Animation courts a global audience

Three decades after Slam Dunk inspired generations of basketball fans worldwide, a new animated series has emerged to rally its own diverse following — this time from China.

Left-hand Layup!, an original Chinese campus-basketball-themed animation, recently premiered on the international anime streaming platform Crunchyroll, reaching over 180 countries and regions, and marking a new milestone for Chinese sports animation.

The series, which debuted on Tencent's video-sharing platform two years ago, follows basketball playing Shanghai teenager Xu Xingze, who transfers to Beijing hoping to play alongside his mentor Cheng Feng at a basketball powerhouse high school.

Through a mistake by his careless older sister, Xu is accidentally enrolled in the school next to Cheng's, an academically-focused institution, where the struggling basketball team can't even field five starting players.

Forced to adapt, Xu rallies the underdog team, as it embarks on an against-all-odds journey through high school basketball tournaments.

Its first season has been widely praised for its tight storytelling, high-quality sports scene storyboarding that depicts the intense offensive-defensive dynamics in basketball, creating an electrifying sporting atmosphere and authentically portraying the campus life of Chinese high school students. It has earned a 7.9 out of 10 rating on the review site Douban.