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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

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

Spotted in Hong Kong.

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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."

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When the Onion has better journalism than actual news channels:

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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!

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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)

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🇵🇸💚 Journalists in North Gaza request water, get full meal, “This is just how we are. These are our traditions!”

🔸 Source: eye on palestine (main post), mahmoud._.shalha20 (footage) and translatingfalasteen (translation)

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Inoue explains his thinking behind Slam Dunk's ending

There are two revealing articles about this with some interesting insights (parts in bold are mine for emphasis). The first is a chat between Inoue and Fujimaki Tadatoshi (creator of Kuroko no Basuke) which was published in Jump back in 2014.

Some excerpts:

Fujimaki: At what point did you decide that the Sannoh match would be the last match in SD? Inoue: When I drew the IH bracket. Fujimaki: So you'd already decided that there wouldn't be any (match) encounters with Morishige and Tsuchiya? Inoue: "There are these types of people at the national level" was the idea I wanted to convey. In real life, we often have such instances too, where we want to face off with someone but we end up not being able to. Fujimaki: At the time I thought Morishige was the "Final Boss". Inoue: Yeah, it may have created a bit too much anticipation for the readers. But without that type of character, it wouldn't feel like a national tournament, would it? It wasn't depicted in the manga but maybe [Morishige] did make a big splash in his own right. Fujimaki: That's true. That part did feel very realistic. Inoue: The other thing is, I really hate the type of storyline where only the main character gets to win, win, win in order to push the story forward. In the Shoyo match and Sannoh match, I did decide beforehand that Shohoku would win. But when I was actually drawing it out, I became so emotionally invested in the opponents and it felt awful depicting their loss. To think that after the Toyotama match, I'd have to still draw that sort of hardearned win/ heartbreaking loss 5 more times - I just couldn't do it. Apologies about Morishige and Tsuchiya! (smile)

More snippets of this article (in Japanese) here.

The other is a chat between Inoue and his mentor Houjou Tsukasa (creator of City Hunter), which was published in 2016 in Grand Jump. 

Excerpts:

Houjou: When you were working on the final arc of SD you came by my manga studio to hang out. Inoue: I did? Houjou: Well, it was less to hang out and more to work on a draft of some chapters. At the time you were deep in the Sannoh match and you were muttering "how should I continue the story after the Sannoh match..." I just said offhandedly, "Well, if they gave it their all in the Sannoh match, it wouldn't be all that bad if they got slaughtered in the next match." Inoue: Ah, I was probably at your studio looking for some affirmation on that point. Houjou: When I read the final chapter in Jump I was so happy. Jump is all about friendship, hard work, victory yet here the home team lost badly in the end. Inoue: I got the sense that manga is an incredible thing as we reached the final chapter of the story - the people who were depicted in the series still continued living their lives, just that it wasn't depicted. In fact, those characters are still living their lives today.

Source article for the above (in Chinese) here

So in short, it looks like Inoue did have a good sense of when he wanted to end the Slam Dunk story but was still wrestling with the idea when it came time to execute it. After all, having the main characters lose was just not a thing. So he ended up at his mentor's manga studio to mull over it/get a second opinion and turns out his mentor had the same train of thought as he did.

It also stacks up with things he'd said in the Switch interview (published 2012). I personally love that Inoue is always looking to reflect reality/the truth in his manga rather than to go the conventional route of dragging out a popular story for the sake of milking it.

His stories are grounded in reality and he's not going to be persuaded to drag them out for the sake of selling more volumes/making more money if the message he wants to convey gets lost. There's integrity in his stories and for me, that's what makes his stories timeless.

[slamdunktheories]

You ever noticed who the Sannoh vice-captain is?

It's Nobe, because jersey #5:

Discovered this when flipping through chapters and I was all "???!" He was depicted more as a rebound specialist and little else. If anything, Kawata seemed the more natural choice (calm, collected, steady under pressure, lead by example, etc.)

Interested to hear why people think he was made VC! (Because Inoue, given his track record of thinking about the tiniest of details for every character, absolutely thought about this when assigning the VC to Nobe).

