Slam Dunk is fondly remembered as not just a great basketball manga, but the manga that saved basketball in Japan when it came out.
It has been so influential that you can see pieces of Slam Dunk in almost every basketball anime and many other sports series. However, it’s legacy is left a little tarnished since the anime fizzled out about two-thirds through the story only to be quickly summed up decades later with a movie.
Where To Start The Slam Dunk Manga After The Anime?
If you finished the Slam Dunk anime and wish to continue the story with the manga, you can start at Chapter 198.
This start point includes every movie except The First Slam Dunk, which technically adapts the ending, but skips chapters to do so.
The anime adapts through Volume 22.
What to Expect From The Slam Dunk Manga?
The Slam Dunk manga ending is technically adapted in the fifth and final Slam Dunk movie, The First Slam Dunk. However, it skips like 25 chapters to start adapting the final arc, and doesn’t even adapt it very faithfully. So, it is better to read your way to the end.
As for the other Slam Dunk movies, they are all side stories and you don’t technically need to watch them. The first three Slam Dunk movies adapt canon events that were mentioned or happened off-screen in the manga. Slam Dunk Movie 4 is fully anime-original in plot.
As for the Slam Dunk TV anime compared to the manga, it did an “okay, not great” job. The real problem is the anime slowed the pace of Slam Dunk down pretty hard. It also wedged in some anime-original content and skipped some canon things.
While it isn’t necessary to read the Slam Dunk manga from the beginning, there is more merit than usual in doing so. Furthermore, Takehiko Inoue is among the best in the business in terms of manga art.
Is The Slam Dunk Manga Over?
The Slam Dunk manga is complete. It ended in 1996 with Chapter 276.
