On October 26, an Instagram account named "inouetake_" suddenly released a poster for "Slam Dunk". The main body of the poster is the back of the "Five Shohoku Tigers" that the audience is familiar with. Sakuragi Hanamichi in the C position is standing with the ball, full of mome

On October 26, an Instagram account named "inouetake_" suddenly released a poster for "Slam Dunk". The main body of the poster is the back of the "Five Shohoku Tigers" that the audience is familiar with. Sakuragi Hanamichi in the C position is standing with the ball, full of momentum. What excites netizens even more is that there is a row of figures wearing white jerseys standing on the far side. They are the uniforms of Sanno Industries, the strongest opponent the protagonists of "Slam Dunk" have ever encountered in the national competition. The words "Shohoku vs. Sanno Industries" are also clearly written at the bottom of the poster.

caused a stir with one stone. This poster immediately became the focus of heated discussion among netizens: "Is the animation of "The War of the Mountain King" finally implemented?" But then someone discovered that: the text on the poster did not mention supervision as usual, The names of the script, starring actors and other cast and crew are written instead by the names of manga characters such as Hanamichi Sakuragi, Kaede Rukawa, Takenori Akagi, etc. The publisher of the poster is not the authenticated account of the original author Hiko Inoue, but a high imitation account. By now it is certain: this is another internet prank.

However, the reason why this fake poster incident has aroused discussion among netizens is that in addition to the high quality of the poster itself, which has the texture of an official poster, there are also two factors: "Slam Dunk" die-hard fans are eager to visualize the national competition. A quarter of a century after the completion of the TV animated version, the obsession has not diminished; the plan for a new theatrical version of "Slam Dunk" is indeed progressing.

"Slam Dunk" (1993)

In 1990, when "Slam Dunk" had just begun to be serialized in "Weekly Shonen Jump", "Flying Man" Jordan had not yet won his first championship trophy, and "Big Bug" Luo At the time, German was still a member of Jordan's nemesis "Bad Boys", tirelessly setting rebounding statistics on the court, while Inoue Takehiko had just graduated from Kumamoto University for three years.

The opening chapter of "Slam Dunk" is full of school comedy. The delinquent Sakuragi Hanamichi, who has been rejected fifty times for his confession, joins the basketball club because of Haruko Akagi's casual sentence "Do you like playing basketball?", just to win the one he likes. However, the subsequent plot gradually became serious. The aimless Sakuragi Hanamichi showed a focused side of his character, which is suitable for serving as an inspirational idol for adolescent readers. Takehiko Inoue, who once served as Hojo Tsukasa's assistant, carried forward his teacher's tough realistic painting style and brought out the charm of basketball to the fullest. The manga immediately gained national popularity.

In 1993, "Slam Dunk" ushered in animation, and the producer was Toei Animation, an old animation company. Both the animation and manga serialization ended in 1996, but as the animation has caught up with the progress of the manga serialization in the later stages, the story began to develop in two directions: the animated version ended on the eve of the national competition, and the animation production team created an original game between the Shohoku team and Kanagawa. The friendly match between the Star Team allowed the familiar characters to come to an end one by one; while the comic version ended with the decisive battle between the Shohoku team and their strongest opponent, Sanno Industries.

Sanno Industries in the manga is an undefeated team in the national competition. It is stronger than Shohoku in every position, and the depth of the bench is much thicker than that of Shohoku. This ultimate battle occupies five full volumes of the comic version. The plot has ups and downs, but it was not animated, which made countless SD fans regretful.

Over the years, there has been a saying on the Chinese Internet that "Inoue Hikoo was dissatisfied with the Toei version adaptation, and the feud between the two parties resulted in the delay in the animation of the national competition chapter." In fact, this is a rumor. Although the original plot of the animation team is inferior to the original work and the pacing is slightly delayed, the quality of the animated version of "Slam Dunk" is still among the highest levels of its time.

