Sports Anime

Sports as a concept is tailor-made for movies and television, anime or not. After all, the competitions are chock full of action and drama, which goes a long way in getting the audience interested and invested. Throw in some interesting characters and rivalries and you’re more or less set to go.

When looking at anime specifically, there are plenty that touch on actual sports. Some of the sports covered include anime about soccer, like Giant Killing, road racing, like Initial D, or baseball, like Touch.

I’d categorize many of these as standard sports anime. That is, it uses the sport as a focus for the drama, whether the drama takes place between teammates, rivals, or even the players against the manager. It doesn’t stray too far from the sport itself; rather, the sport is the vehicle to advance the plot.

But leave it to anime to take it in directions you might not expect. A lot of its successes comes from adapting sports in a way that’s wild and off the wall. Sure, the sport might be there in name, but throw in a twist and you get something unique, and that helps to keep the audience focused on the anime. One great example of that is Blue Lock, a show nominally about soccer, but then they add some Squid Game elements to raise the stakes and make it interesting.

Interesting still are anime series that take a very unknown niche sport and present it in a way that makes it fascinating. One popular instance of this was the adaptation of Hikaru no Go, an anime about the game of Go which made it dramatic and interesting. Honestly, when I watched it for the first time, I wanted to give the game a shot. Others have followed suit, including Chihayafuru, which is focused on karuta, a game about piecing together famous poems the quickest and Shion no Ou, which delves into a Japanese version of Chess called Shogi. In that same vein, there are a ton of Mahjongg anime out there, including Akagi which does a great job at driving the tension up the wazoo.

And lest we forget, there are some other competitive anime that also fall under the sports umbrella (in our eyes, anyhow). One great example that’s managed to endear itself to viewers is Girls und Panzer, an anime about girls joining a team where they engage in tank battles. The fact that it’s also good makes it a great watching experience.

So without further ado, if you’re interested in looking at what sports anime we’ve reviewed, browse on below.