slamdunktheories

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Incredible sand art of Slam Dunk by Hong Kong sand artist Snow Chung

Replicating the original art style with pen and paper is hard enough... Incredible that she did all this with sand. Scroll down for more!

Check out this video of an older piece of Slam Dunk sand art that she did when The First Slam Dunk was first released!

[slamdunktheories]

Inoue tells us Sakuragi goes on to have a great basketball career via another manga

As most of you know, Inoue Takehiko has another manga called REAL that features wheelchair basketball. He has a habit of dropping Slam Dunk Easter Eggs in REAL (eg. Kogure cameo on the bus) but here's a pretty interesting panel that concerns our favourite redhead-

The character is reading a basketball magazine and the page depicted is an ad for tryouts and it says ...明日の花道はキミだ！！("...you are the Hanamichi of tomorrow!!"), indicating that Sakuragi must've gone on to have a stellar career in basketball to be even mentioned in this way.

This is of course great news because it means Sakuragi made a proper recovery from his back injury :) I also kinda love that he's known as Hanamichi instead of Sakuragi. Probably became a fan favourite and at some point said (with a thumb jerk at his own face) "just call me Hanamichi!" I like the idea that he didn't let it all go to his head.

Source: this article that hyperanalyses who might have actually been the IH champion that year given that every single team that was depicted in the manga was eliminated as a possibility by Inoue.

[slamdunktheories]

Sakuragi & Haruko: Where Do Things Stand At The End?

Let's talk about Sakuragi and Haruko today - specifically, where Haruko's feelings lie at the end of Slam Dunk. Does she still have a crush on Rukawa? Or has she fallen for Sakuragi?

"Of course she's still Team Rukawa!" "No way she's fallen for Sakuragi!" - so goes the consensus. But hear me out: what appears at first glance to be an open-and-shut case is actually a bit more nuanced.

The first thing we have to know about Haruko is that she's a bit slow on the uptake. How do we know this? Well, Yohei made this exact observation early on in the manga (when noting how Haruko still hadn't clocked Sakuragi's feelings for her). And Yohei's shown to be an extremely astute character throughout the manga, always pointing out subtle truths that evade others, so we can safely take his word for it.

The second thing to know about Haruko is that despite being a bit clueless, she sometimes also possesses a good amount of self-awareness. This is especially clear in that scene where she watches a hyper-focused Rukawa during practice (newly invigorated by Anzai's suggestion that he become the #1 player in Japan before he heads to the US).

As she watches him retrieve the ball, her internal monologue is telling: she knows that basketball is the only thing that Rukawa cares about, and that in his world there is no space for her to exist at all. She tears up as she comes to this realisation but from that point on Haruko - the girl who often blushes at the mere mention of Rukawa's name - is rarely shown to blush at the thought of him again.

But does that mean her feelings have shifted to Sakuragi?

To me, by far the most telling moment is found in a fleeting scene in 10 Days After. That story begins with Haruko receiving a letter from Sakuragi. Matsui and Fujii ask who the letter is from (and even gets close enough to it to comment that the handwriting is atrocious).

How does Haruko respond?

「見ちゃダメ」

「見ちゃダメ」 - "You're not allowed to look". She says this emphatically. If you're an average guy, I'm not sure if this reply stands out much. As a girl reading this though? Her reply is incredibly telling, even if Haruko herself is still in the dark.

See, Fujii and Matsui are her best friends. The three of them are practically joined at the hips. These are the friends you'll share everything and anything with. Except... when?

Except when you get a letter from someone you like, because then the letter feels like it should be for your eyes only, and you wouldn't want to share it with anyone - even with your besties.

If Haruko didn't have feelings for Sakuragi, there'd be no reason for her to respond the way she did. There'd be nothing strange about telling your friends that you've gotten a letter from the guy who's out on rehab. There's nothing secretive about it. I can even imagine a genki Haruko just waving the letter announcing its arrival to her friends.

