Summary
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Zuoshou Shanglan, known in English asLeft-Hand Layup, a Chinese animated series (or “donghua”) hitsCrunchyrollthis week, and it looks to bea promising title for fans of basketball, sports anime or both. The series is split into two parts, both of which will be made available on the streaming platform on the 23rd of April.Left-Hand Layup, produced by studio HEART&SOUL, originally premiered on Tencent Video in February 2023, with the second part coming out in December last year.
The story ofLeft-Hand Layupfollows basketball phenom Xu Xing Ze, whose aspiration to be the best hits a snag when he’s accidentally enrolled into a weak school that happened to have the same name as the powerhouse he was aiming for.
What Is Left-Hand Layup?
Plot and Production Information
Left-Hand Layupfollows Xu Xing Ze,a brilliant basketball playerwith very high aspirations in the sport who finds his dreams dashed when his sister accidentally enrolls him in a low-ranked school with a similar-sounding name to the high-ranking, championship-playing school he wanted to get into. Ze must now band together with a ragtag team, going up against some of the strongest teams and players in the region.
The series enjoyed success in China, and was nominated for the 2024 China International Cartoon and Animation Festival (CICAF) in the category of Best Animated Series, while Jintian Li, who was responsible for the story setting, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay For Chinese Comics at the 2024 Golden Screenwriters' Night.
The series was directed by Yanwen Gao, Yang Huang and Zhongli Xie; with Xiaohan Chen, screenwriter of the first draft, He Li, the aforementioned Jintian Li and Yijin Pan on the scripts. Left-Hand Layup had multiple character designers in the form of Long Lin, Jing Zhang, Lizheng Zong, Zeyi Liu; who also served as the series' animation supervisor, and Jiaxuan Tong. The cast ofLeft-Hand Layupincludes:
