Jordan Poole is best known for getting buckets as the leading scorer on the Washington Wizards. But when he’s not torching defenses, the NBA champion recharges by watching Death Note—a Japanese manga-turned-Netflix series about a notebook that can kill anyone whose name is written in it. The shooting guard is also a fan of One Punch Man, an animated action comedy about the most powerful hero on the planet.
Poole’s anime inclinations are far from anomalous. Last season’s NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown has repeatedly gone on record to declare his anime fandom; the Celtics small forward listed Death Note among his favorites, too, along with Demon Slayer, Neo Yokio, and Seven Deadly Sins. The roster of anime enthusiasts goes on: NBA superstar-on-pause Zion Williamson has professed his allegiance to Naruto, crediting the franchise for helping him manage the toughest moments of his career—a declaration he followed with the release of an anime-themed Nike PE sneaker. The Mavericks’ Daniel Gafford sports an array of Dragon Ball Z GOATs (Goku, Vegeta and Gohan) tattooed on his left knee. The Bucks’ Brook Lopez, along with his brothers Robin and Christopher, teamed up with Japanese manga artist Takehiko Inoue to actually create a manga, Transition Game. And most recently, Memphis Grizzlies rookie Yuki Kawamura, who is one of the few Japanese players in NBA history, shared that he chose his jersey number because of a popular anime he grew up watching.
So what’s the appeal? Utah Jazz forward John Collins, in a Sporting News interview, described anime as the ideal package for NBA players, who are often traveling cross-country and can easily binge-watch the episodes, which average about 20 minutes. Beyond that, today’s rising NBA stars are also among the first generation of Americans for whom anime was part of mainstream entertainment. Anime took off in the US starting in 1998, when Cartoon Network began airing Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. That same year, Pokémon debuted on the Warner Brothers television network. And by the time Poole, Brown, and Collins were first learning to dribble, anime was everywhere, including Nickelodeon, Adult Swim, and Disney.
In Japan, basketball and anime have a long history. Slam Dunk, a book-form manga, was adapted into a TV-based anime in 1993 and ran for five seasons on TV Asahi until 1996. Authored by Takehiko Inoue, the series—originally launched in the serial-issue magazine, Weekly Shōnen Jump, in 1990—dramatized the on-court lives of Shōhoku High School players. Their red, black and white uniforms match the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls of that same epoch. With over 185 million copies sold, Slam Dunk ranks as one of the most successful manga series in history. In 2008’s Kuroko’s Basketball, a boy leads his darkhorse high school basketball squad against Japan’s best opponents.
More recently, in 2022, Bleacher Report launched Kenny Beecham-produced online series Hero Ball, in which NBA players are rendered manga-style in storylines with an Akira Toriyama-inspired sense of humor. (Think: Giannis Antetokounmpo as a superhuman-enhanced Greek Freak and Luka Doncic as a nomadic warrior clashing against a trophy-forging mountain-dweller in Nikola Jokic.)
