Slam Dunk (Kanzenban Edition, 24 Volumes)

Slam Dunk is Takehiko Inoue's long-running manga about high school basketball. It ran in Japan's Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 to 1996, was collected in 31 tankobon volumes, and sold over 100 million copies in Japan, making it the most widely circulated and influential Japanese manga in mainland China since the 1990s. This is the kanzenban edition published by Changchun Publishing House, which restores the serialized look with original color pages and large double-page spreads, in 24 volumes (holding the content of the original 31 volumes), with the author's afterword and material related to 10 Days Later included at the end of the book. The story begins with Hanamichi Sakuragi, a first-year student at Shohoku High School. Rejected by girls fifty times over three years of middle school, he joins the basketball club after entering Shohoku to get close to his classmate Haruko Akagi, but Haruko has feelings for Kaede Rukawa, a star player since middle school. Sakuragi has barely touched a basketball, yet with extraordinary physical gifts and a refusal to lose, he starts from the most basic dribbling and the commoner's shot and works his way to grabbing rebounds and stepping onto the court. Beside him are the burly, stubborn captain Takenori Akagi, the short, agile point guard Ryota Miyagi, the former MVP three-point shooter Hisashi Mitsui who returns to the court after losing his way, and the silent, aloof genius ace Kaede Rukawa. Under Coach Anzai, this band of problem children rises from an unknown local weakling to the Kanagawa finals and finally onto the floor of the national tournament, facing the defending champion Sannoh Industry head-on. The work blends the tedium of practice, the tension of games, the cruelty of winning and losing, and the comedy of club life, with barbs that leave you pounding the table laughing and moments that leave you in tears. It writes not only of the dream of conquering the nation, but of the real swaying between talent and effort, the individual and the team, love and giving up. What many readers remember is not the trophies but the sweat on the court and the line, Coach, I want to play basketball.