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I was bored so I made some Slam Dunk memes.

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Mortal Kombat 11 | Sub-Zero (requested by @mrfoox)

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MUTSUNOKAMI AND SANIWA ARE CUTE <3 

this is … this is BEAUTIFUL <333 

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gpoy

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OKAY SO THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT.

If you have not seen or heard of the anime Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 you have to go watch it right now. For those of you who don’t know what it’s about, here’s the plot synopsis:

“There is an estimated 70% or higher possibility that a magnitude 7.0 earthquake will occur in Tokyo in the next 30 years. In 2012, Mirai, a middle school freshman girl, goes to Tokyo’s artificial Odaiba Island for a robot exhibition with her brother Yuuki at the start of summer vacation. A powerful tremor registering 8.0 on the JMA scale emanates from an ocean trench, the famed Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge crumble and fall, and the landscape of Tokyo changes in seconds. With the help of a motorcycle delivery woman named Mari who they meet on Odaiba, Mirai and Yuuki strive to head back to their Setagaya home in western Tokyo.”

Basically, this is a story that follows the events of an incredible tragedy and how people react to it. And I have to say, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. This anime so rawly captures human fear and human emotion that it’s simply breath taking. The situation feels so real as you’re watching it that a lot of the time you have to stop and take a break.

A lot of incredibly extensive research went into making this anime. The producers of the anime clearly stated prior to its release that “it would try to realistically depict the after-effects of such a situation and that it would collect and tabulate research on previous earthquakes and interview individuals who were affected by them”.

Everything about this series is incredible. It has a very small cast, but the characters and the stories that it revolves around are so well put together that it makes up for it. It’s a series that deals with loss, struggle, family, pain, responsibility and so much more. And while the series very heavily highlights tragedy, it also very heavily highlight the rays of light and hope that are able to come out of the crumbling walls around you, and how you can always move forward and make the best out of a bad situation.

I feel like it’s just such a good and important series. It’s not very well known, but it certainly should be. That’s why everyone should watch it! You’re not into watching long series? That’s fine! This anime is only made up of 11 episodes, each one being about 20 minutes in length.

The best part? You can find the entire thing dubbed and subbed on YouTube. Don’t like watching things on YouTube? There’s an HD, dual audio torrent!

So everyone go watch this series and grab a box of tissues, because you’re going to need it!

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Baki the Grappler

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Slam Dunk Top 5 players per position

Hi guys! I started reading Slam Dunk about in 10 years ago and like probably everyone on this blog I absolutely loved it. Being both a basketball player and a manga lover I wanted to find a good basketball manga and fortunately enough Slam Dunk found me! Unfortunately, there is no one in my friend circle that has read the manga and so I never had an occasion to discuss the players and the games with anyone else. Henceforth, on this Easter Monday I have decided to make my top 5 players per position in Slam Dunk and share it with you guys. I will thoroughly explain each of my picks and some positions will be occupied by 2 players because it is just simply too hard to make a pick. If the feedback is good on this first post I would gladly share my other top 5s with you guys :)

Center: Hiroshi Morishige

To me the obvious choice at the Center position, he single handedly beat Aiwa (top 4 team in the nation the year before with only a 2nd year moroboshi which means that Aiwa was technically even stronger when he beat them) while mocking their triple and quadruple team coverage, literally over powering everyone at the rim and finish with Shaq-like two-handed dunks. He proved to be just as dominant at Nationals where he beat Jousei High (a top 8 team according to the Shohoku players) and their captain Mikoshiba by posting 50 points, 20 rebounds and 10 blocks against them. Also, he arguably led his team to the national championship although we will never be sure about that outcome. At almost 2 meters tall and still growing on top on that 100 kg frame that will still fill out (Akagi did grow 4cm in hios years at Shohoku and filled out quite nicely) no one can argue that at the center position he is physically and by his play the most dominant center in Slam Dunk.

Power forward: Masashi Kawata

I know you guys were probably thinking that he deserved to be the starting center of that top 5 at the center position but I think for the purpose of my line-up he would fit quite nicely and here is why. First of all, Kawata played all the positions in high school as he grew 25 cm in one year to eventually become the center of Sanno. That means he has all the skills required to play at every position in the best team in Japan, given that he also shows his versatility against Akagi by demonstrating his shooting ability, his ability to put the ball on the floor and his passing abilities on top of being a very strong and athletic center capable of throwing big dunks down and blocking shots as well as being an elite rebounder by going toe-to-toe with Sakuragi, arguably the best rebounder in the game. His duel with Akagi is not even worthy of mention as it is too one sided, sadly for the #1 center in Kanagawa but he proves perfectly capably of playing the physically strongest centers in the country. Moreover, at 190cm he is a bit undersized for a center (Akagi, Hanagata, Uozumi, Takasago and Morishige are all taller) and hence would fit nicely at the Power Forward as I am sure he could guard any traditional Power Forward with ease. However, there is room for arguments there as the Shintai University Coach and their ‘nationally reputed center’ (I forget his name but its something along the lines of Sugiyama) rank him as the superior center to Akagi with Sugiyama even saying that he would be the top center in University as a first year!! If Sanno beats Shohoku and faces Morishige in the finals then we would have material to judge but because of his versatility and the superior dominance that Morishige exhibits at the Center postion (although he arguable plays on an inferior team) I think that it is fair to move Kawata because 1- he can and 2- Morishige is too dominant in the middle to be overlooked.

