‘Say my name’: Slam Dunk, the importation of manga in South Korea, and post-crisis nostalgia in East Asia

Abstract

ABSTRACT An adaptation and continuation of Inoue Takehiko’s successful manga Slam Dunk (1990–1996), The First Slam Dunk (2022) opened to resounding success in South Korean theaters, becoming the most viewed Japanese film in the country (animated or otherwise), in April of 2023. Part of the film’s success was due to the manga’s immense popularity, published during the Cultural Ban when it was ostensibly illegal to disseminate Japanese culture. Between its critical role in the semi-legitmization of manga before the Japanese Cultural Influx and the inconsistent localization practices of publisher Daewon CI, Slam Dunk becomes an opportunity to observe an engaged site of dynamic interchange that troubles rigid borders of cultural flow. That hybridity, also evident in The First Slam Dunk, helps us understand the film’s curious crossover success with the built-in audience of middle-aged fans and newer, younger female viewers. As pundits have noted, nostalgia is central to The First Slam Dunk, but like the original manga, the film’s nostalgia does not observe strict boundaries of nation, gender, generation. Instead, it gestures to the broader experience that its eclectic audience shares, namely the post-crisis conditions of the last 30 years.