Hanamichi Sakuragi is known for three things – his height, his fiery red hair, and his fiery-hot temper. Hoping to get a girlfriend, unfortunately his looks and reputation send most girls running.
However, when a girl approaches him one day and asks if he likes basketball, of course he falls in love with her and tries to impress her with a slam dunk. Unfortunately, he overshoots, but when the girl tells the basketball team about his great physical capabilities, he finds himself pulled in deeper not only trying to impress her, but impress his tough teammates as well.
Slam Dunk is getting on in age, but it still tells a great basketball story as well as a story about how one event can change a person’s whole life. If you are interested in more anime recommendations like Slam Dunk, then head on down below.
Anime Like Slam Dunk
For Fans of Basketball
Kuroko’s Basketball
For three years in a row, the Teikou Junior High basketball team took the championship crown thanks to their outstanding players. However, after graduating, the team split up and went to different high schools.
At Seirin High School, two students have been recruited to the team. Taiga, a player just returning form the US, and Kuroko, a student whose lack of presence allows him to move around the court unnoticed.
Kuroko was Teikou’s phantom sixth man who, while receiving little recognition, guided the team to victory with his assists.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Kuroko’s Basketball
- Both series are about basketball
- Both feature casts of characters with strong personalities who have unique special skills in the sport
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Kuroko’s Basketball
- Slam Dunk is the more realistic basketball series. Kuroko’s Basketball often elevates basketball skills to superpower status.
- Slam Dunk focuses more on the team while Kuroko’s Basketball focuses more on two players and their interactions with rival teams.
- Kuroko’s Basketball, because it is newer and less realistic, has the flashier basketball play
Ahiru no Sora
Sora Kurumatani has always had a passion for basketball, but he has always lacked the height for it. Despite missing what some may deem necessary to be a successful basketball player, Sora tries his hardest to improve his abilities.
Upon entering high school, he immediately joins the school’s basketball team, but finds that it is a haven for delinquents and most players have lost their passion for the sport. Determined to revive the team, Sora challenges them to a match. After seeing him play, it is his skills and effort that rekindle everyone’s passion for basketball.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Ahiru No Sora
- Both series are about playing basketball
- Delinquents play a large role on the team
- Both display basketball in a grounded, realistic type way
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Ahiru No Sora
- Slam Dunk features a delinquent as a main character. Ahiru no Sora features a normal main character, but the rest of the team are delinquents.
- Slam Dunk often stays pretty focused on the sport while Ahiru no Sora explores the more personal issues of the characters at times.
Dear Boys
Although Aikawa was the captain of Tendoji High School’s prestigious basketball team, when he moves to a new town, he finds the basketball team defunct.
However, through his passion and persistence, he builds a group of misfits into a dysfunctional team that he intends to whip into shape.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Dear Boys
- Both series are basketball anime
- Both are older anime that display basketball in a realistic way
- Both series follow a genius-level player on a middling sports team (Rukawa, Aikawa)
- Both series are about building a strong team and not just a strong main character
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Dear Boys
- Dear Boys is like if Rukawa was the main character and he was whipping the team into shape.
- There is no thuggery in Dear Boys. They are all pretty average students.
For Fans of Cocky Idiots as Main Characters
Great Teacher Onizuka
After becoming reformed from his rough and tumble past as a motorcycle gang leader, Onizuka is looking for a new ambition in life.
After witnessing a hot girl falling for her ugly teacher, he decides to become a teacher himself. However, instead of hot girls draping themselves all over him, he just has a group of problem students that the school administration had all but given up on.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Great Teacher Onizuka
- Both series follow silly thugs
- Long-time delinquents/thugs are doing something normal and upstanding for the first time.
- The main characters are tough, but likable. They also provide much of the comedy.
- Their actions are often motivated by trying to earn the love of cute girls.
- Both series end up pretty inspiring due to its good-hearted main characters trying their best.
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Great Teacher Onizuka
- Great Teacher Onizuka is about an ex-biker starting as a teacher. So it not only follows an adult, but the main character was “a slightly higher level” of delinquent than Hanamichi.
- Great Teacher Onizuka has more sexual comedy, though it is not enough to call it an ecchi anime.
- Slam Dunk is more about aiming for the top as a team, Great Teacher Onizuka is more about helping various students that no one else will help.
Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro
Matsutarou Sakaguchi is a giant man with strength far beyond ordinary people. While he is stronger than other people, he has never been the type to hone that strength through things like “working hard” or “striving for a dream,” which puts him at odds with his peers in the sumo wrestling ring.
With peerless strength and his only major weakness being his carefree attitude, Matsutarou constantly shakes up the sumo world.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro
- Both series follow tough, confident, and silly main characters
- Both series are sports anime where the main character thinks they are the best
- The main characters often comically rub others the wrong way
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro
- Slam Dunk is about basketball, Rowdy Sumo Wrestler Matsutaro is about sumo wrestling
- Hanamichi is cocky about his basketball skill when he shouldn’t be. Matsutaro is actually legitimately good at sumo wrestling
- Matsutaro is definitely the more lazy character
Ace of Diamond
After a bad last pitch, Eijun Sawamura is frustrated when his last middle school ball game ends in a loss. Determined, Eijun and his team vow to make it to Nationals in high school.
However, everything is thrown for a loop when his unique pitching style earns Eijun an invitation to Japan’s top high school for baseball. Accepting, he struggles to find his place on a team of such talent.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Ace of Diamond
- Both are sports anime where the main character is quickly humbled by the superior skill of others.
