The shocking climax! And what happens after!
Creative Staff
Story: Takehiko Inoue
Art: Takehiko Inoue
What They Say
The Kings from Kainan hold firm to their four-point lead over the boys from Shohoku, and there are only 30 seconds left on the game clock! Mitsui puts up a desperate prayer of a three-pointer, but it’s the always-unpredictable Sakuragi who succeeds in shrinking the point deficit and drawing a crucial foul. But if Sakuragi wants to keep his team’s hope alive, he needs to nail his next free throw… and he’s absolutely terrible at free throws!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
How time flies. I wouldn’t have believed that this one basketball game has gone on for four volumes now. Slam dunk is so absorbing that the chapters just fly past. You get caught up in the shooting and blocking and rebounding and cheering and all of a sudden you’re at the end of the book and on tenterhooks until the next volume arrives. Wait, is that really the time? Where did my evening go?
Half of the volume is the last two minutes of the basketball game that has kept me riveted for about 600 pages now. Four points stand between Shohoku and victory–and keep standing there. Inoue wrings a lot of tension out of the frustrations that come when you just can’t gain any ground at a crucial time. You can see it in the player’s sweat-stained faces and straining eyes. The artist has already shown that he’s an expert at taking games down to the wire. Here he exceeds even himself. It’s a no holds barred, blow and counterblow fight to the finish, each team clawing for possession, for position, for anything that will get them one last point. It’s a virtuoso performance, down to the very last play, where Sakuragi, in the closing seconds of the game, takes the ball and…no, no, you’ll have to find that out for yourself.
Inoue, not content with being a master of in-game suspense, transitions masterfully into the game’s aftermath. There’s always room for improvement, and everybody on the team has something to work on. Akagi has a busted ankle to look after. Mitsui and Rukawa need to build stamina. Sakuragi, of course, has plenty of his own issues. The game he just played will prove to be a watershed moment for him. I won’t go into to many specifics for fear of spoilers. Suffice to say that the way he responds to this game will go a long way in determining what kind of a player he’ll become. He’ll either build on the experience, or he’ll get full of himself and stagnate. He’s a long way from basketball greatness, and he won’t get closer unless he makes the right choice at the crossroads.
In Summary:
In reading this volume I was struck all over again at how good Inoue is at putting you there in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether that moment is on the sidelines observing and strategizing, or on the court fighting for a rebound and slamming the ball home, or up in the stands cheering your team on. Or even looking back on the game once it’s finished and drawing lessons out of it for next time. All of this goes into making the experience more real and alive. “Genius will not be denied!” spouts our hero somewhere in this volume. He’s right about that–but the genius is the guy who’s drawing him.
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: April 5th, 2011
MSRP: $9.99
