Sports Anime

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Fandom
Name(s): Sports Anime
Abbreviation(s):
Scope/Focus: Free!, Haikyuu, Yuri on Ice, Kuroko no Basuke, Prince of Tennis, Yowamushi Pedal, Daiya no Ace, Hikaru no Go, Chihayafuru, Ping Pong the Animation, Ookiku Furikabutte, Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru, SK8 the Infinity, and more
Date(s):
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Sports Anime is an umbrella fandom linking together anime and manga fandoms, usually regarding team sports, such as Free!, Haikyuu, Kuroko no Basuke, and Yowamushi Pedal, which, although they do not share characters, have in common a focus on teamwork, friendship, achievement, and passion. Although anime and manga featuring sports has been around since at least the 1980s, the genre is currently undergoing something of a renaissance, with many new series coming out in a short span of time and social media allowing fans to share and hype up their fandoms to potential newcomers.

Sports anime are mostly, but not exclusively, shounen and are often set in a high school. The majority are focused on male characters, with casts often overwhelmingly male due to the nature of team sports; this leads to yaoi shipping. Counterexamples exist, however: series such as Chihayafuru and Teppuu have female leads and mixed-gender or mostly-female casts, respectively.

Individual series vary on the level of realism they portray - some feature characters with fantastical superpowers related to their sport, while others are a fairly grounded look at normal high school athletes. Following the example of influential series like Hikaru no Go, the "sports" in sports anime may also be board games or card games. Some fans may also consider Love Live! School Idol Project a sports anime as well, with the sport being idol work (singing and coordinated dancing.)

Common Tropes

  • Many sports anime focus on an underdog team: either one that is just starting out, or one that was successful in the past and now needs to regain victory.
  • In contrast, there is usually a very well-known and successful "antagonist" team, such as Seijou or Shiratorizawa from Haikyuu, or Rakuzan and Akashi from KNB.
  • The team that features the main characters may also have a friendly rivalry team that does not take an antagonistic role; Nekoma from Haikyuu, Samezuka from Free, Hakugoku from Yowapeda. Members of both the main team and the rival team tend to mutually befriend each other, oftentimes with one particular member from the other team (Rin/Haru, Onoda/Manami, Kenma/Hinata). The friendliness between the rival teams also appeals to fans as an even bigger Family of Choice than before.
  • For series that progress beyond one year of school, there is usually some sort of dramatization around the time passing, particularly involving seniors who go on to graduate to university. Fans have joked that characters would discuss the senior members of their clubs graduating or focusing on schoolwork as if they were dying.
  • Because of the team dynamic, there is usually at least one (sometimes two) older characters who are captains, and are almost always older than the rest of the team. Fans tend to regard these characters as the team's "parent(s).'"
  • Usually the first episode or several episodes will feature some explanation of the basics of the sport and scoring; this is often done in-universe through an audience surrogate character who is new to the sport.
  • There is also often some sort of dramatic irony involving the protagonist joining the team: Hinata got into volleyball to defeat Kageyama, only to discover that they ended up going to the same high school and are on the same team; Kagami joins his school's basketball team with the sixth "invisible" member of the Generation of Miracles that no one knows about; Onoda does not realize how good at biking he is before joining the bicycle club, because of his obsessive dedication to being an otaku and biking to Akihabara nearly every day.
  • Sports anime are known for being thrilling, perhaps melodramatic, considering the generally mundane setting, but engaging due to well-developed characters and motivations.
  • sports anime bingo

Character Tropes

  • The "black-haired three-part bangs sports prodigy who's bad at school" is a recurring character type in shonen sports series, particularly recent ones. Fans of multiple sports anime series tend to notice this.

Relationship Tropes

Crossovers

Different fandoms in sports anime may be identified simply by the type of sport and "anime." For example, Free! is "swimming anime," and Haikyuu is "volleyball anime" (literal translation).

Crossovers are common, as the stories generally take place in modern Japan. In crossover fanworks, characters may meet when they travel for their sports. In fanfiction, characters' sports and background are usually not changed. Sometimes characters who look similar in different series, like Kageyama Tobio from Haikyuu and Kurahara Kakeru from Run with the Wind, are headcanoned to be somehow related. Characters who have the same surname, like Sawamura Daichi from Haikyuu and Sawamura Eijun from Daiya no Ace are also sometimes headcanoned to be related (although in this example they're spelled with different kanji).

A common trend is fan art comparing corresponding character types in different sports anime. These comparisons often involve swapping outfits or sports to highlight their similar attitudes. If two characters from different shows are voiced by the same seiyuu, artists will sometimes draw those characters interacting or swapping clothes and sports.

Fandom

See Timeline of Sports Anime Fandom

Events and Challenges

Example Fanworks

AMVs

Meta/Further Reading

Other Fannish Resources

References

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