Fans of The First Slam Dunk in North America don’t have to wait much longer as Toei has announced the premiere release date for the movie
Toei Animation, a Japanese animation studio, has officially announced that the English dubbed version of The First Slam Dunk, a film based on the manga by Takehiko Inoue released in 2022 in Japan, will have its premiere in North America.
The First Slam Dunk movie North America premier release date, plot story, voice actors cast
The basketball-based movie The First Slam Dunk will premiere on 3rd July at the Anime Expo 2023 event in Los Angeles, California. The first 2,500 attendees of the 2023 Anime Expo will get a unique giveaway after witnessing The First Slam Dunk, the movie’s North American premiere.
What The First Slam Dunk Movie is about
The film Slam Dunk follows Ryota Miyagi, an inter-guard for the basketball squad of Shohoku High School. The film depicts how he and his team, which includes Hanamichi Sakuragi, Takenori Akagi, and others, confront the reigning champions at the time, the Sannoh School, and how his older brother Sota influenced him to enjoy the game.
It took a while to complete the first Slam Dunk film. Since 2003, when the anime adaptation did very well at the box office, Toei has been asking Inoue to pen a film for the franchise, but so far, the author has shown zero enthusiasm. However, in January of 2021, he tweeted that production on the movie had begun, and that they were adhering to his plans from the 2018 updates.
So far, the film has been a huge success for the dormant brand, earning $260 million worldwide and placing it in the top five highest-grossing anime films of all time. It also won the 2023 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.
The First Slam Dunk Movie is Coming In July in North America
Toei Animation announced through Twitter that they will release The First Slam Dunk in the United States on July 3 of this year, four years after the film’s initial release in Japan on December 3, 2022. In the United States, this will mark the debut of new material from the series not seen since the manga’s initial run or the anime’s adaptation.
Aika Kobayashi (Love Live! Series Event feat. Yohane), Mayu Sagara (School Idol Club), and Sayuri Date (Kanon), among others, will be appearing at the 2023 Anime Expo in Los Angeles, California, to celebrate the release. The first 2,500 people in the theater will get a free present.
Among the many Japanese voice actors featured in The First Slam Dunk are Shugo Nakamura (Ryota Miyagi), Jun Kasama (Hisashi Mitsui), Shin’ichiro Kamio (Kaede Rukawa), and Subaru Kimura (Hanamichi Sakuragi), among many others.