Slam Dunk (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1990 to June 1996, with the chapters collected into 31 tankōbon volumes. The story follows Hanamichi Sakuragi, a brash and impulsive high school student who joins a basketball team at Shohoku High School, located in the Shōnan area of Japan.

The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation which aired from October 1993 to March 1996. The series has been broadcast worldwide, gaining popularity especially in Japan, Europe, and several other Asian countries. In December 2022, an anime feature film titled The First Slam Dunk was released in Japan.

Slam Dunk has 185 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history. In 1994, it received the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category. In Japan, Slam Dunk has been regarded as one of the greatest sports manga series of all time and has been cited as a contributor in popularizing basketball among Japanese youth during the 1990s. In 2010, Inoue received special commendations from the Japan Basketball Association for helping popularize basketball in Japan.

Hanamichi Sakuragi is a high school delinquent and gang leader. He is very unpopular among girls, having been rejected fifty times. In his first year at Shohoku High School, Sakuragi meets Haruko Akagi, the girl of his dreams, and is overjoyed when she is not repulsed or frightened of him like other girls. Haruko recognizes Sakuragi's athleticism and introduces him to the Shohoku basketball team. Sakuragi is reluctant to play basketball due to his inexperience with sports and his belief that basketball is a game for losers. This belief came about because the most recent girl to reject him had favored a basketball player. Despite his immaturity and temper, he joins the team to impress Haruko, and proves to be a natural athlete.

Sakuragi later develops a genuine love for the sport despite initially playing because of his crush. Around this time, the star rookie and "girl magnet" Kaede Rukawa joins the team. Sakuragi views him as a bitter rival in basketball and romance, as Haruko has an unrequited crush on Rukawa. Shortly after, two additional members rejoin the team: Hisashi Mitsui, a skilled three-point shooter and ex–junior high school MVP; and Ryota Miyagi, a short but fast point guard. The four players work together to fulfill team captain Takenori Akagi's dream of winning the national championship. After defeating one of the powerhouse teams at the national high school championship, the misfits gain publicity, and the once little-known Shohoku basketball team becomes an all-star contender in Japan.

Takehiko Inoue was inspired to create Slam Dunk from his love of basketball, which he has had since high school. Before starting Slam Dunk, he created a one-shot manga titled Aka ga Suki (赤が好き), which was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump Summer Special in 1990. The one-shot featured an early prototype of Hanamichi Sakuragi and Haruko Akagi, with a story and character dynamics that laid the groundwork for Slam Dunk. After he began working on the series, Inoue was surprised to receive letters from readers who had begun playing the sport due to his manga. His editor told him "basketball was a taboo in this world." Due to these letters, Inoue decided he wanted to draw better basketball games in the series. With the series, the author wanted to demonstrate the feelings and thoughts that some athletes might have when they win, lose or improve at their sport. When he began work on Vagabond, Inoue noted that his work on Slam Dunk had a simpler perspective on life as he focused more on victories and success.

With the series, Inoue wanted readers to feel achievements and love for the sport. Thinking that his success as a manga artist was largely due to basketball, Inoue organized a Slam Dunk scholarship for Japanese students as he wanted to give back to the sport by increasing its popularity in Japan. However, when asked about the response from readers to basketball, Inoue commented that although Slam Dunk is technically a basketball manga, its story could have been told with other sports such as football. He added that the manga's artwork was more "mangalike" compared to his newer works such as Real. His experiences with basketball also influenced the story of Slam Dunk. As a youth, Inoue began playing basketball to become popular with girls, but later developed an interest in the sport itself. This experience is mirrored in the character Hanamichi Sakuragi, who began playing basketball to impress a girl, only to later grow truly fond of the game. Inoue attended the NBA Finals in the United States and the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona as "research" for the manga.

Written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue, Slam Dunk was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1, 1990, to June 17, 1996. The 276 individual chapters were originally collected in 31 tankōbon volumes under Shueisha's Jump Comics imprint, with the first being published on February 8, 1991, and the final volume on October 3, 1996. It was later reassembled into 24 kanzenban volumes under the Jump Comics Deluxe imprint from March 19, 2001, to February 2, 2002. A 20 volume shinsōban edition was published between June 1 and September 1, 2018. On November 8, 2022, a book imitating an issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump and collecting 24 select chapters of the original manga was published under the title Slam Dunk Jump.