But instead, she acts all secretive, like it's a letter she wants to keep to herself.

To me, this moment tells me that she has developed feelings for Sakuragi. As for whether she fully realises this herself... well, that's a lot more debatable ;)

[slamdunktheories]

Dissecting the clues in Slam Dunk's final cover image

We love to speculate about what happens to the characters beyond where the manga stops. A lot of it is pure fan conjecture, but sometimes Inoue does sprinkle in some clues. A year ago, a fan by the name of Strawberino shared a really interesting analysis about the future of the team on a different platform using clues in the cover image for volume 31. She told me eons ago she wanted to type it all up and share it, but then never got around to it (because: life) so I decided I’d just tidy up her notes and do it for her - credits for the following analysis go entirely to her of course.

So here we go, Strawberino's analysis of “who will replace Akagi and play Center for Shohoku the following year”:

Volume 31’s cover is a photo of Shohoku team practice after events of "10 Days Later", when Sakuragi returns to the team post-rehab. You can tell because his hair is longer. Akagi and Kogure are not in team uniform (they retired from the team to prepare for exams) but Mitsui is, meaning Sakuragi returned to the team before end of his first school year. Now it looks like they're playing a 3-on-3 practice match with Team Red being: Sakuragi, Rukawa, Yasuda and Team White being: Miyagi, Mitsui, Shiozaki. The teams' composition is reminiscent of chapters 134 & 135 where Sakuragi (Center) went up against Mitsui (Center). Based on this you can kinda assume Sakuragi is learning to play Center in addition to PF. Or you could have a simpler explanation for the team composition: Sakuragi and Rukawa are put on the same team so they're forced to learn how to work together.

Some fans might saying “you’re reading too much into things” but to that I say: Inoue has long been known to be extremely detailed oriented. An example: in re:source (the visual guide/companion book to The First Slam Dunk) Inoue was so particular about Sakuragi's hair that he left notes for the animation team detailing how long the hair should be and what texture it'd be at that point in the story.

And although Sakuragi taking over as Center isn't exactly the most shocking piece of news, it's still cool to see compelling proof of this and to think that Inoue probably has thought about what happens for Shohoku the following year ;)

[slamdunktheories]

hi! i hope u are doing well. i would just like to ask for your thoughts or insights maybe assumption or analysis on how sakuragi survives life, if he doesnt have his dad around anymore? I often wonder how he is able to afford meal? clothes or basic needs.

This is a great question! I'd been lowkey wondering about it myself for years! Thanks for nudging me to finally look into this more. Disclaimer: life is insanely busy now but I did want to get one more post out before year end. What follows won't be a polished essay but a bullet list of things I turned up during research/thoughts. Let's get straight into it!

We can assume that Sakuragi's dad is indeed dead since this is strongly inferred in the manga.

We can also assume that Sakuragi's mother doesn't live with him.

A few signs of this: he often wears crumpled clothes and isn't even usually depicted wearing socks.

Japanese fans have also pointed out that in the "father heart attack" flashback, you can quite clearly see that there's no women's shoes/slippers at the genkan of Sakuragi's home; just two pairs of men's shoes, the implication being that it's just Sakuragi and his dad living there. Manga panel here

So the question now is: what happened to Sakuragi's mother? Is she dead or alive?

It's nigh impossible for her to be dead, because that would make Sakuragi an orphan and that can't be, because as one long-time resident of Japan explains here, "In Japan, unfortunately it's very likely for orphans to be sent to institutions; foster/adoption rates are lower than in other developed countries. It is also not so likely that he lives alone "under the radar". Apart from the obvious issue of money, as a student in the public school system, his status would be obvious to teachers. There is legal obligation for teachers to report unusual circumstances for children to the authorities, so he would not be able to function as an "independent" orphaned 15-year-old for long." (Credit: u/FntnDstrct on Reddit)

Which means... he's not an orphan and his mother's alive. Just not with him. So where is she?