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Inoue on Kogure's cameo in REAL

In one of the Slam Dunk kanzenban volumes, the inside cover has this interesting sketch by Inoue that ties in Slam Dunk and REAL (one of his other basketball mangas).

Kogure's going 「ははは　リアルにもでちゃった」　(which basically translates to "hahaha... and I've even/also appeared in REAL") and Sakuragi's in the background looking a little mad/jealous, saying 「ずるいぞ」 ("that's not fair").

Which means, the guy appearing behind Nomiya on page 92 of REAL's volume 1 is indeed Kogure ;)

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Portrait of Inoue Takehiko

Portrait of Inoue sensei done with a calligraphy brush by UmiShan Go (she doesn't have an IG account or anything public but was happy to have this shared)

I love love love it. Love how well she's captured Inoue sensei's essence.

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Slam Dunk Coaches In Their Youth

(Answers to the Slam Dunk Eye Challenge below!)

Source: unknown T_T (but is almost certainly not Inoue himself since it doesn't look like his handwriting at all) Answers to the Slam Dunk Eye Challenge:

Moroboshi

Jin

Fukuda

Tsuchiya

Rukawa

Takasago

Yohei

Sendoh

Miyagi

Fujima

Maki

Aota

Kawata

Minami

Sakuragi

Fukatsu

Akagi

Yasuda

Mitsui

Hikoichi

Sawakita

Hasegawa

Uozumi

Kiyota

How did everyone do for the challenge? ;)

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Slam Dunk: So Who Won the IH after Sannoh Lost?

There are a lot of theories out there as to who actually clinched the Inter-High championship after Sannoh took a shock loss to Shohoku. What we do know is that Inoue 1) has a specific school/winner in mind and 2) most likely had decided who it was by the time he drew the IH bracket in the manga (he's shared this in another interview that I'll post about another day). Let’s look at who might’ve won the IH today :)

The biggest hints come from a 2017 interview, where Inoue was asked who won the IH and he stated that it was a team that was never depicted in Slam Dunk.

Clip of the interview here; question starts around the 5:10 mark. No English subtitles there but I've transcribed the interview:

Q: By the way, who won the national championship? A: Ah, about that... Q: Oh, should I not have asked that? A: Well, it's not that. It's just... (hesitates) Q: Kainan was #2, right? A: Kainan was #2. Q: So my guess is that maybe Meihou won the championship? A: Oh no, that's not the case. Q: Oh so there is a champion [in your mind]. A: Yes, in my mind there's a specific winner. Q: Mm... A: But the winning team is not one that has ever been described or appeared. Q: A team that has never appeared? A: (nods) It's a team that has never appeared. And if Meihou won the championship, that would be pretty annoying. Q: Yes. A: They have the talent and capability, but I think to let such a team win would really be pretty annoying. Q: I seem to have gotten the best answer, no?

Someone from Hong Kong then did a hyper detailed analysis in Chinese to get to the bottom of it, and deduced that the eventual champion was...

.

.

.

Hakata.

I read the essay in the native format (see essay here) and loved it because it made a ton of sense, then I tried to do a Google translate to see if the English was ok. Answer: IT WAS NOT. It came out completely garbled. But if you want to try reading the article, I'd recommend using ChatGPT; both the free and Pro versions translate a lot more smoothly and accurately than DeepL, which in turn is a cut above Google Translate.

For a super simplified/condensed version of the article, the main logic for a Hakata win goes as follows:

According to the IH bracket, there're 5 seeds for this year's tournament and we know the seeding reflects the performance of the previous year's IH tournament. The top 4 seeds this year are the top 4 teams of the previous year and those seeds can be easily identified in the bracket as they got to skip the first round matches this year.

The bracket shows the top 4 seeds being: Sannoh (top left quadrant of bracket), Kainan (bottom left), Hakata (top right; but in the English translation there's a weird typo showing "Hakuta"), and Meihou (bottom right). Note: Meihou wasn't a top 4 team last year; Aiwa was, according to Maki. So presumably, since Meihou beat Aiwa this year to take the #1 position in their prefecture tournament, Meihou took their place in the IH seeding too.

