Slam Dunk
I read this over the past couple of months and finished the other day. It's really really good. Such a satisfying way of conveying sports in a manga that I never saw done this well before. In retrospect it feels like a lot of other Jump sports got inspired from it (I can see parallels in Haikyuu and Kuroko, way more parallels in Kuroko but they're all superficial).
Was the manga cut short though? The ending felt a little jarring. It's not like I'd call the story incomplete but I think it could have gone further very easily. Maybe it's just me.
The Manga was serialized from early 90s and end around mid 90s.
The match against Sannoh took a total of 6 volumes where 5 Volume were dedicated to the second half. The last volume was particularly impressive because the author uses silent panels, panels without any narration or dialogue, to heighten tension.
The manga wasn't cut short, Slam Dunk was very popular actually, it was Inoue deciding to end the manga at that moment and gives readers a bittersweet after taste.
We, the readers, all knew Shohoku has potential as we were there witnessing its growth but we don't quite know about it limits.
It was all the right ingredients that results in the underdog triumph over the greatest Sannoh side in 20 years history. This includes the growth of Sakuragi and Rukawa, the decision to utilize Mitsui Hisashi's 3 pointers right at the start and of course the long-term outlook of Sannoh coach which backfires because he chooses to field and prioritize the year 1 player ( the timid Giant dude ) to accumulate experience in the first half. The Sannoh coach just didn't expect to lose, against Shohoku.
Anyway, Kainan got second in the nationals and they were on the left side of the tournament bracket. Shohoku, Sannoh and Aiwa was on the left too. So that means Aiwa lost against Kainan, the latter went on to lose to the finalist from the right side of the bracket.
Kainan wasn't much stronger than they were in regionals and the Aiwa match Shohoku is likely missing Hisashi and Sakuragi since they decided to throw everything they got against Sannoh without regrets.
This implied that Aiwa isn't that strong team of a team and had Shohoku was having a healthy squad, they will likely beat both Aiwa and Kainan.
Hence the bittersweet aftertaste. It's a lot of what if except the fact that they did beat arguably the strongest squad in high-school basketball history but it costs them too much to proceed further.