Sidenote: I suspect that wherever she is, she has been out of Sakuragi's life for a long time. Reason: early in the manga series, there was a scene where Sakuragi's walking on the street and he's happily singing a song about mothers. Not something a kid who actively misses his mother would do. If she's gone, she's been gone for a long time.

Now if the mother's alive then why isn't she living with Sakuragi? One possibility is that she'd divorced Sakuragi's dad long ago, remarried (possibly in another town) and formed another family.

This could explain why, when Sakuragi's father died, it wasn't convenient for him to move in with her "new" family, and so she is on paper his legal guardian but they don't live together.

This Japanese article mulls over the technicality of this sort of arrangement in more detail, and talks about a scene in the IH Arc of the manga and how that could indicate that Sakuragi lives on his own.

But to answer your original question of how Sakuragi is able to afford his meals and cover daily expenses/necessities, the money may be coming from either i) his dad's life insurance, or ii) just 仕送り(shiokuri) from his mother directly (ie. allowance/financial support straight from his mother).

This explains why he seems to have a bit of money and doesn't absolutely need to take on a part-time job but money always seems tight at the same time.

As a final bit of food for thought, u/FntnDstrct further speculates that "Mito Yohei's family are fostering him informally, which increases tolerance for the system allowing [Sakuragi] to continue schooling in the same town away from his mother. What evidence do we have for this? In the manga and anime, there are some scenes where Yohei seems to know when Sakuragi was up all night worrying, connoting that he stays over often."

[slamdunktheories]

Mitsui's MVP Award

I sometimes see Slam Dunk fans debating Mitsui's MVP Award from middle school - was that the national MVP or the prefecture MVP he won?

Honestly, I can't help but wonder if some of this confusion has to do with the English translation of the manga, which I've never read (I read Slam Dunk in Chinese and Japanese) but has been known to have made some notable translation errors. eg. Wrongly referring to Anzai as someone who'd merely competed in some national tournament at the university level, when in fact according to the Japanese and Chinese versions Anzai was on the national team.

So - what does the Japanese original have to say about Mitsui's MVP? On this, the manga is actually really clear. In Chapter #69, where Kogure visits Mitsui in the hospital following his knee injury, Kogure notices the framed photo that Mitsui has in his hospital room and asks 「この写真・・・県大会優勝の時の・・・？」　Directly translated, "This photo... is from that time when you won the prefecture tournament...?" Mitsui says yeah.

Later in this hospital scene, Mitsui says that if it weren't for Anzai, this photo (of his middle school team posing with their medals and all) wouldn't exist. (top left hand manga panel in the image below)

So based on this, we know the flashback of Mitsui's middle school match and where he meets Anzai for the first time all relates to a prefecture tournament, where they won in the final to clinch the Kanagawa prefecture championship.

This also explains why throughout the whole manga, none of the players from outside of Kanagawa seem to know about Mitsui's MVP status at all. If he and his middle school team had gone on to play at the national middle school championships (by virtue of being the prefecture champions) then they presumably didn't advance far/make enough of a splash.

The above paragraph in italics is my conjecture, but the rest of it is all canon. Hopefully this lays the debate to rest once and for all: Inoue is very clear that Mitsui was the Kanagawa prefecture MVP back in middle school, not the national MVP.

[slamdunktheories]

Sendoh Akira: A Character Analysis (Translated)

One of the best and most memorable Slam Dunk character analyses I’ve ever read was actually an answer to a question hilariously titled: “How do I marry Sendoh Akira?” (Author: 木子妞 - Link). The first half of the answer was particularly incisive and made me consider things I'd never noticed about Sendoh.

The original is in Chinese but here's an English version of the first half thanks to a nifty translating tool (I've edited for clarity and brevity; parts in bold for emphasis). Let's dive in!

~ Start of translation ~

Question: How do I marry Sendoh Akira?

