Adapted by manga artist turned anime director Takehiko Inoue from his own immensely successful basketball manga comic series, The First Slam Dunk was a cultural phenomenon in Japan even before its release there last year. It’s currently the fifth highest grossing anime film of all time, a success only partly due to the enduring popularity of the source material. The First Slam Dunk might not have the beguiling magic of Studio Ghibli, or the high-concept emotional heft of something like Your Name, but it uses a sparse, handsome animation style and a springy, light-footed non-linear structure to breathe fresh life into the sports movie genre.

A pivotal game between scrappy underdog high school basketball team Shohoku and the “unstoppable” inter-high basketball champions Sannoh school provides the spine of the film. But the heart comes from an intricate, occasionally unwieldy framework of flashbacks that reveals the tragic backstory of Ryota Miyagi, point guard for team Shohoku. While it leans a little heavily on baffling basketball strategy and court-based machinations, it’s a dynamic and unexpectedly affecting animation.