Slam Dunk 8
Posted: June 26, 2010 Filed under: Slam Dunk 1 Comment »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2010 – 31 volumes
I’d skipped over this volume initially, so there wasn’t too much of a surprise story-wise here. It picks up in the middle of the massive fight in the gym, then goes back in time to introduce a teammate gone bad.
Mitsui’s flashback is pretty standard fodder for a shounen series… former MVP, had high hopes coming into a new school, but then was injured and felt upstaged by Gori when Gori turned out to be a pretty amazing player. He picked the fight with one of the members of the team in the previous volume, but it’s Hanamichi’s savage beating, combined with Kogure’s storytelling and Gori stepping in to see what’s going on. It’s the coach that really throws the fear of god into Kogure at the end of the volume, though.
I do love Shohoku’s coach. He’s a man of few words, and is definitely not the stereotypical high school basketball coach, seeming to prefer to take things easy. He inspires the players anyway, which is another reason he’s great.
That’s about all I have to say on this one, since I’ve already moved beyond this in the story, but Slam Dunk is always worth going back for. Even when we get an exposition volume like this, it’s somehow not boring at all.
[...] of Saiyuki (Soliloquy in Blue) Shannon Fay on vol. 1 of Saturn Apartments (Kuriousity) Connie on vol. 8 of Slam Dunk (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 2 of Song of the Hanging Sky (Slightly Biased [...]