Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Shohoku's “speedster” and point guard, Ryota Miyagi, always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. In his second year of high school, Ryota plays with the Shohoku High School basketball team along with Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, and Mitsui as they take the stage at the Inter-High School National Championship. And now, they are on the brink of challenging the reigning champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School.
The First Slam Dunk is a landmark sports anime film that reinvents its beloved source material through a stunning blend of 2D and 3D animation, reframing the iconic Sannoh match through Ryota Miyagi's perspective and traumatic backstory. The cinematography is genuinely exceptional — Inoue Takehiko's direction creates kinetic, visceral basketball sequences that rival anything in the genre, with dynamic camera work and fluid motion that feel wholly singular. The novelty is high because the film takes a well-known manga narrative and restructures it so inventively — intercutting the game with Miyagi's grief-laden backstory — that it functions as an entirely new emotional experience even for longtime fans. The ending lands with devastating, earned resonance, making it one of the most celebrated conclusions in recent anime cinema. Acting (voice performances) and plot structuring are strong but not quite exceptional — the non-Miyagi characters get limited development in this framing, and the dual-narrative structure occasionally strains pacing. Overall a remarkable achievement in sports animation.