What is the Slam Dunk Scholarship?

In 2006 Takehiko Inoue established the Slam Dunk Scholarship, a program that supports young Japanese basketball players who want to develop in the United States, covering the path to American prep schools where the sport's level and exposure are highest.

The scholarship is the real-world extension of the manga's theme. Slam Dunk is a story about Japanese teenagers measuring themselves against a standard the country had not reached; the program takes that measurement literally, sending players to train and study where the standard lives, and its existence is noted in the official franchise histories alongside the manga and films.

It also completes the loop of Inoue's basketball life: player, then the sport's greatest cartoonist, then a funder of the next generation. Few manga artifacts have a living institution attached to them. This one does.