Mitsui's MVP Award
I sometimes see Slam Dunk fans debating Mitsui's MVP Award from middle school - was that the national MVP or the prefecture MVP he won?
Honestly, I can't help but wonder if some of this confusion has to do with the English translation of the manga, which I've never read (I read Slam Dunk in Chinese and Japanese) but has been known to have made some notable translation errors. eg. Wrongly referring to Anzai as someone who'd merely competed in some national tournament at the university level, when in fact according to the Japanese and Chinese versions Anzai was on the national team.
So - what does the Japanese original have to say about Mitsui's MVP? On this, the manga is actually really clear. In Chapter #69, where Kogure visits Mitsui in the hospital following his knee injury, Kogure notices the framed photo that Mitsui has in his hospital room and asks 「この写真・・・県大会優勝の時の・・・？」 Directly translated, "This photo... is from that time when you won the prefecture tournament...?" Mitsui says yeah.
Later in this hospital scene, Mitsui says that if it weren't for Anzai, this photo (of his middle school team posing with their medals and all) wouldn't exist. (top left hand manga panel in the image below)
So based on this, we know the flashback of Mitsui's middle school match and where he meets Anzai for the first time all relates to a prefecture tournament, where they won in the final to clinch the Kanagawa prefecture championship.
This also explains why throughout the whole manga, none of the players from outside of Kanagawa seem to know about Mitsui's MVP status at all. If he and his middle school team had gone on to play at the national middle school championships (by virtue of being the prefecture champions) then they presumably didn't advance far/make enough of a splash.
The above paragraph in italics is my conjecture, but the rest of it is all canon. Hopefully this lays the debate to rest once and for all: Inoue is very clear that Mitsui was the Kanagawa prefecture MVP back in middle school, not the national MVP.
Thank for this!!!
Tangent but I’m glad Coach Anzai’s was rectified at least in the film. There were several english translations used depending on where you watched (first release in overseas cinemas, netflix, fanmade subs) and all versions I’ve watched referred to Coach Anzai as the former player of the national team (scene when he and wifey were running, and long haired Micchan looking at them from afar)
