The First Slam Dunk – SoraNews24 —Japan News— https://soranews24.com Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today. Sun, 06 Aug 2023 05:00:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/05/en_rocket_1024.png?w=32 The First Slam Dunk – SoraNews24 —Japan News— https://soranews24.com 32 32 176746664 An anime pilgrimage even non-anime fans will love: Visiting the Slam Dunk movie shrine【Photos】 https://soranews24.com/2023/08/06/an-anime-pilgrimage-even-non-anime-fans-will-love-visiting-the-slam-dunk-movie-shrine%e3%80%90photos%e3%80%91/ https://soranews24.com/2023/08/06/an-anime-pilgrimage-even-non-anime-fans-will-love-visiting-the-slam-dunk-movie-shrine%e3%80%90photos%e3%80%91/#comments Sun, 06 Aug 2023 05:00:18 +0000 https://soranews24.com/?p=632008 
The real-life version of the newest Slam Dunk movie’s shrine is worth working up a sweat to see.
When it comes to pilgrimages to real-world places seen in anime, fans of Slam Dunk are known for heading to Kamakura, the Kanagawa Prefecture coastal town that serves as the model for the town where the series’ basketball-playing teens attend high school. These days, though, there’s a new Slam Dunk pilgrimage site, one found far, far to the north in Akita Prefecture.
Moriko Omonoimi Shrine isn’t mentioned by name in The First Slam Dunk, the CG anime movie that came out late last year and is the most recent piece of Slam Dunk animation so far. However, fans can’t help noticing how the shrine visited by Eiji Sawakita, star player of the powerhouse team the Slam Dunk protagonists go up against, looks an awful lot like Moriko Omonoimi. The shrine is located in the town of Yurihonjo in Akita, the same prefecture where Saakita’s fictional Sannoh High School is supposed to be.
Akita, part of Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, is one of the most rural prefectures in the country, and stepping out of Kurosawa Station on the Chokai Sanroku Line (the closest stop to the shrine), we had our breath taken away by the idyllic Japanese summertime view of a bright blue sky, pure-white clouds, and green fields stretching all the way to deeply forested mountains.
The station itself is a tiny, unmanned building, but clean and well maintained.
▼ If you’re visiting the shrine by train, you’ll want to snap a picture of the timetable, as trains only come by once or twice an hour.
Like we mentioned above, The First Slam Dunk never explicitly says that Moriko Omonoimi is the shrine Sawakita visits to pray for success in his sporting endeavors. Those who have visited the shrine and seen the movie say the visual similarities are clear, though, so much so that…
…the town and station have leaned into the reputation. At the bottom of the Kurosawa Station sign is a picture of a basketball jersey that looks just like Sawakita’s, right down to his number, 9. The sign also greets visitors with the written message “You’ve come to Kurosawa Station,” which in Japanese is “Kurosawaeki ni kita yo,” and sure enough, the sawa and kita parts are written in green.
▼ The route from the station to the shrine
It’s about two kilometers from the station to Moriko Omonoimi, a walkable distance, but there’s also a parking lot near the shrine entrance if you’re arriving by car. Along the way, we even spotted a sign directing visitors.
▼ 森子大物忌神社 = Moriko Omonoimi Shrine
▼ Even the sign for the parking lot has a cool countryside vibe.
In the movie, Sawakita visits the shrine while out running to condition himself for the upcoming game. Elite athlete that he is, he bounds up the stone staircase that leads up to the shrine’s main building.
Stepping through the torii gate, though, we figured we should pace ourselves, because there are roughly 300 stone steps.
On the plus side, you’ll have plenty of beautiful scenery to admire as you take your time, since the path you walk on leads through a dense forest of cedar trees.
As we walked, we didn’t encounter a single other person, and the solitude created a serene, sacred atmosphere. We were far from alone, though as there were tons of bugs: dragonflies, butterflies, bees, horseflies, and mosquitoes.
▼ “Beware of bees”
Since we were visiting in the summer, there was probably more insect activity than usual, but we’d definitely recommend wearing long sleeves to prevent getting bit or stung on your arms. Another thing we’d recommend is bringing some water with you to rehydrate. The cedars provide a measure of shade even at midday, but you’re still likely to work up a sweat climbing up to the shrine.
