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Slam Dunk! hurts.
There are a million ways I could have started this "article", but every time I watch an episode of the show or it gets brought up in a conversation, I'm immediately reminded of Zach Handlen's immortal words:
"A good story should hurt a little when it leaves us".
This is true for almost every story ever told (provided it was good enough to leave an impact on the person going through it) and it is specially true for Slam Dunk!, but not for the reasons you may be expecting... indeed, Slam Dunk! did hurt when it left me, but not because the story was so good, it left a void on me that needed to be filled by something else; but because a story that was so good left me when I was just starting to really embrace it. Without ever being the intent of the original author, nor the people who made it possible for me to enjoy it in the first place, Slam Dunk! was brutally removed from my life when it was at (or near) the peak of its powers and it crushed my nine-year-old heart so badly, it essentially ended my childhood right then and there.
Slam Dunk! entered my life through the ill-fated Magic Kids network and left it amidst the disastrous economic crisis of 2001, in which pretty much anything I enjoyed as a kid vanished seemingly overnight.
Unlike many of those other shows, however, Slam Dunk! had barely started its run when it was forced off the grid, so I really didn't have time to form a negative opinion of it... on the contrary, I was very impressed with what I was seeing and I just couldn't get enough of the whole thing, which made all the more crushing when the series stopped airing right in the middle of one of the most important plot points it would have, robbing us of the chance of seeing what would happen next and forever bathing the series on a negative light that, for most people, will never be removed, because they didn't care enough to try and right it or simply forgot about it.
I wouldn't find the series again until more than a decade later, when I was made aware of a fan site dedicated to it that had all episodes available for download on glorious, unmistakable Latin Spanish.
Being able to pick the series back up exactly where I left it off remains the single, happiest moment I have gotten from an animated world and it allowed me to close a wound I had forgotten I even had by that point, but a nasty surprise still laid ahead and it guaranteed that a show I already remembered vividly and had strong emotions for would never be forgotten.
As you can imagine, I went full-marathon mode on the series as soon as it had finished downloading it and raced through it so fast, I'm ashamed to even think about how many afternoons were "wasted" looking at the computer screen and mechanically hitting "play" on the next episode, which of course made me crash headfirst on the aforementioned surprise... and that twist was that Slam Dunk! had no ending.
As unbelievable as it sounds, the people behind the anime adaptation of Slam Dunk! chose to end the story right at the gates of the National Tournament (the primary goal the protagonists were pushing towards), making all the build up and great character development feel entirely pointless, as there was absolutely no pay off for it.
Personally, I wasn't going to stand for that after thirteen years of wondering what happened next and did something I had never done before to find out: I read the manga.
Manga reading honestly intimidated me a little back then, because I wasn't really used to the way I was supposed to be reading the panels and I got confused and frustrated more than a little bit while doing so, but whatever... I pushed through and I got to the end of the story. Perhaps the ending was a little underwhelming on its own right, but I was ecstatic to finally reach it regardless (and hey, the very last chapter was originally drawn on a college whiteboard, as the author got inspired to finish what was, at that point in time, the highest-selling manga in history, right after he had finished teaching a class, so there's that colorful note to end on).
Taking all of the above under consideration, I wouldn't blame any of you for thinking that I don't really hold Slam Dunk! on a high regard and only see it as a hard-fought (and often hostile) story that I was interested in just enough to see it through. As I said, I wouldn't blame you for going for what would be the logical answer here, but the fact is that Slam Dunk! remains the best anime I have ever seen, and its place will never be usurped (despite a lot of worthy candidates emerging and challenging its crown ever-since).
Sure, most --if not all-- of the aforementioned stuff was annoying and a pain to deal with, but it could, in no way, detract from a story that was just excellent throughout the mixed run of anime watching and manga reading it put me through. If the story was anything short of excellent, you wouldn't even be reading this thread, but because it WAS that good, it made all the hoops I had to jump through in order to finish it only enhance the overall experience and make it all the better.
So, what's the story about?
Talking about the story of the show on any sort of depth would be a disservice to it, so I'll just say that it might look very generic to the naked eye (no-good punk falls for a girl and starts practicing a sport just to impress her), but it more than makes up for it by making every aspect of it look sincere, emotional and earned. The story of Slam Dunk! would undeniably be a dime-a-dozen without the clever writing that supports it, but once you start looking deeper into it, you might be surprised to find a tale about personal growth and the gradual change of motivations that fuel the main character hidden (but not buried) underneath a light-hearted comedy.
Moments like the duel with Akagi at the very beginning of the series, the "I am a basketball player" line, the missed pass that cost a crucial game with only seconds to go on the clock, the fact that our main character and his most bitter rival never put aside their differences throughout the whole thing and everything that happens in between form a rich tapestry of moments that make the series stand out all the more. Simply put, once a certain story arc is completed, you feel like you are watching an improved version of the main character and it really does show. I can't even begin to tell you how I wish that all shows that started with an undeniably flawed and selfish main character handled them this way (and hey, they even went the extra mile and added a little segment on each episode dedicated to explaining the rules of basketball to the viewers, so the story could move forward using actual plays, names and strategies from that sport without risking confusing the audience. Just awesome, really).
I have gone through the series a couple of times over the years and never once have I hit a moment where it just stopped being engaging to me.
For anyone curious enough to watch Slam Dunk! now (which I obviously highly recommend), I have bad news for you: the English version of the show continues with the "trend" of falling short on episodes and it seems to be missing the last twelve of the incomplete anime. I... have long stopped trying to figure out what's up with this IP when it comes to that, but almost every key moment is still included on the dubbed episodes that DO exist, so I'd still recommend checking them out if you are curious. Very much worth it regardless, but still incredibly infuriating.
And I would be lying if I said that that last line didn't sum up the series perfectly.
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