Answer: 1) MENTAL SPEED

First, you have to be excellent - not in a Mary Sue protagonist way with incredible beauty and tremendous wealth etc.— these aren’t relevant in Sendoh’s eyes. Instead, your emotional intelligence needs to be genuinely outstanding.

Why? Because it’s important to understand Sendoh Akira as a person, and he’s not an easy person to understand. I’m not talking about his interests either; those are secondary; it's mainly about understanding his inner world.

The thing is, Sendoh is actually a very lonely person, and I think this loneliness is not by choice. No one in Ryonan really understands him; they are not on his level and don’t genuinely understand him. Case in point: in the match against Kainan, right at the end of regulation time Sendoh went for a dunk but deliberately went at a slower speed to allow Maki to catch up to him.

Sendoh’s idea of drawing a foul from Maki to turn the shot into a 2+1 would’ve meant that Ryonan would win the match by a point. But in that entire arena, only Maki, Fujima and Aida understood this plan. Even Coach Taoka got excited about getting into overtime without realizing that if the 2+1 plan failed, Ryonan would almost certainly lose.

Sendoh's mind works too fast for most people to keep up with, and his standards are high. He also can’t be bothered to explain more than is necessary and so as a result is forced into solitude. Which is why if you want to draw his attention, you need to be sharp enough to keep up with him mentally — imagine how high your IQ must be for that!

2) IDOLISATION

Second, don’t treat Sendoh like a genius or idealise him too much, and definitely don’t put him on a pedestal to worship. Accept the real him, including his flaws. And there are a few.

For one, Sendoh is quite stubborn. In the aforementioned match against Kainan, Maki at one point said, "Don’t think I'll let you dunk easily." To which Sendoh responded, "I'll definitely dunk to show you. Just once in this match..." And he was as good as his word, pulling off the dunk right at the end of regulation time as part of the aforementioned 2+1 plan.

Sendoh also holds grudges. In the prefecture match against Shohoku, after Miyagi managed to score against him, Miyagi mocked him, saying, "Did you think I'd always wait for you to block?" Later, when Sendoh noticed Shohoku was running into foul trouble, who did he target first? Who did he go after to draw another foul? Miyagi.

Sendoh can also be petty. When Rukawa scored quickly, everyone marveled at the speed of his shooting that even he, Sendoh, couldn't block, and Sendoh responded by scoring right away using the exact same technique as Rukawa.

In other words, the so-called basketball genius/living legend isn’t necessarily the real Sendoh Akira himself. Sendoh the basketball player gets lionised a lot but the real Sendoh actually has a temper.

The main difference that sets him apart from others is that he isn’t as easily bothered by things. Sendoh is more mature than his peers, and he’s able to keep most of his emotions in check or bury them deeper so it's harder for people to notice them.

But if you really want to draw his interest on the romantic front, you’ll need to treat him as an ordinary person. That’s how you'll earn his respect. To be clear, it’s not about playing hard to get; it’s about seeing him with a calm mind.

Because of Sendoh's relatively mild temperament and easygoing nature, when it comes to piquing his genuine romantic interest, Sendoh Akira is the most difficult man to deal with in all of Slam Dunk. Much more difficult than Rukawa.

Rukawa can be lured by some top class basketball intel, but Sendoh Akira has almost no weak points to exploit, precisely because so little gets him worked up. The only seeming weakness is his loneliness.

If you can 1) make him feel understood and 2) do so without needing to say it out loud, then you might have a chance with him. These two points are prerequisites. And if you feel you could pull off both points and truly love him to the point of marrying no one but him, then continue reading for some specific methods, though they're not guaranteed to work.

~ End of translated first half ~

We'll skip the second half since it's not that relevant in terms of character analysis. (But it is worth a read if you are a Sendoh fan. It covers a rather elaborate plan!)

