Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for The First Slam Dunk (2022) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Shugo Nakamura, Jun Kasama, Kenta Miyake, Shinichiro Kamio, Subaru Kimura, Katsuhisa Houki DIRECTOR: Takehiko Inoue CINEMATOGRAPHY: Shunsuke Nakamura PRODUCTION: Toei Animation, Toei Company, DandeLion Animation Studio

Box Office Performance

The First Slam Dunk earned $1,291,869 domestically and $256,708,131 internationally, for a worldwide total of $258,000,000. International markets drove the majority of revenue (99%), indicating strong global appeal.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

Franchise: The First Slam Dunk is part of the Slam Dunk Collection.

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

On January 6, 2021, Inoue suddenly announced on his Twitter account that the movie was in production. Then, on August 13, 2021, Inoue was revealed to be the screenwriter and director of the film, along with other production staff members such as Yasuyuki Ebara as character designer/animation director and Naoki Miyahara, Katsuhiko Kitada, Toshio Ohashi, Yasuhiro Motoda, Fumihiko Suganuma, and Haruka Kamatani as sequence directors.

On July 1, 2022, five new character posters were installed in theaters across Japan, where the release date of December 3, 2022 and the title The First Slam Dunk were officially announced. The official website of the film held interviews with multiple production staff members, where they shared their contribution to the film and Inoue's requests for the film. According to character designer/general animation director Yasuyuki Ebara, Inoue wanted the character designs to follow his recent illustrations shown in the new Slam Dunk Refurbished edition volumes released in 2018, instead of the older designs of the manga. The film's art director Kazuo Ogura and color designer Shiori Furusyo stated that Inoue wanted the movie to specifically feel as if the manga itself is in motion; therefore, he generally wanted a light and desaturated color palette. In addition, to make the backgrounds more manga-like, they had to look more hand-drawn and less realistic. Also, they mentioned that the movie was a blend of 3DCG for the basketball scenes and hand-drawn 2D animation for daily life scenes. Therefore, the film tries to bring the best of both worlds. On that note, CG director Daiki Nakazawa stated the same thing, but mentioned that there are some 2D basketball scenes where the animators used the motion capture for reference to portray basketball movements with much realism as possible.

▸ Music & Score

* Opening theme song: "Love Rockets" by the Birthday * Ending theme song: by 10-Feet

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 1 win & 5 nominations total

Additional Recognition: The First Slam Dunk was awarded the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year at the 46th Japan Academy Film Prize in 2023. The film won the Okawa-Fukiya Award at the Niigata International Animation Film Festival 2023. Toshiyuki Matsui, the producer of the film, received the Grand Prize of the 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards for his work on the film. The film won the Best Animated Feature Film, and third place in Audience Award category at the 27th annual Fantasia International Film Festival in 2023. At the Newtype Anime Awards, The First Slam Dunk took third place in Best Picture (Film). The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 16th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. It was one of 33 animated films submitted for Best Animated Feature for the 96th Academy Awards, but failed to get shortlisted. Kôji Kasamatsu, for his work in sound design, was nominated for a Technical Achievement Award at the 44th UK London Film Critics Circle Awards.

The First Slam Dunk was awarded the Best Newcomer Award and the Yujiro Ishihara Award at the 36th Nikkan Sports Film Awards. It was also awarded the Tokyo Anime Award Festival for Animation of the Year (Feature Film). The manga artist, Takehiko Inoue, also awarded the Best Original Story/Screenplay and Best Director, while Daiki Nakazawa won Best Background/Coloring/Visual Category award for their work. The film was nominated for Best Film at the 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2024.

CRITICAL RECEPTION

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval of 100%, based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's consensus is "A heart-pumping, breathtaking, wonderfully crafted manga adaptation, The First Slam Dunk shoots and scores." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Alicia Haddick from Anime News Network praised the film and gave it a B−, and described it as "The First Slam Dunk, a story about the last slam dunk, is everything a megafan of the franchise could dream of. No wonder it's been such a runaway success at the Japanese box office. Those who can't name the Shōhoku High School starting lineup by heart may leave the theater quietly satisfied. Delivers the tension of a sports anime, offers just enough for long term fans." Calum Marsh from The New York Times described the film as an excellent adaptation of the original manga series, written "The First Slam Dunk is a great basketball movie because it understands what’s great about basketball, this feels like real basketball. When a character catches a pass, drives toward the paint, steps back, squares up and releases a clutch 3-pointer, the movie slows time, drops the sound and homes in on exactly the right detail — the perfect, crystalline swish of the ball passing through the basket and gently grazing the net. The flashbacks are well-written and add off-the-court dramatic interest, but it’s the basketball action that is the movie’s claim to excellence.