December 4, 2022 issue | Total issue 3075
At 6 o'clock in the morning on December 2, many cinemas in Japan were already "overcrowded." Not only were they excitedly waiting for the movie to start, but they were also frantically buying souvenirs. This is the grand opening day of the "Slam Dunk" movie "THE FIRST SLAM DUNK".
The film's first-day box office was roughly estimated at 716 million yen (approximately RMB 37.425 million), creating the second-highest first-day box office in Japan this year.
Since the film has been secretive during the promotion period and did not reveal which part of the original comic was adapted, several questions that fans were concerned about were not answered until the film was released.
The information that everyone is more concerned about is summarized as follows:
1. The match selected by everyone is the "National Competition" that everyone has generally guessed, the Shohoku Team VS Sanno Team.
2. The film opens with the "Battle of the Mountain King" without any pre-match foreshadowing. During the game, personal memories of the Five Tigers of Northern Hunan were interspersed.
3. The narrative perspective selected the point guard of the Shohoku team - No. 7 Miyagi Ryota . The story begins with a series of changes in Ryota's childhood home, and ends with his reconciliation with his mother, including the first encounter between Miyagi and Mitsui Touhou. Therefore, the proportion of scenes outside the competition is: Miyagi Mitsui Sakuragi Hanamichi Rukawa Kaede = Takenori Akagi. Fans of Rukawa Kaede need to be mentally prepared.
4. The competition process basically restored the original comic, and included all the "War of the Mountain King" in the original comic, which lasted more than 50 chapters. # Sakuragi Rukawa Maple Century High Five # has been on the hot search list on Weibo, with over 100 million views in a single day.
5. The new voice actors performed well and their emotions were in place. Unless you are a fan of the original voice actors in the anime, you will basically not feel uncomfortable with the new voice actors.
6, 3D modeling and 2D rendering style, the acceptance varies from person to person. When the character's movements are more routine, the clumsiness and stiffness of 3D will be more obvious. In the more intense fast attack and defense passages, the processing method that is very personal to Takehiko Inoue is used to avoid the clumsiness and stiffness of 3D modeling and create a passionate high-speed texture. Especially the last minute of the game was very suffocating.
7, Takehiko Inoue drew on the blackboard, the "Ten Days Later" content at the end of the comic did not appear in the movie. Combined with "THE FIRST" in the title, it can be speculated that this movie has the ambition to create a series.
The reason why the theatrical version of "Slam Dunk" caused such a huge commotion among fans is that on the one hand, the comic and animated version have a high reputation, which is the basketball enlightenment and youthful memories of one or even several generations; on the other hand, after the comics and animation were completed in 1996, the IP has hardly spawned new stories in 26 years.
"Slam Dunk" has had 4 theatrical versions. It’s just that they were all released during the broadcast period of the animation, with a length of about 40 minutes, and the plots are all original branches outside the main line, which is completely different from the format of theater movies we are familiar with today.
On January 7, 2021, Takehiko Inoue, the original author of the comic, posted on social networking sites that "Slam Dunk" will be officially turned into a movie.
Unlike other cartoonists, Takehiko Inoue was not only responsible for the screenwriting work of the film, but also served as the director himself, which triggered a huge response in the animation circle. Takehiko Inoue is a ruthless character who dares to go head-to-head with magazine publishers in order to adhere to his creative ideas. As a director himself, he must be "authentic".
This "Slam Dunk" theatrical version not only cost a lot of money to produce, but also spent a lot of money on promotion. not only has a series of trailers on the subway station's large and small screens, but also has a dazzling array of peripheral souvenirs. This is all due to the concentrated performance of the box office explosion of Japanese anime theater versions in recent years.
Before 2014, the theatrical version of Japanese anime was basically a welfare product for fans.Until 2014, the national IP of Japanese anime, Doraemon, released a 3D theatrical version of "Accompanying Me". The film received a box office of 8.38 billion yen in Japan, ranking second in the annual local movie box office list. What is even more surprising is that the film's overseas box office also achieved a great harvest - the Chinese box office reached 529 million yuan and the global box office reached 183 million US dollars.
From then on, the animation theater version is no longer a fan-oriented product, nor is it limited to just being self-entertained in the local area. In the past four years, the theatrical versions of popular animation IPs have achieved box office results and have frequently entered the top 20 box office lists in Japanese film history, forming the biggest trend in the Japanese film market in recent years.
Calmly look at Yuhiko Inoue and his "Slam Dunk" can seize the opportunity and create a new box office miracle? This seems difficult to come to a conclusion early.
"Slam Dunk" as an anime IP has its distinct advantages - a high reputation of 9.7 points and a single-line sales volume of more than 140 million copies. The protagonist, Xiangbei Wuhu, has a very high image recognition and a wide range of fans, which can be said to be both male and female.
The "National Competition" adapted in this theatrical version makes up for the regret that it was not adapted into a TV animation back then, and satisfy the wishes of all fans.
But its disadvantages are equally obvious - not a work being serialized. In recent years, the hit drama versions such as "Detective Conan", "One Piece", and "The Return of the Swordsman" are all being serialized, and "Demon Slayer: Blade" has just been completed. The only exception is "Evangelion: End".
serialization means the continuous accumulation of popularity, fan stickiness, and the traffic brought by the linkage of movies and comics. If does not have this blessing, will the movie version of "Slam Dunk" still maintain its status quo when the momentum of "Yi Qing returns" passes?
In fact, before the film was released, the theatrical version of "Slam Dunk" was not favored. The number of people who "want to watch" on major platforms is basically at the bottom among the new films released at the same time, and the box office pre-sales are not optimistic.
Change the voice actor, change the style, and hide the plot, so that fans can keep a wait-and-see attitude. Many people even complained that they "scareful" and "destroying classics" after watching the trailer.
Fortunately, the reputation on the first day of the film was very good, and the media comprehensive review reached 77 points. The popularity has even surpassed the Hollywood blockbuster "Black Adam".
In an interview, Yuhiko Inoue once said: "In my heart, the story has not moved forward, so the characters have not grown old." So, can "Slam Dunk" that "traveled through time" nearly 30 years ago become famous with the battle of "Sanwang Battle" and become a new winner in the theatrical version? Let's wait and see.
【Text/Mantuner】