- Hot-blooded main character develops a rivalry with his colder teammate
- The main characters are trying to find their place on the team
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Ace of Diamond
- Ace of Diamond is about baseball while Slam Dunk is about basketball
- The main character in Ace of Diamond is already good at his sport, unlike Hanamichi who is a complete beginner
- Ace of Diamond essentially follows a team of superstars while the team in Slam Dunk is good, but still have a bit of a climb ahead.
Hungry Heart: Wild Striker
Kyousuke Kano loves soccer, but he has consistently been overshadowed by his older brother and the talent he has for the sport. Eventually, this lead to him not even wanting to play the soccer at all.
However, this all changes when he enters high school. Although confident that he’ll never play again, Miki Tsujiwaki, the captain of the girls’ soccer team, and Mori Kazuto, the manager of the boys’ team, both see his talent and want him to join the boy’s soccer team for their own reasons.
Eventually giving in, he finds an old flame for soccer reigniting in his heart.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Hungry Heart
- Both series follow fiery, red-haired protagonists
- The main characters are cocky, and also not particularly bright
- The main characters are drawn into the sport by a girl
- Both are older sports anime that still manage to make the sport intense to watch despite older animation.
- Similar balance of sport and comedy
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Hungry Heart
- Slam Dunk is about basketball, Hungry Heart is about soccer.
- The main character of Hungry Heart already is pretty good at his sport, unlike Hanamichi who is a complete beginner.
- As Hungry Heart had the main character originally quit soccer due to his inferiority to his brother, it tends to focus on that inferiority complex a bit more.
- Hungry Heart has less of a focus on the team and more of a focus on the main character
For Fans of Novice With Natural Talent
Hajime no Ippo
Makunouchi Ippo has been bullied his entire life, but dreams of changing himself. One day, he is saved by Takamura Mamoru, who happens to be a boxer.
After Ippo faints from his injuries, Mamoru takes him to his gym where Ippo asks to be trained in the sport of boxing.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Hajime no Ippo
- Both series are sports anime following complete novices
- The main characters have good hearts, but rough circumstances
- The main characters excel at the sport, initially, because of natural physical talents.
- Both series are pretty educational on the various techniques in their sport
- Both series keep their sports and characters realistic and grounded, often mimicking real professional styles in the characters’ sport styles.
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Hajime no Ippo
- The main character in Hajime no Ippo is a bullied nice guy and not a delinquent like Hanamichi. Although, you get a similar Hanamichi-like personality from a frequent side character in Hajime no Ippo.
- Hajime no Ippo is about boxing, not basketball. This also means no real team focus like Slam Dunk
Yowamushi Pedal
Although otaku Sakamichi Onoda hoped to join the anime club to make friends in high school, he sadly finds it disbanded. To cheer himself up, he decides to bicycle to Akihabara – a 90km round trip he has been doing since elementary school on his mommy bike.
When determined, competition-minded cyclist and fellow first year student Shunsuke Imaizumi is practicing peddling up an incline at the school’s rear entrance, Onoda’s effortless skill at climbing on an inferior bike it baffles him enough to challenge him to a race.
It is this race and the fire it ignites that fuels Onoda to put his dreams of reviving the anime club on the back burner in order to join the school’s cycling club.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Yowamushi Pedal
- Both series are sports series where the main character only has the basic knowledge of the sport
- The main characters excel at the sport, initially, due to their innate physical talents
- The main characters form a rivalry with a colder, more serious teammate
- While they have a main character, both also feature a team focus
- Both series can be quite educational on the various techniques of the sport
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Yowamushi Pedal
- Yowamushi Pedal is about cycling, not basketball like Slam Dunk
- The main character in Yowamushi Pedal is an small otaku, which is quite different from the tall delinquent you get in Hanamichi.
- Slam Dunk keeps things pretty realistic, but Yowamushi Pedal features a lot more eccentricity in its characters and can make various cycling techniques seem a bit more superpowered.
Baby Steps
In order to work on his health, honor student Eiichirou Marou decides to spend his free time playing tennis. There, he meets Natsu, a girl who is determined to become a professional tennis player due to her love for the sport.
Her passion begins to rub off on him, but as he continues to play, the more fascinated by it he becomes.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Baby Steps
- Both series are sports anime where the main character starts the sport with novice skill at it
- Both series are educational about the various techniques of the sports
- Both series present the sports in grounded, realistic ways
- The main character start playing at first because of a girl
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Baby Steps
- Slam Dunk is about basketball, Baby Steps is about tennis
- Hanamichi is a delinquent while the main character in Baby Steps is a good student who recently developed an interest in sports.
- As tennis isn’t exactly a team sport, Baby Steps lacks a larger team focus like Slam Dunk
Haikyuu
After being inspired by the small, but talented volleyball ace Little Giant, Shouyou Hinata trains endlessly despite his middle school not having a boy’s volleyball club.
Managing to scavenge enough athletes at his school to field a team for a middle school volleyball tournament, Hinata is soundly crushed in his first and last game of middle school by King of the Court, Tobio Kageyama.
Swearing to surpass him, Hinata joins the volleyball team in high school only to discover Kageyama is now his teammate.
Similarities Between Slam Dunk and Haikyuu
- Both series follow a main character who isn’t as experienced in the sport as his peers
- Fiery, orange-haired protagonists pick fights with their teammates, especially their dark-haired, colder, more skilled rival teammate.
- Similar balance of sport and comedy
- Hype-inducing sports action
- The entire team gets explored as characters since both follow team sports.
Differences Between Slam Dunk and Haikyuu
- While Haikyuu keeps things fairly realistic, there is some “close to superpowered” skill involved. Slam Dunk keeps things strictly realistic.
- Haikyuu is about volleyball, Slam Dunk is about basketball.
- The main character in Haikyuu is very serious about the sport, even at first. Hanamichi only grows serious about it over time.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Slam Dunk? Let fans know in the comments section below.