On the topic of Sendoh, I would also add that him misremembering Sawakita's name isn't pure coincidence/a gag but perfectly in keeping with his character IMO. He seems the type that is competitive right in the middle of a match but once the match is over, he doesn't hold on to losses as tightly as, say, Rukawa. I mean, let's face it. If the same thing happened to Rukawa (losing big time to Sawakita) you can bet he'd remember Sawakita's name till the end of time. But Sendoh doesn't take such losses quite so personally, and that's why he'd be the type to misremember the name of someone who beat him.

[slamdunktheories]

Sailor Moon cameos in Slam Dunk

Totally random but if you've never noticed, there is actually a collection of Sailor Moon cameos in the Slam Dunk manga. There're a few more panels than shown here but you get the idea. Basically all around the Shoyo chapters. Any theories how it got there? The style doesn't look like Inoue's to me so if I had to bet I'd say it was an assistant's handiwork. ;)

[slamdunktheories]

Do you have an analysis on the Toyotama’s Minami? I feel with every reread, I pick up something new. I especially find Minami just… way way violent.

I think people write off him hurting Rukawa just because he gave him ointment. But he did also choke his coach (!!) and hurt Fujima.

Hi! You’re right - Minami really is very violent - especially if we consider how Rukawa is actually pretty robust. eg. In the scene where Rukawa first meets Sakuragi at the start of the manga, he withstood a punch and then some from Sakuragi... and he was able to get up walk about aftewards. He was even fine for a while in the Mitsui gym fight scene... but then got KO-ed instantly by Minami. Not an easy feat.

To me, Minami represents the ugly side of the same theme that Inoue has presented to us throughout all of SD. The manga shows how a lot of characters’ love for basketball manifests. It comes through in a dozen ways. There’s Mitsui, who walked away for 2 years yet could never fully abandon his love for it and that love got warped into a scorched earth strategy where he wanted to destroy everything associated with it; there’s Jin, who didn't make a whole lot of noise about his passion for basketball the way a lot of other characters did, but buckled down and worked hard to carve out a new position for himself when his plans of playing Centre were denied; there’s Rukawa, who rarely bothers to do anything/draw attention to himself outside the sport but absolutely lives for basketball, etc. Everyone is clearly saying “I love basketball” in their own ways.

And Minami... Minami to me is the ugly side of when a passion - whether for a sport or for victory - gets so all-consuming that it blots out logic, sense and sanity. Minami was someone who started out loving basketball and was deeply inspired by Coach Kitano but then lost his way as the desire to win overtook everything. Perhaps he was someone who was never taught boundaries (this is often how bullies are made) or was given too much permission to do whatever he likes in his family, to the point where it became quite easy for him to lose his way? We can only guess. But I do think that like every character in SD, he's much more compelling and multi-faceted than we got to see in the manga.

That’s it! Sorry it’s such a short piece on Minami, but I hope that was fun/helpful in some way!

[slamdunktheories]

What sort of injury did Sakuragi have? An orthopaedic surgeon weighs in

Hey, gang! I stumbled upon this interesting article sometime back and have been meaning to share it. It's basically an orthopaedic surgeon (and fellow SD fan) analysing what sort of back injury Sakuragi had gotten during the Sannoh match. See article here (in Japanese). Google-translated English version is here.

In short, the surgeon thinks it was either a vertebral body fracture or a lumbar transverse process fracture, and goes on to talk about the recovery period one could expect from such an injury, how the team reacted to it in the story, etc.

His response when asked how Anzai-sensei and Ayako had handled things was pretty funny. “From the POV of an orthopaedic surgeon, it was of course a total fail.” LMAO!

But then he goes on to say something that would probably resonate with every SD fan (that if they had done the right thing and benched Sakuragi... there’d be no story).

As a fan, I'm relieved to hear that the injury seems perfectly realistic and also perfectly recoverable. Thank you Inoue-sensei for sticking to realism even in key/dramatic moments.

Have a gander at the article - it's quite interesting and much more in-depth than what I've shared here! Again, links here:

Original article here (in Japanese). Google-translated English version is here.