When we eventually did make it up there, the shrine building was both rustic and majestic. The unpainted wood gives it a very old-school, local-community feel, but the carvings are complex and exquisite.
Just like on the trail, we didn’t see anyone else at the shrine that day. We weren’t its first visitors, though. Set up on a small table was a row of hand counters and a multi-lingual request to press the one corresponding to your country of origin, either Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, or “English-speaking countries.”
Lumping all English-speaking countries together might seem kind of unusual, but language is clearly the focus of the tally-taking, so that the shrine, and by extension the town of Yurihonjo, can know where its visitors are coming from and how to make their time in the area enjoyable, such as by providing tourism information in their native languages. It’s a kind-hearted and admirable initiative, since as a small rural town there isn’t a lot of non-Japanese-language sightseeing information available about the town yet.
Moriko Omonoimi is actually the start of a trail for shugendo, mountain hiking pilgrimages began by ascetic monks and now enjoyed by outdoorsy types in a secular sense too. With daylight running short and our legs already tired from the climb up, we decided to save the shugendo trail for another time, and headed back down the steps.
It may not have the flash of historical significance of the country’s more famous shrines, but visiting Moriko Omonoimi is one of those quintessential small-town experiences that make getting off the beaten path in rural Japan so enticing. Even though it was the Slam Dunk connection that drew us there, you don’t have to be a fan of the series, or even anime in general, to get something out of climbing those steps and visiting the shrine, and the memories of our day at Moriko Omonoimi will be with us for a long time…
…even longer than the bug bites we still have to put anti-itching ointment on.
Shrine information
Moriko Omonoimi Shrine / 大物忌神社
Address: Akita-ken, Yurihonjo-shi, Moriko Yaotome-shita 99
秋田県由利本荘市森子八乙女下９９
Website
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Avatar: The Way of Water didn’t stand a chance against this fan fave.
Japan is probably one of the few countries in the world where anime films trump Hollywood films in the box office, and here’s a new example. Anime film The First Slam Dunk has held the top spot in Japan’s box offices since its movie theater debut at the beginning of December.
▼ In case you haven’t watched it yet, here’s a preview to pump you up.
The film is based on the bestselling 1990s manga series Slam Dunk. It’s likely overtaken globally bigger names like Avatar because it’s considered a classic among anime/manga fans, and due to the fact that it’s the first feature-length film based on the series. The Slam Dunk series also has some lovable characters and a classic underdog story.
Coming second in the box office for the sixth week in a row was Suzume—Makoto Shinkai’s newest work–and Avatar: The Way of Water debuted at a solid third place. If you’re curious, here’s the full top 10 box office ranking for last week:
1. The First Slam Dunk
2. Suzume
3. Avatar: Way of the Water
4. Dr. Coto’s Clinic
5. Fragments of the Last Will
6. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond
7. Phases of the Moon
8. Kaguya-sama: Love is War
9. One Piece Film Red (on the top 10 list for 20 weeks running!)
10. Black Adam
In total, five out of the top 10 movies are anime films. If that doesn’t say anything about the power of anime in Japan, we’re not sure what will. Netizens also chimed in on the box office rankings:
“Top place for three weeks running!”
“I can’t believe Avatar debuted at third.”
“Slam Dunk sure is powerful.”
“One Piece is hanging in there.”
If you’re in Japan and have the chance to catch a movie, you might love The First Slam Dunk as much as the rest of Japan! Let’s see how long it can hold the top spot.
Source: Eiga Natalie via Otaku.com
Top image: YouTube/Toei Animation
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Some fans are slamming Slam Dunk’s new look.
A year and a half ago manga artist Takehiko Inoue tweeted a succinct “Slam Dunk is going to be a movie!”, with a simple animated-text GIF delivering the same message. It was a pretty nonchalant way to announce the first new anime content for a series that, at the time, had been dormant for 25 years, but when you’re talking about one of the most popular sports anime ever, you don’t have to say much more than “There’s going to be more” to get people excited.