The 5th seed who also got to skip the first round match was Rakuen, somewhere in the middle on the left side bracket. They were probably the best performing team amongst the Top 8 last year so got the 5th seed this year as a result.

We also know that last year Sannoh was the champion and Kainan lost to them in the semi finals. And since Aiwa was #4 last year, Kainan must have been #3 as it's impossible to lose to Sannoh in the semis and be any higher than #3. That means the one team remaining (Hakata) must've been #2 last year, after facing Sannoh in the finals but had clearly lost.

With Sannoh out of the way this year, it’s entirely feasible for a strong team that already has the experience of playing deep into the IH tournament to actually win the championship this year. There may have also been sentimental reasons as to why Inoue picked Hakata as the winner - Inoue is a Kyushu native (having been born and bred there) and Hakata is also in Kyushu.

IMO not depicting the eventual champion is a really great approach and is a testament to Inoue's storytelling skills. In the minds of many SD fans, the national champions that year ought to be a team that's more impressive than Sannoh and Shohoku because even with Sannoh out of the way they'll still need to beat plenty of strong teams en route.

How would/should such a team look like? It'll be impossible to convey the power of such a team with just a few manga panels - especially since every SD reader will have their own expectations of what such a team would/should look like.

So Inoue goes for the opposite approach: offer nothing. Without depicting the winning team at all, he preserves the reader's ability to imagine everything and anything they want to about the team. The canvas stays empty, and we have the paint.

[slamdunktheories]

Inoue reveals the inspiration for Rukawa (spoiler: it's not Jordan)

For the 50th anniversary edition of Weekly Shonen Magazine, Inoue contributed this illustration of Koma Gun from Baribari Densetsu (aka "Bari Bari Legend"), a motorbike-themed manga by Shuichi Shigeno (best known for "Initial D") that was serialised in the magazine from 1983 to 1991.

Inoue's commentary on the bottom right mentions that he was really into this series when he was a teen. It's not that clear from the illustration here but Rukawa and Koma Gun bear a striking a resemblance to each other. Here's a proper look at Koma Gun. It's not just looks though. Koma Gun is 187cm, weighs 75kg, and has a love for cats (source). He even has a penchant for sleeping anywhere, which explains Koma's bedhead look. Guess who in SD has the exact same height, weight and tendencies?

And this scene where Rukawa tries to befriend a cat? Turns out this was Inoue paying tribute to the inspiration for Rukawa's character because hey, Koma Gun had a very similar scene in Bari Bari Densetsu too (see here).

As for Jordan, IIRC Inoue had once said in an interview that he's Rukawa's idol so I'm sure a big part of him tried to emulate Jordan when it came to basketball. There's def an influence there on the basketball front, but the Bari Bari connection is so interesting.

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One detail about Rukawa that no one talks about

This might sound crazy but hear me out: part of Rukawa's character design is that he sweats a lot. In fact, he's far and away the heaviest sweater in Shohoku.

Manga evidence:

He's often seen wearing two shirts at once during bball practice

That scene where Rukawa wrings his shirt dry after practice because... yeah, he had that much sweat (Sakuragi then gets all jealous and tries to do the same but hilariously rips his shirt)

TFSD evidence:

Only one piece of evidence needed and it's the group huddle where his is the only jersey that is depicted with sweat patches.

The end. Thank you for joining me in my random Slam Dunk observations LOL

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Slam Dunk Challenge: Identify the character by the eyes alone

One of the incredible things Inoue did with Slam Dunk was the distinctive character design. This was especially unusual considering that shounen manga in the early 90s/prior often had characters who looked a lot like one another and you could really only tell them apart by their hair. The most egregious of them even had the same limbs and everything (ahem, Captain Tsubasa).

But Inoue put so much thought into character design that you could often recognise a Slam Dunk character by their eyes alone. Don’t believe me? Try this little challenge and see how many Slam Dunk characters you can recognise by the eyes alone!

I managed 21 out of 25 and I’ll bet you’ll surprise yourself with how many you can identify if you spent a bit of time on it. I'll reveal the answer in a few days in the comments below. Let's go!