Slam Dunk (manga) - Production

Production

Inoue became inspired to make Slam Dunk as he liked basketball since High School. After Inoue started Slam Dunk, he became surprised while receiving letters from readers that they started playing the sport due to the manga. His editor even told him "basketball was a taboo in this world." Due to these letters, Inoue decided he wanted to draw better basketball games in the series. With the series, Inoue wants to demonstrate the feelings from an athlete such as their thoughts when they win, lose or improve at their sport. When he started making Vagabond, he noted that when he was doing Slam Dunk he had a simpler perspective on life as he focused more in victories and success.

With the series, Inoue wants the readers to feel achievements as well as love for the sport. Believing his success as a manga artist being largely due to basketball, Inoue started a Slam Dunk Scholarship for Japanese students as he wanted to give back to the sport by increasing its popularity in Japan. However, when asked about the response from readers to basketball, Inoue commented that although Slam Dunk is technically a basketball manga, its story could have been done with other sports such as soccer. He also added that the artwork for the manga was very typical and mangalike in comparison to his newer works such as Real. His experiences with basketball also influenced the story from Slam Dunk: as a youth Inoue started playing basketball to be popular with the girls, but later became obsessed with the sport in and of itself. This was mirrored in the character of Hanamichi Sakuragi, who starts playing basketball to impress the girl he likes, to later become truly fond of the game.