Tiffany CondeFans who grew up watching classic anime from the 1990s and still remember shooting hoops at their local basketball court have a nostalgia-fuelled surprise waiting for them. On Twitter, Takehiko Inoue, the manga artist and creator behind Slam Dunk, has recently teased a brand new movie of his popular basketball series.
“Slam Dunk will become a movie,” Inoue’s tweet says with no further elaboration, accompanied by a pencil sketch video with the hashtag #slamdunkmovie. As of 11 Jan 2021, Inoue’s brief announcement has garnered more than 385,000 likes and 174,000 retweets.
Image credit: Slam Dunk Movie Official Website
For those who aren’t familiar with the series, Slam Dunk follows Hanamichi Sakuragi, a red-haired and hot-tempered delinquent who joins the Shōhoku High School basketball team to impress a girl he likes. Later, Sakuragi discovers he has a competitive talent for playing basketball and develops a strong, competitive passion for the sport.
Image credit: Toei Animation
The 31-volume manga series by Inoue has sold more than 157 million copies around the world. Growing into a cultural phenomenon and a mainstay of the sports anime genre, Slam Dunk has spawned a well-loved anime adaptation, four films, and several video games, inspiring an entire generation of basketball players in Japan and many countries in Asia.
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What we currently know about the Slam Dunk movie
Image credit: Toei Animation
For those who worry that the movie will be a live-action remake like Ghost in the Shell, fret not. Toei Animation, the same Japanese animation studio responsible for the anime, has been listed as a producer for the animated movie.
Toei Animation also produced four short movies that were broadcasted on Japanese television between 1994 and 1995. But the movie project announced by manga artist Inoue will be the first feature-length animated movie from the Slam Dunk franchise.
Details have yet to be announced on the official website as to whether the new Slam Dunk movie will be a sequel or an entire reboot of the anime series, which aired for 101 episodes on TV Asahi from October 1993 to March 1996.
Either way, this calls for a rewatch, don’t you think?
