Recommended
The First Slam Dunk does something absolutely genius, it adapts the ending of its manga as a standalone film. I didn’t know that going in, nor did I know anything about the manga aside from who wrote it. But I do know the conventions of sports anime filmmaking, and the way this film subverts them is downright genius. One such convention is to put you inside the protagonists’ heads. This fills time without requiring complex animation, and informs the viewer as to the character’s plan and mental state. It is not a technique without merit, but is often used excessively in TV productions as to breakoff tension and slow pacing.
Slam Dunk avoids this at points, in absence of internal monologue, communicating the characters’ intentions by a shared glance or via carefully directed animation. Essentially, the Basketball is allowed to speak for itself.
This has a unique effect. Since we don’t always know the protagonists’ intentions, every fake out and feint catches the viewer off guard, whichever team performs it. This effectively doubles the tension that otherwise would have existed, and it's only possible due to the film’s restrained internal monologuing.
Occasionally, when a character is stuck in their own head or planning something, we do get an internal monologue, but that is always broken off by an opponent move or a quick execution of said plan, leaving no room for tension to break.
Another cinematic convention which typically holds back sports anime, even great ones, is reaction shots. A bad reaction shot takes the focus off the players, centering attention on the sidelines rather than the action. This can entirely sever the tension of a scene, and does in many TV productions looking to fill time.
They aren’t entirely useless though. A well placed reaction shot can contextualize action through the thoughts and emotions of the crowd, coaches, and sidelined players. They can enhance a narrative if interjected carefully.
The scriptwriter and storyboard artists here understood exactly how to use a reaction shot, enhancing the atmosphere and stakes around the match while not meaningfully interrupting the action. Longer reactions are entirely reserved to breaks in play, and those in the action aren’t intrusive.
A good reaction shot is often only one second and a single word long, this film gets that, and only interjects such brief cuts.
A similar technique TV productions rely on to fill time is cuts to backstory, which typically involve less complex animation than the sports at center stage. In TV productions these all too often come at the height of tension, rendering null all of the emotion built during a match.
Slam Dunk too improves on this technique, opening on the protagonist’s backstory, then intercutting between the finals match and the core cast’s backstories, splitting time about evenly between the two.
By defining the emotional stakes as the match progresses and interlacing explicit characterization with displays of the characters’ playstyles, the cuts here add tension rather than break it. They too make the film feel like one cohesive narrative, explicitly connecting the character’s arcs to the sport. The viewer comes to understand what the match means to the players as it progresses.
The quality of the scene-to-scene editing too extends to the shot-to-shot editing, which perfectly conveys the dynamics on court at any given moment, and ties the animation together immaculately.
That animation is fantastic. Anime has been trying for decades to seamlessly blend 3D models with 2D backgrounds, and there are moments here that execute on that perfectly. It is not the first anime production to seamlessly blend 2D and 3D, Studio Ghibli accomplished that back in 2004, but it is the closest I’ve seen an anime get to achieving it with 3D character models.
Those models are perfectly lit, and incorporate beautiful line art that somewhat replicate the manga’s style.
There is some top tier 2D sakuga on display here as well. That walk out where the 5 core players are slowly penciled in is a perfect introduction to the team and the central match.
The closing moments of that match comprise one of the most impressive sequences in anime history. All sound falls away and we’re left only with cinematic storytelling and the emotions of the characters. The characters’ line art stretches out behind them as they move. It replicates the mental state of the players, exhausted, losing control, but locked in on one goal. It replicates a flow state in the invested viewer.
Perhaps Slam Dunk’s most impressive subversion of sports anime convention is that every single point scored is shown. It is standard (and often necessary) for TV productions to cut across large swaths of scoring, only showing swings in momentum or morale. This film isn't bound by the production limitations that necessitate that, and can thus portray its content more convincingly than any other sports anime.
No room is left for the viewer to question the realism of a comeback because they see all of it play out. Frequent cuts to the scoreboard and clock too aid the viewer in understanding the match clearly as it unfolds.
Slam Dunk again bucks convention by not explaining any of the sport’s rules. The first few episodes of most sports anime typically involve a description of the sport’s rules, for obvious reasons. Slam Dunk brilliantly sidesteps this, never explaining a single rule, but always keeping the lay viewer informed through cinematic storytelling.
I’m kind of a casual NBA fan, I follow NBA news a bit, and even tune in for finals matches sometimes, but I’m not well versed in the rulebook. Despite that shallow knowledge, I was never once confused during this movie. I imagine someone even less knowledgeable than me would have inferred the relevant rules.
The film’s narrative is more impactful for first time viewers in an important way, knowledge of the outcome. Viewers aware of the plot of Slam Dunk, or even what part of the manga this adapts will already know who wins. Almost all sports anime are predictable in this department, that’s just how single elimination tournaments and long-form narratives tend to interact.
Slam Dunk doesn’t have this problem though. The viewer is only shown one match, over the course of which emotional stakes are built, but wider plot implications are never covered. We aren’t told if this is their last shot, or even what year some of the players are in. Because the viewer is not fully aware of the stakes, and this is a standalone film, the outcome of the match is not clear from the start. That contributes to tension, and it's something many beefier narratives, including the one on which this film is based, can’t replicate.
The soundtrack is phenomenal, incorporating rock and electronic elements to generate hype I haven't felt in years, maybe ever. It's the icing on the hype cake, and it propels the narrative to insane emotional heights.
This movie accomplishes in 2 hours what takes most sports manga 300 chapters. What other sports anime do to save money or time, this film does deliberately to enhance the narrative.
The First Slam Dunk is the greatest sports anime I’ve ever seen. It will be the impossible standard to which I compare all sports anime for the foreseeable future.
No other anime has made my heart race like this one. It’s an anime AED.
Or, put another way, it’s a masterpiece.
