the mid-90s and since then, has become one of the most famous anime ever in Japan, as well as other countries such as China and S.Korea, and is even known in Latin America. (I myself first heard of this show in the Philippines.) Along with Touch, this is one of the only sports anime that ranks up close to the Dragonball series and One Piece in terms of Japanese popularity. It's less impressive in 2009, mainly because many of the pioneering aspects of the series are no longer fresh. However, it IS very entertaining and a show well-worth looking into for people who generally like shounen and/or basketball.
In a few words, Slam Dunk is a show about basketball, fistfighting, and being Real Manly. Yes, it is incredibly shallow fun, but fun it is. The main character, Sakuragi, is basically Naruto on steroids, minus the wangst and traumatic background. His rival, Rukawa, is two Sasukes in one, plus narcolepsy, minus the wangst and traumatic background. The two of them are hilarious. Slam Dunk is half sports action and half comedy, with many of the funniest jokes revolving around these two. ("Pffft, did you all hear that? Rukawa's favorite hobby is sleeping. Ah, what a boring guy! And expressionless too!")
After finishing this show, I needed to let it settle for a while before I could form a clear opinion of it. This show definitely has flaws, most of these flaws involving the two characters above. Despite improving throughout the series, Sakuragi is a basketball n00b with a huge ego. There are many, many, many instances where Sakuragi tries to show up Rukawa, but ends up fumbling and letting the opponents get a hold of the ball--when this occurs during critical moments, it is INFURIATING. On the other hand, Rukawa has the opposite problem: he's too perfect. He hardly grows as a character because he doesn't need to; during one game, a spectator criticized Rukawa for playing selfishly, then quickly retracted the statement because he's just SO damn good that he can make risky plays and get away with it.
However. Once the show settled in my mind, I realized how small these complaints of mine were once I looked at the show as a whole. Despite all of its flaws (and there are a lot of them), in the end, I am very fond of this series. It's the type of anime that I love despite knowing how truly bad it is in some ways. It's very watchable: the matches (though overly-long) do manage to hold the viewer's attention, the action is well-animated, the characters are all entertaining, and the show is funny as all hell. I have trouble remembering the last time an anime made me laugh out loud so consistently.
Major plus points:
- Mitsui, my fav. character. He has the most... interesting backstory. He rolls with gangs. (No, seriously.)
- Filler-ish episodes that are actually fun to watch. (e.g. The team studying at Akagi's house overnight b/c they're all failing miserably.)
- Sendo's sexy, sexy voice. It's the type of thing you need to hear for yourself. My eyes tear up just thinking about it. *o*~
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HeeroRukawa is voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa. That man should just voice every snarky character ever. Even females. - The fact that I didn't get the Rukawa/Sendo pairing at ALL... until I saw the fanart of them eating fast food and FISHING and all that other couple-y crap. Goddamn Chinese fangirls.
And the first OP song! It's perfect for this show, really; addictive and energizing. The video itself features some excellent clips from the show, including scenes from the Shohoku vs Shoyo game, my favorite of the series. :)
