Anime is an entertainment medium of endless diversity and creative potential, with plenty of unique genres and unorthodox storylines to suit any sophisticated taste. However, particular thematic tropes and narrative categories have a special place in the medium's limitless landscape. Defined by certain storytelling similarities and universal features, those genres carve a niche for themselves, uniting dedicated fans.
Sports anime is a massive category of shows that share many kindred features. The gripping, inspirational tales of young athletes overcoming strenuous obstacles and climbing to the top of their discipline motivate and inspirit countless viewers. These shows have an unbound potential to tell uplifting, heartfelt stories. Yet every sports anime fan would agree that the opportunity to experience them comes with the price of accepting a few unfortunate, harsh realities of the genre.
10 Sports Anime Characters Are Single-Mindedly Focused On Their Athletic Achievements
Most sports anime fans aren't athletes themselves, and while learning about a new athletic discipline can be endlessly exciting, it can't be called the critical appeal of the genre. Unfortunately, most sports anime focus so much on contests and training that they forget to give the characters, the backbone of any sports series, a personality outside their athletic passion.
While the genre's name clearly indicates the main focus of the anime, fans still yearn to see more diverse aspects of their favorite characters' day-to-day lives, personalities, and interests outside their hobby.
9 Character Designs Tend To Get A Bit Unrealistic
With most sports anime taking place in a school environment and featuring teenage protagonists, It's bizarre to see how many of them look nowhere close to their age. The typical sports heroes might still act like your regular rowdy high schoolers, yet their athletic builds can rival those of Greek gods and professional bodybuilders.
Not every sports show is guilty of giving its characters unrealistic physiques, with shows like Sk8 The Infinity and Baby Steps keeping their designs age-appropriate. Still, most menacingly tower over regular teens and threaten to break the floors with a single mighty jump.
8 The Genre Can Get Pretty Formulaic And Repetitive
An unremarkable but passionate underdog signs up for his underachieving high school sports club. There, he proves himself to the current members, diligently trains, often teams up with the local athletic prodigy, and goes off to secure his school's place in the finals by defeating countless opposing teams.
That's a basic story summary for most sports anime, and slight variations to the formula barely break the monotony of this repetition. While some series take the basic premise in more inventive directions, sports anime fans would still love to see more diversity in the tiring clichés of the genre.
7 The Antagonists Are Often More Investing Than The Main Characters
In most sports series, antagonists become some of the most well-developed, universally beloved characters. However, getting attached to an antagonist is the biggest mistake an inexperienced fan can make, as the chances of seeing their favorite character ever again are pretty slim. Any investing match in a sports anime requires a challenging, likable rival to up the tension of the showdown.
And most writers excel at making the antagonists so inventive, interesting, and fleshed out that seeing them defeated and no longer relevant to the plot can be truly devastating.
6 Sports In Anime Are A Prerogative Of High Schoolers
The setting diversity issue isn't unique to the sports anime genre, yet it's one of the main detriments for this category of shows in particular. While the high school setting can be relatable to the shonen demographic, it keeps the stakes of the contests incredibly low.
The world of professional athletics is rarely touched upon in anime, despite providing countless opportunities for unique character development, tense narrative conflict, and thematic maturity. Unfortunately, the options for those seeking a sports series with an adult cast remain painfully limited.
5 Sports Anime Blurs The Line Between Fantasy And Reality
With the incredible success of such sports series as Yuri!!! on Ice and Haikyuu!!, realistic sports anime saw a new revival in the industry. However, most classic sports shows are still guilty of giving their characters absurd superpowers and limitless athletic skills that'll make even the most proficient professionals jealous.
The over-the-top nature of most sports anime can be thrilling in its own way. Yet, it contributes to many anime viewers disregarding sports anime as a genre, perceiving it as a childish, unserious power fantasy.
4 Good Female-Led Sports Series Are Hard To Come By
With most sports anime belonging to the shonen category, the majority focus on teams of boys or young men. While sports series with female protagonists do exist, with Chihayafuru, Bamboo Blade, or Hanebado being some of the most notable examples, they remain an oddity and never reach the same level of popularity as their male-driven counterparts.
Furthermore, some of the most well-known sports anime with female leads extremely sexualize their adolescent cast members, making the niche of sports anime with well-developed female characters almost nonexistent.
3 Managers And Coaches Do Nothing To Ensure Their Team's Success
Similar to most series set in high school, adults play a superficial background role in the majority of sports anime. However, unlike a typical slice of life, the teams in sports series are supposed to rely on their managers, coaches, and older athletes to improve their craft, hone their skills, and develop beneficial strategies.
Most of the time, the coaches make a couple of snarky remarks, give a sparse inspirational speech, or narrate a few games to the audience. Yet, their job of sharing the wisdom and knowledge with the younger generations ends at that.
2 There's Only So Much Plot Potential That Can Be Explored In A Sports Anime
When the anime's initial premise is for a team to reach a certain point of excellence in their sport, be it competing in the nationals or defeating a particularly tricky opponent, there are only so many potential scenarios the creators can explore without making the show tiresome.
In every long-running sports series, a moment comes where the matches start to feel predictable, the antagonists repeat themselves, and the outcome of a contest becomes evident before it even starts. Unfortunately, most anime is designed to run for as long as possible, making it hard for sports series to go out on a high note.
1 Prepare To Have Some Tissues Handy
Sports anime draw the audience in with incredible animation, genuine themes of hard work and friendship, and massive casts of lovable, fun characters for every taste. However, this thrilling and cheerful genre often gets quite dramatic, threatening to leave every viewer drowning in tears.
Sports anime doesn't need sudden death scenes or horrible tragedies to make the fans cry their eyes out. The genre's impeccable emotional storytelling is sure to tug at one's heartstrings, triggering the saddened sobs as effortlessly as the tears of pride and joy.