SLAM DUNK 1

彰子 is the best character frfr

they fed a gorilla a crate of bananas so its an easy four stars

Legendary manga, fantastic art

This is one of the most influential and best selling manga of all time, and there are many cultural references stemming from it. A dear friend spoke of it so highly that it motivated me to read it. The first volume is really setting us up for the stage of the rest of the series, and I'm glad I knew that going in. So even though I would normally never picked up a sports manga or a high school romance, I loved volume 1. The art is fantastic, the characters are well defined. The humour is surprising and fun. And the basketball scenes are just soooo impressively rendered. The mangaka Inoue is a highly regarded artist and has even done historical artwork for a temple in Kyoto.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.

For language learning, as others have said, the dialogue is mostly rough male slang - so loads of contractions and slang. The first two chapters were tough since I hadn't come across any of this before (but I linked some tutorials on the WK book club page). And, although I'll never speak like this myself, I do see these contractions in lots of different written work, so you probably have to learn it eventually if you read widely. If you want to learn it intensively, then read Slam Dunk. Also, I have learned a lot of words that I see pop up all over the place in other books, so, of course you inevitably learn useful daily life vocab.

Furigana: almost all kanji have furigana and kanji use is pretty normal which is nice. Of the few kanji without furigana, most are really really simple 1st grade ones. I haven't figured out the furigana strategy for the other 1%. Every now and then there is a random word without furigana. There is a vocab spreadsheet on the WK club that shows what kanji don't have furigana in Ch 1 so you can get a feel for it. I don't think it would be a problem for anyone ready to read this anyway.

Entertaining!

This is drama-packed shifting you from one emotional character and moment to the next without skipping a beat. The constant drama and reactions keep you reading through the pages. After all, it is a basketball and high school romance story so this is not likely to be interesting to most. And there is a lot of slang, insults and the like so it is probably not the best for language learning (unless this is the only kind of stuff that you can read without falling asleep). And, this is a cultural document. I am told that some occasionally used phrases and character names from the series pop up in everyday life (pet names, etc.).

Objectively solid, not for me

I picked this up on a recommendation, and I enjoyed reading volume 1. The comedic timing, characters, and overall direction is very well thought-out, and I can see why this series is as popular as it is. I just don't personally care for the exaggerated high school athlete romance / rivalry dynamics driving the plot here, so I'd rather spend my time on other books right now.

Difficulty wise, there's some slang and 話し言葉 like チワス that pop up, but it's mostly every day vocab plus high school club terms (in vol 1 at least). Probably a fine manga to pick up even without prior reading experience if you're interested in it.

Fun to read, deeper step into intermediate reading

The story is really fun and engaging, and there isn't too much basketball related jargon. I went from Yotsuba& straight to this however and found myself looking up many words on each page. The grammar is easy to follow however and once you understand the vocabulary for each sentence it should be a great read!