[slamdunktheories]

Sannoh's Unusual Team Slogan

Sharing a little Slam Dunk shrine that's in my study! Let's use this to jump into a topic that's rarely discussed: Sannoh's unusual slogan. I might be overthinking here but... considering that Inoue was a Literature major in college before dropping out to become a manga-ka, I'm pretty sure there's something interesting going on here and it didn't happen by accident.

Let's dive in!

Sannoh's slogan (一意摶心) was only revealed in TFSD and I loved it from the moment I saw it. Of all the team slogans that were shown in Slam Dunk, this was by far the best one IMO. What a kickass slogan. What a philosophy to live by. And so on brand. But... there's also something weird about it.

First, what does the slogan mean? The first phrase that comes to mind is actually 一意專心, a similar phrase that's pretty well-known in both Japanese and Chinese. It's a very similar phrase but not exactly what Sannoh has for their slogan. And 一意專心 loosely translates to: to focus or dedicate yourself single-mindedly and wholeheartedly to something.

It's a phrase that still gets used in modern day Japanese and Chinese. And it does seem to fit Sannoh. Just like the phrase itself, there's an air of austerity/Zen-ness to the way Sannoh is depicted in the story. The tradition of the team shaving their heads and resulting in that monk look, the simplicity of their uniform (in both design and colour choice), the discipline that's so evident in the way they play on court during the critical moments, etc. Of course, this is all inspired by Noshiro, the real life high school with a famed history in basketball.

But the thing that made me pause over the Sannoh slogan was the third character: 摶. TFSD was the very first time I'd seen this character in my life (despite being a native Chinese speaker and fairly well-read). I wasn't even 100% sure how it was pronounced. Why would Inoue opt for the more complicated and obscure 摶 instead of 專 when the latter would have been just fine per the modern phrase mentioned above? Was he trying to achieve something by opting for this character for the slogan?

So I did a bit of digging and it turns out... even Japanese natives don't know this character. In fact, some online Japanese dictionaries don't have an entry for this character. And for good reason: Sannoh's slogan is a phrase that first appeared 2,500 years ago during China's Zhou Dynasty, in an ancient text titled Guan Zi written by a philosopher. However, the phrase that was coined in Guan Zi (aka Sannoh's slogan) has virtually not been used outside of that particular book; all subsequent mentions of this phrase actually reference Guan Zi. And there's been barely a mention of this character in recent centuries.

Also, note that even though 2,500 years sounds like a long time ago, in some ways it isn't, considering that the Chinese civilisation is essentially one continuous civilisation that's ~5,000 years old so this was already 25 centuries into its development. The Zhou Dynasty already had a bunch of technology and tools; irrigation systems, canals, chopsticks etc. had already been invented. It was also the time of Confucianism, Daoism, and complex military strategies that still remain relevant today. (That seminal book on military war strategy, "The Art of War", came from this period. GREAT book, BTW.)

Anyway, the next time this phrase appears in another piece of text, it's written as 一意專心 (aka the contemporary version of the phrase). So it could be that the modern phrase that Chinese & Japanese speakers know so well is a corruption/mistranslation of the original phrase (aka Sannoh's slogan). Also, this ancient character 摶 has the additional meaning of unity, circle, and harmony, which 專 does not possess.

When you look at how 一意摶心 appears in Guan Zi, you get a fuller context of what this original phrase actually means.

The original is here for those interested, but loosely translated it means: to calm your breath and your pulse, to hold your posture upright, to purge your senses of distractions, and to singlemindedly and wholeheartedly devote yourself to a cause, letting nothing distract you physically or mentally from it.（full breakdown of this text here in Chinese)

So that is actually the context in which Sannoh's phrase appears and makes 一意摶心 so much richer than the modern phrase. Again, it evokes a Zen-ness and discipline that fit Sannoh to a T.

In my view, Inoue-sensei wanted to go back to the roots of that phrase and honour the original intent behind it, which carries connotations of unity and that makes sense for a team sport. I'm still amazed that he knows this phrase, considering that it is not known to be in any Japanese texts; again, it really only exists in a Chinese text called Guan Zi.

