GKIDS revealed that it had secured the North American distribution rights for The First Slam Dunk.
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GKIDS revealed that it had secured the North American distribution rights for The First Slam Dunk, the latest anime film based on Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk basketball manga. The company plans to release the movie in theaters throughout the United States and Canada in the upcoming summer. The film will be available in both English dubbed and Japanese audio with English subtitles.
The company has described the story as follows:
“Shohoku’s “speedster” and point guard, Ryota Miyagi, always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Born and raised in Okinawa, Ryota had a brother who was three years older. Following in the footsteps of his older brother, who was a famous local player from a young age, Ryota also became addicted to basketball.
In his second year of high school, Ryota plays with the Shohoku High School basketball team along with Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, and Mitsui as they take the stage at the Inter-High School National Championship. And now, they are on the brink of challenging the reigning champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School.”
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Upon its release in Japan on December 3, The First Slam Dunk movie dominated the box office charts, ranking #1 in its opening weekend. The film garnered 847,000 tickets sold and raked in 1,295,808,780 yen (equivalent to about US$9.50 million) in earnings. As of now, it stands as the 24th highest-grossing film in Japan’s history. The movie was also recognized at the 46th annual Japan Academy Film Prizes and was awarded as the Animation of the Year.
Toei Animation was responsible for producing the film and Takehiko Inoue himself directed it and penned the script. The film’s staff includes Yasuyuki Ebara, who served as the character designer and animation director, along with technical directors such as Katsuhiko Kitada, Naoki Miyahara, Toshio Ōhashi, and Yū Kamatani. Ebara has previously worked on Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, while the technical directors have experience in various anime such as Attack on Titan, Digimon Adventure, Popin Q, LayereD Stories 0, and Looking for Magical DoReMi, among others.
The CG for the film was directed by Daiki Nakazawa, with Yūta Ogura serving as CG producer. The art director was Kazuo Ogura, while Yota Tsuruoka and Koji Kasamatsu were in charge of sound direction.
Additionally, Toshiyuki Matsui, the film’s producer, was recently honored with the general award at the 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards, presented by the Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyōkai (Film Theater Culture Association).
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