Slam Dunk (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue.

In Japan, Slam Dunk has been regarded as one of the greatest sports manga series of all time and has been cited as a contributor in popularizing basketball among Japanese youth during the 1990s.

[4] Before starting Slam Dunk, he created a one-shot manga titled Aka ga Suki (赤が好き), which was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump Summer Special in 1990.

The one-shot featured an early prototype of Hanamichi Sakuragi and Haruko Akagi, with a story and character dynamics that laid the groundwork for Slam Dunk.

[5] After he began working on the series, Inoue was surprised to receive letters from readers who had begun playing the sport due to his manga.

[7] Thinking that his success as a manga artist was largely due to basketball, Inoue organized a Slam Dunk scholarship for Japanese students as he wanted to give back to the sport by increasing its popularity in Japan.

This experience is mirrored in the character Hanamichi Sakuragi, who began playing basketball to impress a girl, only to later grow truly fond of the game.

went out of business, the license for Slam Dunk was purchased by Viz Media, which published a preview of the series in the December 2007 issue of the North American edition of Shonen Jump.

[32] The epilogue was published in book form by Flower under the title Slam Dunk 10 Days After Complete on April 10, 2009.

[48][49] The openings, ending and other two themes were collected into the CD soundtrack The Best of TV Animation Slam Dunk, released on July 21, 2003.

The film features original characters including Godai, an old friend of Akagi and Kogure's, Rango, a wild show-off who is in love with Haruko and quarrels with Sakuragi, and Coach Kawasaki, a former pupil of Anzai-sensei.

[58][59] Numerous video games based on the series, mostly developed by Banpresto and produced by Bandai, have been published for the Japanese market.

[76] In a poll of close to 79,000 Japanese for the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006, Slam Dunk was voted the #1 manga of all time.

[79] In November 2014, readers of Media Factory's Da Vinci magazine voted Slam Dunk as the fourth Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

[81][82] French newspaper Le Figaro selected the series as one of their six recommended manga featured at the 2019 Paris Book Fair.

[88] Until it was broken in 2002, volumes 21 through 23 of Slam Dunk held the record for initial printing of a manga at 2.5 million copies.

[92] This resulted in Slam Dunk being the fourth best-selling manga of 2018 with 5.2 million copies sold,[93] and the ninth top-selling media franchise of 2018, with estimated sales of ¥3.4 billion.

[95] Similarly, the Young Adult Library Services Association named the first volume one of its "Great Graphic Novels for Teens" in early 2009.

[96] Slam Dunk was the third best-selling manga series in the first half of 2023 (period between November 2022 and May 2023), with 4.2 million copies sold.

[97] Carlo Santos of Anime News Network wrote that "With solid characters, eye-popping action, and a classic underdog story, Slam Dunk is what all manga series (and basketball players) should aspire to be: the complete package.

"[98] Based on the first volume however, his colleague Carl Kimlinger said it came off as more of a romantic comedy than a sports manga as it focused on establishing the cast.

"[98] Similarly, Kris Kosaka of The Japan Times wrote that Slam Dunk is not your typical sports story dominated by on-the-court heroics, but Inoue's love of basketball is evident on every page.

"[101] Kimlinger called Sakuragi an "inspired choice" for a lead character as he is a thug with a hair-trigger temper and all the wrong motivations, but said he does the "seemingly impossible" and balances likeability and extreme hubris thanks to humorous scenes.

[99] Santos wrote that while Sakuragi may not have the "mind-blowing superhuman skills" we normally associate with shōnen protagonists, watching him grow into a sportsman and decent human being is just as exciting.

[98] Despite having some "school-punk" character designs that are generally considered comedic nowadays, Santos called the art solid for its visual flow and sense of motion.

[107] The First Slam Dunk, released in 2022, grossed over $281 million worldwide as of August 2024[update],[108] becoming one of the top ten highest-grossing anime films of all time.

"[111] In a dissertation, PhD student Dexter Thomas of Cornell University stated "The first wave of basketball in Japan was pushed forward by Slam Dunk.

[113] Azusa Takahashi of the Japanese website Real Sound wrote that the appeal of Slam Dunk and the impact it had on the popularity of the sport is rooted in how realistic it is.

1 railroad crossing on the Enoshima Electric Railway has become a popular tourist attraction, or seichi junrei, for fans of Slam Dunk due to being depicted in the opening credits of the manga's anime adaptation.

[118][119] The resulting overtourism has caused the local government to assign security guards to the location in order to curb troublesome behavior.