Small forward: Eiji Sawakita

No questions asked there as to who the number 1 small forward in Japan is seeing as he is the best player in the country being only a 2nd year. His proved to be completely unstoppable in the Shohoku game by completely dominating Rukawa and disregarding any team coverage that Anzai would throw at him. His only weakness lies in the fact that he is still a bit immature but that would only have proved my point more; what if Sawakita would have went full throttle to begin with against Shohoku? They would have 1- won the game and 2- Rukawa would not have managed to somewhat get a few scores and assists at the end of the game as he would have been completely overwhelmed by Sawakita. My last argument lies in that Kawata and Fukatsu let him go to work one on one all game when he got his focus back, completely trusting him with the ball although they both are top 2 players in the country at their position and that they could have taken over at any time. The simple fact that he gets the ball every time while being part of the best team in the country is a testament to his greatness.

Shooting guard: Dai Moroboshi, runner-up Akira Sendoh

Boy boy boy was this one hard to fill out! With that many good shooting guard players in Slam Dunk (Matsumoto and Jin, Mitsui) it definetely feels unorthodox to put 2 out of positon players out there but before juding please read my explanations first :p. First of all, all we know about Moroboshi is that he is the ‘Star of Aichi’ and that due to physical contact with Morishige he went straight to the hospital lol. Technically, we don’t even know his position but based on the few images of him with his team he looks like he is either a guard or a foward (remember, during the sanno/shohoku game his coach told him that he was the only player that could oppose Sawakita which means that they somewhat share a similar position and that they already played each other or that his talent/fame was high enough to put him out there as Japan’s potential #2 player). Needless to say that if that is even close to being true then Moroboshi (who maki himself considers to be the star of aichi and 'a name to be considers if any team wants to win the inter-high’ which suggests that maki played him for sure because they live too far apart to be friends without basketball and that he probaly lost to him as Maki was trying to win more games at the inter high; this even gets scarier when you consider that since kainan lost to sanno the year before it means that they would have played each others as 1st years and that Moroboshi would have beaten Kainan as Aiwa’s champion back then.) is for sure right up there in the top 5 players in Japan. The fact tha Aiwa destroyed Shohoku after they beat Sanno and the incredible come back that Aiwa made in their prefecture finals when he came back in the game after getting injured against Meihou also testify to the greatness of this player on top of his national reputation. In fact, his greatest attribute is the ability he has to make his team win (they were top 4 in the nation at least in his 2nd and 3rd year) which ultimately is what made me chose him over Sendoh.

Point Guard: Shinichi Maki, runner-up Kazunari Fukatsu

This again was a tough pick but having more information on these players it is safe to assume that Maki is indeed the best PG in Slam Dunk. His size, strength, leadership capabilities and his ability to take over the game put him over Fukatsu as the top PG in Slam Dunk. For example, he beats teams that have a better roster consistently (shohoku, ryonan) because of his capability to make his teammates better and take over when he needs to. He is not the ball hog that Anzai predicted he was (remember, he played with Jin the NUMBER 1 SCORER IN KANAGAWA at 30.1ppg) Because he commaded a QUADRUPLE TEAM to be 'stopped’ which in fact was only a stratagem to take the ball out of his hands and make his other teammates win the game for Kainan which did not work as Maki used the best of his teammates and gave them the shots they were best at (3 point shots for Jin, dishes to Takasago, and slash cuts to Kyiota). When the game goes down to the wire he takes over everytime and proves to be an unstoppable 1-on-1 player even for Sendoh as his conditioning and cultchness allows him to make hard shots and to make plays defensively (remember his blocked shots against Shohoku, he also kept Akagi off the block as he got rid of the ball because he couldn’t score on him, putting Sakuragi in the line to force him to make free throws, forcing Uozumi into foul trouble, blocking Sendoh’s DUNK FROM BEHIND after 30 mins straight of hard basketball without fouling him). These are things that normal point guards can’t do but being such a specimen he transforms that position. Like Moroboshi he is one player that is worth the whole team as he takes them into the top 2 or 4 in the nation back to back years.

I realize that this is a very long post so let me know if you want the reason why I didn’t put Sendoh and Fukatsu in my top 5.

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Icaro Tatsumura

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