Film, watched on March 27, 2026

Director: Inoue Takehiko

Rating: ★★★★★

Thoughts: I first watched this film during its theatrical run. Slam Dunk has been one of my favourite manga for ages, so when the movie came out, I was excited to see it, especially knowing that Inoue Takehiko both directed and wrote it :) The only source of apprehension for me was that it was a 3D animated movie, which anime studios don't have the best reputation for making. I'll just get my bias out of the way rn: as a Slam Dunk fan since middle school and a big fan of Inoue Takehiko's post-Slam Dunk work, I loved it, hence the rewatch!

The movie is about the last match in the series and stays close to the source material. Despite following the same major story beats, it changes the protagonist of the original series, Sakuragi, to Ryota, one of the supporting leads. Through this shift in POV, we get a tonally different story than the one in the manga. While Slam Dunk is about the transformative power of sports, The First Slam Dunk focuses on the transformative power of grief. We learn about Ryota's older brother, who introduced him to basketball but died young during a fishing trip, and the effects that death had on his family with flashbacks. Parts of the backstory originate from Piercing, a parallel universe one-shot that Inoue did after Slam Dunk's completion (it's a quick read with nice art, I recommend it even if you never read Slam Dunk).

It would have been easy for TFSD to be a straightforward adaptation, banking on audience nostalgia. The adaptation straddles the line between being true to the source comic, a sports manga with comedic elements published in Shounen Jump, while simultaneously creating something new that more closely resembles Inoue's present seinen manga work such as Real and Vagabond. As a fan of his current work, I loved the change in tone to something a bit more contemplative. However, I could sense that maybe not everyone in the theater enjoyed it the same...I saw lots of parents bring their children along to watch the movie and could tell while exiting the theatre that some people were a bit taken aback with how the movie had a more mature audience in mind...

A large part of the flashback scenes centre around how Ryota's brother's death drove a wedge between him and his mother. There are parts that hit close to home if you've ever dealt with a death in the family, and it doesn't hold back on how ugly it can be. Thankfully, the strong pacing allowed the film to avoid lingering excessively on somber parts. The film strikes a great balance between slow drama, and excitement. I thought that the movie also broached its heavy topics with a lot of empathy for the characters, male and female, despite how difficult they could sometimes be to watch.

As mentioned previously, the thing I was most worried about going into the film was the 3D animation. I initially had to calibrate my eyes to the style, but I got used to it. There are some moments where it looks a bit herky jerky, some moments where it looks really cool and the animators take advantage of the 3D/2D mix, but for the most part, it's fine. The animation style allowed for both realistic movements (which helped in keeping the basketball game portions engaging) and exagerration (used mostly for comedic scenes).

Overall, I really enjoyed it, even on rewatch! It's such an enthralling movie from start to finish, and as a Slam Dunk fan, it was so fun to see my favourite characters again, with new sides and dimensions to them (I was happy to get back story on Mitsui in particular heheh♡). While I do think it could work as a standalone film, I think it's best enjoyed if you're invested in the characters and world that Slam Dunk presents.

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