This is not a drill, 90s kids — our favorite childhood anime is finally making a comeback with a new movie!
The classic basketball game ‘Slam Dunk’ — which was recently voted as the third most popular manga of all time in Japan — is getting a new movie, the series creator himself — Takehiko Inoue broke the exciting news on Twitter this Thursday, January 7.
Takehiko wrote on Twitter to tease fans with a GIF saying “SLAM DUNK” and that it “will be a movie,” which was written in Japanese.
The surprise announcement has taken the internet by storm, just one day since its posting, gaining over 205,000 retweets and more than 371,000 likes, as of writing.
Further details are still not released yet, but the official website for the new movie was also launched upon its announcement, revealing the involvement of Toei Animation, the same production studio behind the basketball manga’s anime series adaptation in the 90s. The title is yet to be decided, according to the movie’s Twitter page description.
Before getting its anime series adaptation in 1993, Slam Dunk started as a manga created by Takehiko himself that ran on the Weekly Shōnen Jump; a weekly shōnen manga published in Japan, in the early ’90s.
Four “Slam Dunk” movies have already been released from 1994 to 1995, including “Slam Dunk: The Movie”; “Slam Dunk: National Champions, Sakuragi Hanamichi!”; “Slam Dunk: Shohoku’s Greatest Danger! Sakuragi Hanamichi”; and “Slam Dunk: Roar Basketman’s Soul, Hanamichi and Rukawa’s Burning Summer.”
Slam Dunk follows the story of Hanamichi Sakuragi, a high school bad boy “who did not know anything about basketball” but “played a game with the captain of a basketball team and won,” according to Toei Animation’s official website.
With over 120 million copies sold, Slam Dunk becomes one of best-selling manga in history. It also ranked as the third top manga of all time, according to a survey this past week by a Japanese TV station, behind only “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” and “One Piece.”