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Anime Expo Screens N. American Premiere of The First Slam Dunk Anime Film

GKIDS announced on Monday that it will screen the North American premiere of The First Slam Dunk, the new anime film of Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk basketball manga, at this year's Anime Expo event on July 3 at 12:00 p.m. PDT. The screening will take place at the Main Events Hall of Los Angeles Convention Center.

The first 2,500 guests will receive a souvenir booklet for the film.

GKIDS will release the film in theaters across the United States and Canada with both an English dub and with Japanese audio and English subtitles this summer.

GKIDS describes the film:

Shohoku's “speedster” and point guard, Ryota Miyagi, always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Born and raised in Okinawa, Ryota had a brother who was three years older. Following in the footsteps of his older brother, who was a famous local player from a young age, Ryota also became addicted to basketball.

In his second year of high school, Ryota plays with the Shohoku High School basketball team along with Sakuragi, Rukawa, Akagi, and Mitsui as they take the stage at the Inter-High School National Championship. And now, they are on the brink of challenging the reigning champions, Sannoh Kogyo High School.

The film opened in Japan on December 3, and ranked at #1 in its opening weekend. It sold 847,000 tickets and earned 1,295,808,780 yen (about US$9.50 million) over its opening weekend. The film is currently the 24th highest-earning film of all time in Japan. The film won Animation of the Year at the 46th annual Japan Academy Film Prizes.

Inoue personally directed the film at Toei Animation and wrote the script. 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!).

Daiki Nakazawa directed the CG, and Yūta Ogura produced the CG. Kazuo Ogura directed the art. Yota Tsuruoka directed the sound with Koji Kasamatsu.

Toshiyuki Matsui, the film's producer, received this year's general award for Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyōkai's (Film Theater Culture Association) 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards.

This year's Anime Expo will return to Los Angeles on July 1-4. The convention recently discontinued its Premier Fan Badge system.

Source: Press release