shohokubasket

The Rose of Versailles Andre Grandier

Rewatched Boyfriends

and sendoh would have a lil sister who tags along wherever he goes…grocery store, school, basketball field, fishing spot (even if she’s allergic to seafood) …and introduces “akira-nii” proudly to every single friend she takes home…

We love to speculate about what happens to the characters beyond where the manga stops. A lot of it is pure fan conjecture, but sometimes Inoue does sprinkle in some clues. A year ago, a fan by the name of Strawberino shared a really interesting analysis about the future of the team on a different platform using clues in the cover image for volume 31. She told me eons ago she wanted to type it all up and share it, but then never got around to it (because: life) so I decided I’d just tidy up her notes and do it for her - credits for the following analysis go entirely to her of course.

So here we go, Strawberino's analysis of “who will replace Akagi and play Center for Shohoku the following year”:

Volume 31’s cover is a photo of Shohoku team practice after events of "10 Days Later", when Sakuragi returns to the team post-rehab. You can tell because his hair is longer. Akagi and Kogure are not in team uniform (they retired from the team to prepare for exams) but Mitsui is, meaning Sakuragi returned to the team before end of his first school year. Now it looks like they're playing a 3-on-3 practice match with Team Red being: Sakuragi, Rukawa, Yasuda and Team White being: Miyagi, Mitsui, Shiozaki. The teams' composition is reminiscent of chapters 134 & 135 where Sakuragi (Center) went up against Mitsui (Center). Based on this you can kinda assume Sakuragi is learning to play Center in addition to PF. Or you could have a simpler explanation for the team composition: Sakuragi and Rukawa are put on the same team so they're forced to learn how to work together.

Some fans might saying “you’re reading too much into things” but to that I say: Inoue has long been known to be extremely detailed oriented. An example: in re:source (the visual guide/companion book to The First Slam Dunk) Inoue was so particular about Sakuragi's hair that he left notes for the animation team detailing how long the hair should be and what texture it'd be at that point in the story.