Slam Dunk is Takehiko Inoue’s classic basketball manga, finally being re-released in Viz editions.  The star of the story is young delinquent teen Hanamichi Sakuraga; he was a huge failure in love, and a member of teen gangs until he fell in love with Haruko Akagi, a first year student at Shohoku high school. He joins the basketball team to impress her (and her brother being the team captain means she’ll be around frequently), but his basketball spirit is starting to kindle…of course, they all still need a lot of work if they’re going to reach the finals! The series is a mix of strong characters, comedy, and a lot of dramatic basketball action.

Slam Dunk vol. 8: Basketball continues the basketbrawl (pun fully intended) from last volume.  Mitsui's gang of thugs is terrorizing the team, and Hanamichi and Ryota are fighting back.. but Mitsui's past hides a suprising secret. He used to be a star on the basketball team!

Highlights

Even though the fight drags on a bit in the first part of the volume, we get to learn the secret of Mitsui's past. Kogure, (or four eyes as Hanamichi calls him) explains that Mitsui used to be a big part of the team; the star who joined their small public high school team instead of one of the private ones he could have joined. It was shades of Eyeshield 21 as Mitsui declared he'd take Shohoku to a national title.  The practice game set up between Mitsui's squad and Akagi's (Gori!) was the most fun I've had reading Slam Dunk yet; even as an exhibition game, it showed the drama between the up and coming Akagi and the star Mitsui. It's in the telling of this story that his unfortunate past comes to light.

It was particularly amusing to see Akagi acting like Hanamichi, screwing up his dribbling and accidentally kicking the ball,  and so on. Mitsui's flashback takes up the rest of the volume, in fact, making Hanamichi comment about how he's supposed to be the protagonist; I can't help but particularly agree and be amused by the comment at the same time. This is still setting up the killer team, so it's to be expected that it's more backstory heavy, however next volume promises to have a big game. However, the fights in this volume and the last cause them some problems going forward..

 

Overall

Slam Dunk has a polished, nice more realistic art style. When Hanamichi and Tetsuo face off, the glares and the blood are rendered in great detail. This also works well in the basketball games; Inoue draws large full page spreads, such as when Akagi got a great slam dunk in the flashback.  This causes it to be an even funnier contrast when people go "chibi" with skeptical looks on their faces (There's a great panel with everyone doing this when they hear about Gori's checkered past).
 

The story of Slam Dunk is still in its early stages here; the dream team is forming, Hanamichi himself is still more mouth than skill and we spend more time in fights than basketball, but the game time we've seen so far is promising.  The characters have mostly simple motives, but it's easy to feel for Hanamichi (who wants to impress Haruko) and even Mitsui. When you combine this with more realistic basketball than say, Eyeshield does football, then you have a series that basketball fans can relate to as well as casual readers. A good sports manga doesn't require the reader to be familiar with the sport much at all; Slam Dunk eases you into it casually. In fact, one might say a bit too casually. It's a good thing we're getting another game next volume. It's going to be intense.

 
                           

ComicsOnline gives Slam Dunk vol. 8: Basketball, 3.5 out of 5 basketball team members.