In late May, the temperature had turned sweltering.
After a week of waiting, the eighth week of Slam Dunk had finally aired.
After Mitsui Hisashi returned to the basketball team in last week's episode, a week of promotion had completely turned Slam Dunk's reputation around. Online, people had taken Mitsui's line, "I want to play basketball," and spun it into a whole host of memes like "Coach, I want to ___!"
The fan animations on the major animation sites were even more outrageous. The videos their moderators reviewed most every day were all about Mitsui Hisashi.
Animation media outlets had also changed their tune. The various anime review shows had dropped the tone they'd taken just a few weeks ago and started praising Slam Dunk to the skies.
Everything had changed in just one week. By noon, the number of fans waiting for Slam Dunk's new episode had broken the record set since the series first aired.
In the comments section, fans had already launched into all sorts of discussions.
"After waiting a week, today's finally here!"
"I watched last night's Lan Feng. It was as good as ever, and the quality hadn't slipped, but somehow I suddenly lost interest in it!"
"Same here. Pro basketball is so far removed from my life as an adult. High school basketball is more my thing. Plus, Slam Dunk always feels so real. There are plenty of people like Mitsui Hisashi and Sakuragi Hanamichi around us, but Lan Feng just doesn't have that feeling!"
"It's not bad, really. There weren't many anime worth watching this April anyway, so I don't mind following both. But let's see how Slam Dunk does this week. I just hope the story stays on track!"
"We're already twenty-eight episodes in. No matter how slow a burn it was,