While the TV animation was being shown, Toei Animation also produced four theatrical animations of about thirty minutes in length, namely: "Sakuragi Hanamichi VS Oda" and "Domination of the Nation!" Sakuragi Hanamichi" "The biggest crisis in Shohoku! Sakuragi Hanamichi's Fighting Spirit" "The Roaring Soul of Players!" "The Hot Summer of Ikebana and Rukawa Maple".The scripts of the four additional theatrical versions are all original. The first three were written by scriptwriter Yoshiyuki Suga, and the last one was written by Nobuaki Kishima. It can be said that he is an official fan who has nothing to do with Inoue.

"Sakuragi Hanamichi VS Oda" (1994)

After the "Sanno War" came to an end, Inoue used only one page to neatly end the Shohoku team's "dominance of the country". This was a well-thought-out and In the shocking ending, the youth of Sakuragi, Rukawa and others seemed to be frozen in the summer of 1996.

In 2004, the single volume of "Slam Dunk" sold more than 100 million copies. Takehiko Inoue used chalk to draw "Slam Dunk Ten Days Later" on 23 blackboards in an abandoned middle school in Kanagawa, giving a brief introduction to the world. Where everyone goes after the competition is over, this is the last update of "Slam Dunk" that fans can see. The "National Competition" and "Shan King Battle" that animation viewers miss are still missing.

"Slam Dunk Ten Days Later"

Perhaps the official wait has been too long, forcing fans to find a new way. Fan-made short films about Shohoku VS. Sanno are popping up on video websites in an endless stream. Fans use stop-motion animation and even 2K games to recreate this battle of the century. Some fan short films are crudely produced, while others are quite creative. You can feel the fan authors’ dedication to the original work. Love overflowing the screen.

Until the beginning of this year, Takehiko Inoue suddenly announced on Twitter: "This will be a movie!" and labeled it "Slam Dunk", concisely announcing the sequel that fans have been waiting for for 25 years. for official launch. The seven-character tweet received more than 50,000 likes. Netizens were eager to find out: What does the new "Slam Dunk" look like? Is it an animated movie or a live-action movie? But the most important question is still: Will there be a "Battle of the Mountain King"?

Toei immediately clarified: the new work is an animated film that will be released in the fall of 2022. The rest of the information is still confidential. So far, the official has only released a thirty-second trailer. Even there is only one sketch in this trailer. The familiar Xiangbei five-man group is wearing red jerseys and standing in a circle. They seem to be cheering each other up, and there is an atmosphere of a war about to break out.

But avid fans of SD still saw important information from this trailer: the red jersey is the away uniform of Shohoku. In the national competition, the Shohoku team wore red when they faced Sanno! Previously, when Shohoku played against Toyotama, he wore the white color of the home court. This sketch greatly increases the possibility of a "mountain king battle" in the new work.

Not only that, the audience also found that in the credits, Takehiko Inoue's title was not "original project" but "supervisor/script" - "acting and directing" is a common phenomenon in the film industry, but in comics There are few examples of "drawing and directing" in the industry, because the production processes of animation and comics are completely different. Previously, only few masters such as Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki could succeed in crossing over.

Takehiko Inoue is undoubtedly the most outstanding cartoonist alive today. Although the original author gives people a sense of reliability that "he will definitely be able to restore the original work," after all, this is Inoue's first time as an animation supervisor, and it is inseparable from his rich experience. deputy assistant. In the officially announced production list, Ehara Yasuyuki, who serves as character design and animation supervisor, is an animator who has a close relationship with WIT.

Takehiko Inoue (right) and Tsukasa Hojo

WIT Club is nicknamed the "Hegemony Club" by Chinese animation audiences. In recent years, it has produced many high-level animations, and is particularly famous for its action scenes. The scene in "Attack on Titan" where humans use "three-dimensional mobile devices" to kill giants was created by Yasuyuki Ehara. Audiences who have watched "Attack on Titan" must still remember those gorgeous and fast scenes. If you want to produce sports-themed animation, Yasuyuki Ehara is the perfect choice.With such a mature animator at the helm, whether or not the "War of the Mountain King" is involved, fans of "Slam Dunk" must have one more reason to look forward to the new theatrical version.