In a sentenceA basketball film that had us worrying about the score as though our encouragement might help
Ryota Miyagi (Shūgo Nakamura) takes to the basketball court alongside Hisashi Mitsui (Jun Kasama) and Takenori Akagi (Kenta Miyake). He wants to help his team win, but individual skill has to fit the demands of the match and the players around him. Kaede Rukawa (Shin’ichirō Kamio) and Hanamichi Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura) also enter the contest. As the game unfolds, flashbacks move away from the court to the players’ earlier lives. Those histories accompany the passes, shots and changes of possession as the team tries to find a way through the opposition.
Plays from YouTube when you press play; nothing loads from them until then.
The First Slam Dunk makes animated basketball feel physically demanding and worth caring about. The flashbacks sometimes break the match’s grip, and the tactics can get dense, but the movement earns our attention back.
Takehiko Inoue’s The First Slam Dunk is an absorbing sports film with an occasional reluctance to leave its match alone. It wants the basketball to carry enough drama for 125 minutes, while finding room for the experiences that make the players care about winning. The frequent trips away from the court do not always help, but the ambition is worth taking seriously. This is a film interested in how people play together, and in how difficult that becomes when each has something personal at stake.
The animation gives the players weight without making them lumber, and speed without turning the court into a blur. Cinematographer Shunsuke Nakamura keeps the action readable, with bodies distinct enough for us to follow the competition for space. The relatively spare images help: there is little to distract from the movement, and changes of pace have a satisfying physical force. The choreography is detailed enough to hold our attention through an extended passage of play, without requiring a new visual trick every few seconds.
We were surprised by how tense we became watching the players try to keep up with one another. The animation makes the effort visible, so an advantage feels worked for rather than handed out by the script. Shūgo Nakamura, voicing Ryota Miyagi, gives the personal drama enough feeling to keep us listening when the basketball stops. His performance helps connect the more openly emotional scenes to the pressure of the game, and makes Ryota Miyagi someone worth following through both.
Editors Jun Watanabe and Ryuichi Takita have the awkward job of fitting the flashbacks around a contest that keeps building its own momentum. Some pauses give us useful time with the people playing; others arrive when we would rather stay on the court. The more successful transitions make the return to play feel urgent, because we have been given another reason to care about a player. Elsewhere, the film spends too long recovering tension that it had already established, and the repeated interruptions become noticeable.
Takehiko Inoue’s screenplay also expects a fair amount of patience with basketball strategy. The action is often clear enough to communicate the immediate difficulty, yet the tactical detail can demand more concentration than the emotional story needs. That is the main caveat for anyone drawn by the animation rather than the sport, and a few passages would benefit from less explanation. Within the familiar sports-drama conventions, though, the film finds convincing ways for athletic effort to express feelings that might sound ordinary in dialogue.
There is no shortage of films about players hoping to win, and another account of perseverance needs to give us a reason to sit through it. Here, the reason is the care taken over the basketball itself, which keeps the familiar material from feeling merely dutiful. Even when the storytelling grows insistent, the next stretch of play offers something exact and absorbing to watch. Choose it for the animation if basketball is not your sport, and be prepared to miss a few tactical details.
Most critics respond warmly to The First Slam Dunk, with praise centred on the animation and the clarity, speed and physical force of its basketball sequences. The action gives the characters’ feelings a convincing physical expression, making the match matter beyond the score. Several reviews find the drama affecting despite its familiar sports-story formulas, and admire how the choreography makes a complicated game readable and exciting.
The reservations concern pacing, accessibility and the interruptions to the match. Some critics find the basketball strategy demanding or feel the film assumes prior knowledge; others note repetition and the strain of fitting numerous character stories into one film. The spread is fairly broad, though positive reviews predominate. The Skinny is the clearest dissenter, finding that clashing animation styles and sporadic flashbacks weaken the tension. The AV Club remains favourable but also flags racist tropes.
Ehrlich calls the film a thrilling, emotionally layered crowd-pleaser. He especially praises how its detailed depiction of basketball turns the game into an expansive source of human drama.
Read the full review →Rosenfield finds the film thrilling and calls it a total slam dunk. She particularly praises the clarity and exhilarating choreography of the basketball action.
Read the full review →The critic praises the film as kinetic, poetic anime. They single out its supercharged basketball drama and motion.
Read the full review →Oller finds the film an ambitious, effective balance of familiar sports-anime storytelling and visual innovation. He especially praises the kinetic animation and heart-stopping finale, while noting that the film can feel repetitive and retains racist tropes.
Read the full review →The critic finds the film an exhilarating, emotionally grounded sports anime, even though its story relies on familiar formulas. They single out the fluid, tactile animation for capturing the speed and physicality of basketball.
Read the full review →McIndoe finds the film exhilarating despite its difficulty fitting the manga’s many stories into two hours. He praises the vivid, inventive animation and the way the basketball game gives characters’ inner lives physical expression.
Read the full review →
Ping Pong the Animation · not reviewed yetAnother animated sports drama that takes the players’ private worries seriously.
Breaking AwayCycling, friendship and class anxiety, with an affectionate eye for youthful pretension.
Hoop DreamsReal basketball players face pressures that make the score only part of the story.
Lagaan · not reviewed yetA longer sporting contest, with team spirit and clear stakes to sustain it.
Offside · not reviewed yetFootball matters fiercely to women kept outside the stadium in this sharp comedy.
Free account
Two lists that know where things are streaming, collections you can share, your own score beside ours, and Discover that remembers what you have seen.