That’s not to say fans haven’t been ravenously hungry for any additional info on the project, and Toei Animation is now ringing the dinner bell with the first teaser trailer for the movie, which will be titled The First Slam Dunk.
Right away we see series star Hanamichi Sakuragi and the rest of his Shohoku High School teammates. But while the faces will be familiar to anyone who watched the 1993-1996 Slam Dunk anime, the same can’t be said for the way they move, because the trailer is CGI.
Toei hasn’t explicitly stated that The First Slam Dunk will be an entirely CG project, but the trailer seems like a pretty clear indication that that’s the direction they’re going with. There doesn’t appear to be any traditional hand-drawn character animation at all in the video.
That’s prompted a lot of angry English-language reactions in the comment sections for the teaser, such as:
“Why cgi??”
“Very disapointed by this shit cgi.”
“Worst movie trailer i ever seen.”
“Noooooooooooooooooooo not cgi.”
“Toei ruining a masterpiece with CGI.”
On the other hand, Japanese-language reactions have been several shades sunnier, or at the very least a lot more mellow.
“I’ve loved Slam Dunk for so long, and I’m grateful to be able to experience new anime for it in real-time.”
“This is the happiest 20 seconds I’ve had in a while.”
“The CG models and movement look good, but I don’t want the to forget about the sense of speed, spraying sweat, arena lighting, and intense facial expressions! ..Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!”
“I really hope this gets screenings overseas so that fans all around the world can see it.”
“Glad to see the characters’ faces and bodies are drawn just like they are in the manga.”
“Looks beautiful. Can’t wait to see it.”
So why the gap in reactions? The different space Slam Dunk occupies in the Japanese entertainment world, compared to other countries, is likely a big factor.
The series owes a lot of its success to its crossover appeal, as it’s both a high-quality youth anime and a compelling sports story. That said, you’d probably have a hard time finding many passionate overseas Slam Dunk fans who aren’t also pretty enthusiastic about Japanese animation as a whole, and the strength of Japanese animation has always been its hand-drawn artistry, with Japanese CG productions often falling far short of American ones in terms of technical merit. In other words, if someone is a non-Japanese hardcore Slam Dunk fan, odds are they’re also a hardcore 2-D animation fan, making the switch to CGI for The First Slam Dunk feel like a downgrade.
On the other hand, even though Slam Dunk is undeniably an anime series, being a Slam Dunk fan in Japan doesn’t necessarily mean someone is all that into anime, or so fiercely enamored of hand-drawn animation. The series became a mainstream cultural phenomenon in Japan in the mid-‘90s, roughly coinciding with the start of Japan’s real-world professional basketball league, and so it’s not unusual to find someone who’s read every chapter of the manga and watched every episode of the anime not because they’re an otaku, but because they really like basketball. For those who haven’t spent tons and tons of time watching hand-drawn Japanese animation since the Slam Dunk TV series wrapped up in 1996, 15 seconds of CGI movement probably isn’t going to feel as jarring, especially when the character models themselves look so close to the original manga artwork.
That said, there are also plenty of Slam Dunk fans who do watch a lot of other anime as well, so maybe the kinder tone of the Japanese-language reactions has something to do with a broader awareness that The First Slam Dunk is being directed by Inoue himself, and it’s unlikely the series creator would be accepting of the change to CGI, let alone be so closely involved with the movie, if he didn’t think it was a viable choice. That said, though he’s a highly celebrated manga artist, Inoue has never directed an anime before, and in addition to his first attempt being a project that comes with such high expectations, there’s the added challenge that Slam Dunk, like a lot of ‘90s anime, has a penchant for distorting and deforming its characters for comic effect, which is going to be a lot more difficult to do effectively in CGI, assuming the new movie doesn’t jettison that technique entirely.
Regardless of the reason, though, overall Japan just seems happy to have Slam Dunk back, and looking forward to the movie’s release on December 3.
Source: YouTube/東映アニメーション公式YouTubeチャンネル, Twitter/@movie_slamdunk
Images: YouTube/東映アニメーション公式YouTubeチャンネル
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