The first Slam Dunk anime movie is released in North America by GKIDS.

The latest anime adaptation of Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk basketball comic, The First Slam Dunk, was made available for purchase by GKIDS on Monday. This summer, it will distribute the movie with both an English dub and Japanese audio and English subtitles in cinemas all around the United States and Canada.

According to GKIDS, the movie is

Ryota Miyagi, the point guard for Shohoku, is known for his "speedster" style of play. He outdistances his opponents while maintaining his cool. Ryota was reared and born on Okinawa, and his older brother was three years older. Ryota developed a basketball addiction, following in the footsteps of his elder brother, who was a well-known local player from a young age.

As the Shohoku High School basketball team competes at the Inter-High School National Championship in his sophomore year of high school, Ryota joins Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, and Mitsui on the court. They are now about to take against the current champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School.

On December 3, the movie had its Japanese premiere, and it debuted at the top of the box office. Over the course of its opening weekend, it sold 847,000 tickets and brought in 1,295,808,780 yen (roughly $9.50 million). In Japan, the movie is presently the 24th highest-grossing movie of all time. At the 46th Japan Academy Film Prizes, the movie took home the award for Animation of the Year.

At Toei Animation, Inoue himself created the storyline and directed the movie. 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!).

The CG was created by Yta Ogura and was produced by Daiki Nakazawa. The art was directed by Kazuo Ogura. The sound was directed by Koji Kasamatsu and Yota Tsuruoka.

The 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards presented by the Eiga Engeki Bunka Kykai (Film Theater Culture Association) were given this year's general prize to the movie's producer, Toshiyuki Matsui.

Source: Press release