This is the classic sports anime series. This series presents
Hanamichi Sakuragi, a desperate high school freshman gangster who got dumped by
girls fifty times. But seeing how all the basketball team guys got all the cute
girls, our Sakuragi snakes his way into the Shohoku HS basketball team. He slowly
learns about the game and builds bonds with his teammates. With a few other additions
to the team, Shohoku begins their journey to win the inter-high tournament to
earn a spot in the nationals.
The songs in this
series are superb and the comedy is a thumbs-up (mainly revolves around the stupidity
of Sakuragi). There are some gangster scenes and a lot of blood, so little children
should keep off this title. With Sakuragi, of course there is romance, but the
series didn't bother to develop it, since it is a basketball series. At last,
the basketball moments are really good and it illustrates the players' mentality
on and off the court. All the players on Shohoku has his own characteristics as
well as their role on the team so its a bet that this series will be fun to watch.
The character designs are pretty, the basketball boys are all muscular and the
physics in the anime is good. Haruko, Sakuragi's crush, is also pretty cute. The
art is old compared to the newer sports anime (especially the newer basketball
series Dear Boys), but the good time it gives surpasses its followers.
However unlike many other series that concentrate
on one game, you can't really enjoy this series to its fullest without loving
basketball (unlike Hikaru no Go). A large part of this series is spent
on the court and although it is very exciting, people who don't care about basketball
will soon get bored. This series only go up to when Shohoku is accepted to the
national tournament, and with some introduction to the top teams in the national
tournament and not actually having Shohoku play them leaves the end of this huge
series in a cliffhanger. Everyone have hoped that another season would come, but
it never did. It was fun while it lasted though, and this anime definitely deserves
a good look and a good rating.
High: Cool
characters, good soundtrack, Sakuragi is very very funny.
Low: Revolves
around only basketball, no romance, ending is a cliffhanger.
Overall:
A must watch for basketball and comedy fans.
