This is a follow-up film to the anime Slam Dunk, and a retelling of the original manga's final match. (Yeah, First Slam Dunk makes it look like a prequel. Very confusing.) In this movie, the Shohoku high school basketball team compete against their rivals the unbeatable Sanno for the championship title. The focus is on not the series' main lead Hanamichi Sakuragi but on Ryota Miyagi, the short but fast member of the team, and gives us his backstory.
This may be some of the most impressive 2D animation of the decade. I've been impressed with how recent animation, even for television, has been able to get closer and closer to manage to duplicate the specific looks of the original manga illustrators' pencilings. This may be one of the closest to a manga page truly come to life I've ever seen. The coloring even feels like the type you'd see used sometimes in manga pages. This is written and directed by the manga's original creator Takehiko Inoue, and the character design and animation looks so good in this. The movement is also really lifelike, like rotoscoping. Even the motion of faceless background characters in the crowd look good.
Characters have a 2D1/2 look to them and sometimes the use of this juxtaposed against regular 2D backgrounds or the use of CGI in general can look a little off sometimes. Also, the coloring of character's hair tapering off at the border of the their heads can look weird. However, none of these issues are deal breakers.
Direction itself is so tight. The baseball scenes are intricately executed. The movie makes you feel the tension at the end and the struggle the players go through against such a powerful team. You don't notice at first, but it becomes apparent as things heat up that the music and sound editing also really complement the game. I loved how the gym (or whatever facility, it's never specified) they're in looks. The flashback scenes for Ryoto also have fine detail that help tell the story.
What differentiates this from other sports movies is that the current plot all takes place during one game; no series of matches building up and not even scenes of the characters preparing beforehand or entering the facility. It turns out that focusing on only one game can really work. It doesn't feel drawn out or boring (in fact things pick up as the game goes on) and really shows the stress and passion that one can have in playing a very important game.
It's a pleasant surprise that the rival team isn't portrayed, as they are often stereotypically done in American movies and television, as jerks, or its coach as an angry or corrupt guy who's consumed with winning. Sure they're a little overconfident with their success and not as charming as their leads, but that's it. They're true athletic forces on the court and that's all they need, and the coach is a shrewd operator.
Ryota's story, though admittedly can't match the game itself, is a well told tale of rising above tragedy and the relationship between him and his mother is something I hadn't seen done in quite this way before.
The movie works well enough for first time watchers. (I've read that that was Inoue's intent.) You're just thrown in and don't get a lot of backstory on characters, but they tend to fit basic types, so it doesn't take a lot of work to figure what these characters are about.
The back-and-forth between timelines can get a little annoying. For the first half, I was hoping the game scenes would switch back to the flashbacks, so I wanted to see how story points would be resolved or answered and for the second half, I wanted to keep watching the game because I'd gotten so involved. The past scenes also could've been shorter. I commend the movie for saying a lot with little or no dialogue, but it still could've been streamlined.
Fans of the original manga and anime may be disappointed that they've been waiting for the finale to be animated for years, and it turns out to not be a pure adaptation. You don't get to see much of a follow-up after the game (which I assumed would be in the manga). Most importantly, if you were following Sakuragi all this time, you'd might be frustrated that he's second fiddle in the culmination of his story.
Highly recommended. This may be the best sports movie I've ever seen and it looks amazing. I've never been so drawn into a fictional sports match before this.
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