INOUE Takehiko

Slam Dunk (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue. It was serialized in Shueisha’s shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1990 to June 1996, with the chapters collected into 31 tankōbon volumes. It tells the story of a basketball team from Shōhoku High School in the Shōnan area of Japan. The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation which aired from October 1993 to March 1996 and has been broadcast worldwide, enjoying much popularity particularly in Japan, several other Asian countries and Europe. An anime feature film, titled The First Slam Dunk, was released in Japan in December 2022. Slam Dunk has 170 million copies in circulation, making it the seventh best-selling manga series in history. In 1994, it received the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category. In 2010, Inoue received special commendations from the Japan Basketball Association for helping popularize basketball in Japan.