Slam Dunk has been credited with helping to popularize basketball sports in Japan during the 1990s.
If you were a teenager in Japan during the 90s, you probably wore out a pair of Air Jordans imitating Sakuragi's moves and drowned in Slam Dunk merch. Slam Dunk has been credited with helping to popularize basketball sports in Japan during the 1990s. As a result, it garnered a large fan base that extended beyond typical manga readers.