News

GKIDS Releases The First Slam Dunk on Blu-ray Disc on June 25

GKIDS announced on Monday that it will release The First Slam Dunk, the anime film of Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk basketball manga, on Blu-ray Disc on June 25, with distribution by Shout! Studios. The company streamed a trailer:

The Blu-ray Disc release will include an interview with director Takehiko Inoue, an English dub featurette, audio commentary with the English dub team, trailers for the film, and a limited edition sticker sheet for the initial run. The film will aso get a Collector's Edition later this year.

The film opened in Japan in December 2022, and ranked at #1 in its opening weekend. The film sold 847,000 tickets and earned 1,295,808,780 yen (about US$9.50 million) over its opening weekend.

By June 2023, the film had sold over 10 million tickets to earn 14.43 billion yen (about US$103.5 million that time) in Japan, after about a half a year in theaters.

GKIDS released the film in the United States and Canada with both an English dub and with Japanese audio and English subtitles last July. The film earned US$662,211 in its first weekend in North America.

The film won Animation of the Year at the 46th annual Japan Academy Film Prizes. Toshiyuki Matsui, the film's producer, received the 2023 general award for Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyōkai's (Film Theater Culture Association) 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards.

The film won the Axis: Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation for best animated feature film, and it won third place for Best Animated Feature in the Audience Awards category of the 27th annual Fantasia International Film Festival, which was held in Montreal, Canada.

The film was nominated for Best Animated Film in the 16th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (ASPA) in 2023, along with Makoto Shinkai's Suzume (Suzume no Tojimari) film. The film's Koji Kasamatsu was nominated for a Technical Achievement Award in sound design at the 2024 London Critics Circle Film Awards.

Inoue personally directed the film at Toei Animation and wrote the script. Among the listed staff members are character designer/animation director Yasuyuki Ebara (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress) and technical directors Katsuhiko Kitada (Attack on Titan episodes, Major: Yūjō no Winning Shot), Naoki Miyahara (Digimon Adventure, Popin Q), Toshio Ōhashi (LayereD Stories 0), and Yū Kamatani (Looking for Magical DoReMi, Precure Super Stars!). Daiki Nakazawa directed the CG, and Yūta Ogura produced the CG. Kazuo Ogura directed the art. Yota Tsuruoka directed the sound with Koji Kasamatsu.

Source: Press release