Slam Dunk, Volume 1

Basketball. The court, the ball, the hoop. The hopes, the dreams, the sweat. It takes dedication and discipline to be the best, and the Shohoku High hoops team wants to be just that—the best. They have one last year to make their captain's dream of reaching the finals come true—will they do it? Takehiko Inoue's legendary basketball manga is finally here, and the tale of a lifetime is in your hands!

Sakuragi Hanamichi's got no game with girls—none at all! It doesn't help that he's known for throwing down at a moment's notice and always coming out on top. A hopeless bruiser, he's been rejected by 50 girls in a row! All that changes when he meets the girl of his dreams, Haruko, and she's actually not afraid of him! When she introduces him to the game of basketball, his life is changed forever...

Slam Dunk (by Inoue Takehito): Also premiering in June, Slam Dunk is the internationally popular basketball story of the Shohoku Prefectural High School basketball team, and their newest star player Sakuragi Hanmichi, who's also the newest freshman delinquent. A novice on the court, and in love, Sakuragi learns to master the game and will play to bring the national championship to Shohoku and true love to his heart.

Publishers Weekly

Although Inoue's imported teen sport-romance manga Slam Dunk-a big hit back in Japan-is ostensibly about the love of basketball, it really starts out as a chronicle of love and rejection in high school. The series' towering, red-haired hero, Hanamichi Sakuragi, is first shown in utter dejection, after having been rejected by 50 girls in a row (apparently, people are keeping count). But saving him from utter despair is the appearance of the angelic Haruko Akagi, who flirtatiously swoons over his stature and wonders whether or not he plays basketball. After some gentle considerations of whether he's interested ("If only I could walk her to school!! Then I could die happy") Hanamichi sets about trying to get on the basketball team. Haruko disappears from the pages not long after she has conveniently set the plot device in motion, leaving Inoue free to depict Hanamichi's attempts be accepted by the arrogant upperclassmen who dominate the team. It comes as a disappointment to Hanamichi-a hot-tempered kid who prefers to pick fights and slam dunk than learn how to actually play the game,-that winning Haruko's heart is going to take some work. Inoue's pacing is frantic, if somewhat padded, but he manages to maintain a welcome sense of humor amid all the adolescent gamesmanship. (Aug.)

Takehiko Inoue was born in Kagoshima prefecture in 1967. His first major success -- the hugely popular 31-volume long basketball manga SLAM DUNK -- sold over 100 million copies worldwide and catapulted him into the top ranks of Japanese manga artists. Besides manga, Inoue also worked on character design for the Playstation basketball game ONE ON ONE.