Anyway, hope this was interesting for at least some of you! Would love to hear what people think about this (and if you have insights on the Chinese or Japanese aspects, please do chime in! I'm not a literary specialist.)

Further reading: This article (Japanese) - it offers some interesting interpretations as to why it was picked for Sannoh's slogan that I didn't mention here since this post is already so long XD

[slamdunktheories]

I, too, would like to have this custom car plate please

Spotted in Hong Kong.

[slamdunktheories]

Inoue shares: Mitsui was not meant to be part of the Shohoku team. Instead, the 5th member was…

Mito Yohei. Source here (in Japanese)

The gist: at the start of SD's serialisation, Mito was intended to be the 5th member who joins the team, and Mitsui's role in the story was to simply be a delinquent. But then Inoue had a change of heart as he became attached to Mitsui as a character so put him on the team instead.

This was shared by Inoue once on a radio show (called "Come on FUNKY Lips". Oh Japan, you funny) and it's also mentioned in the book 漫画がはじまる where he and noted poet and writer Ito Hiromi chat all things Slam Dunk. (BTW seems like she did an amazing job with the book, being a super SD fan herself.)

The article then goes on to mull over how a "Mito as the 5th member" scenario would've been changed the team and story dynamics. This is so interesting and a lot of scenes/moments in the manga make a ton of sense now, since it's often suggested that Yohei was getting quite drawn into the world of basketball (eg. him attempting a 3-pointer when he was back at the gym alone, how he reacted to Mitsui picking a fight with the club, etc.)

Really interesting read. If anyone wants to read the article in full and need a translation, ChatGPT and DeepL are your best bets.

Keen to hear what your thoughts are on this!

My own main takeaways:

1) shock

2) shock

3) relief

Shock, because I just really don't like the direction the story would have gone in with two bball rookies on the team. Part of what made SD so special was that it was this one dude, this crazy one-man circus called Sakuragi, upending the order in high school bball and growing as a person and a player. If there were two rookies on the team, it would've taken the shine away a bit I think. 

And relief, because the Mito that ultimately appeared in SD is the coolest and best version of all - someone who gets the MC and is steadfastly loyal and supportive from the sidelines, yet pokes fun at him to keep him grounded. There's so much to love about that.

[slamdunktheories]

Because I, too, am a mother. And every day, I weep.

by @smallthingsgrow

"I wanted to pair this piece with a caption about how Palestinian men deserve our attention and compassion as much as Palestinian women and children but writing this was all I had in me today. The thing about being a mother is that writing about the suffering of anyone's child, whether they're 4 or 40, leaves me cracked open. I appreciate when you all feel into those spaces with me. We are nothing if not a we."

[slamdunktheories]

When the Onion has better journalism than actual news channels:

[slamdunktheories]

The First Slam Dunk: Map showing where all the side characters were

I did a quick English translation of the map that airu_SD made showing where every side character was sitting in The First Slam Dunk. This was a really handy reference for spotting all the cameos I covered in this post. Hope this helps when the English TFSD blu-ray is out next month!

[slamdunktheories]

All the cameos in The First Slam Dunk

Had a freeze-frame watch party of The First Slam Dunk with my SD BFF and here are all the side characters that you can spot!

Uozumi (see red arrow above) - he's seen loads of times but this is the most prominent one

Aiwa, with Moroboshi being easily spotted because of his hairstyle and his crossed arms

Daiei Gakuen - With Tsuchiya also easily identifiable because of his haircut

Tetsu - he's actually seen at least 6 times in the first half of the movie

The Kanagawa reporters, Aida and Nakamura

Tetsu again and Kawata bros' mum in the pale yellow polo (looking indeed bigger than most people LOL). Also in frame: the university coach and player (in white shirt and green polo).

Kainan - you can make out Maki (darker skin), Kiyota, Jin, Muto and Miyamasu (right behind Muto)