It’s been a while since my last manga recommendation, so here is an all-time favourite: Slam Dunk. Yes, believe it or not, I’m actually recommending a sports manga.

Slam Dunk (Takehiko Inoue)
31 Volumes

Slam Dunk is available in English, but only in very limited numbers. Sports manga seems to be fairly popular in the English; just not this one. Why is a complete mystery to me – I normally hate sports manga, but I loved Slam Dunk, and so do millions of people who has read it.

Plot
The hero of the story, Sakuragi Hanamichi, is your typical rough-edged delinquent with a heart of gold and a core of inner strength. His greatest goal in life is to find a girlfriend, and to walk her home every day. However, he is constantly rebuffed by every girl he encounters, until he becomes smitten with the younger sister of the captain of the school basketball team. This girl is a basketball fan, and when she tells him she adores basketball, he decides to take on the sport to get the girl. What he didn’t expect was for him to fall in love with the game and discover a talent for the sport he never knew he had.

Why I recommend this
Darn it, I just made it sound like the 100 million other sports manga out there. I’ve never liked sports manga largely because of the formula plots and the whole Japanese “sports philosophy”, which dictates that your sport of choice must be your whole life and you must take your rivalries and failures very, very personally. Not a healthy frame of mind, and if you’re not interested in sports in the first place, forget it. It may then come as a surprise to readers that Slam Dunk falls squarely into this category.

I was biased against this manga when I first saw it. It’s fantastically well-drawn with clear and dynamic basketball scenes, but it was still a sports manga, and that turned me off. However, when I started reading it, I discovered that it was genuinely different to other sports manga I’ve encountered. First of all, it was actually funny. Thank god this manga doesn’t take everything seriously. Sakuragi is one of my favourite characters because while he is genuinely talented, he does a vast number of stupid and goofy things while on his way to becoming a true sportsman. This comedy aspect is what makes Slam Dunk easy to pick up, as well as the good characterisation and excellent character designs. Most of the characters are archetypal types, but personalities are sharply drawn and immediately engaging. They also grow and change during the course of the story, especially Sakuragi. In terms of craftsmanship, Slam Dunk is the tops. I can’t think of any aspect of it which can be improved in terms of story-telling, characterisation and art.

Which brings me to why I recommend this manga in the first place. When I read Slam Dunk, I had no criticisms of it because for the Sports genre, it does everything you’ll expect from that genre prefectly. In essence, Slam Dunk is a mastery of the sports genre. If you’re out there looking for the perfectly-balanced sports manga which combines comedy, drama, romance, good characters, good sports action and interesting sporting strategy, then look no further than Slam Dunk. Heck, if you’re out looking for a good story, you can also checkout Slam Dunk as it isn’t anywhere near as single-minded as other sports manga. It is a perfect example how something that sits squarely in a certain genre can have appeal to everyone.