Sports anime and manga have grown to such a point that it's strange for any new season of anime to not have at least one series in its roster. The newly-begun Winter 2023 lineup is no exception, as the archery-themed title Tsurune returns for a second season and girls' judo anime Mou Ippon! makes its debut.
However, a major demographic of sports is hard for fans to find, especially in anime -- though Mou Ippon! may help remedy it. Despite the enormous pool of anime to choose from, it's exceedingly rare to have a sports series with a female protagonist or featuring a girls' team.
Female-Led Sports Anime Rarely Fit the Often-Targeted Shonen Demographic
As of January 2023, MyAnimeList boasts a total of 749 anime tagged as a sports series. However, one doesn't have to peruse the whole collection to see a disparity. Within the first 50 alone, fewer than ten entries star a female protagonist. Three of these entries are the individual installments of Chihayafuru, a josei series featuring the Japanese card game karuta. If these three seasons are all counted as one entry, the numbers look even worse. For anime fans who enjoy sports and want to see female-led stories, there's comparably very few to choose from. There could be a number of causes for this, but a few stand out from the crowd.
One of the biggest reasons for the lack of female characters in sports series comes down to the audience creators make them for. While sports titles can be found across all demographics, the majority of their anime and manga fall under the shonen demographic, which is targeted at middle and high school-age boys. Because of this, the most common protagonist in shonen is someone the target audience can relate to: a boy within the same age range.
When it comes to other demographics, pickings can be slim. Seinen has the next highest quantity, including titles like All Out!! and Hanebado!. Shojo has a sizable collection of sports series, but most of those were produced over 30 years ago. Josei has the fewest sports series, with its only popular entry being Chihayafuru. Different demographics have the potential to tell stories from different perspectives, and several other genres have gotten this treatment. There are shonen romances and coming-of-age stories featuring girls, so shojo and josei sports should also get the spotlight.
Women's Sports Deserve More Respect - And More Anime Adaptations
Unfortunately, this disparity highlights the sad reality that women's sports are not as popular or respected around the world. Men's games are more widely consumed overall than women's, even if they're playing the same sport. Female athletes are paid less than their male counterparts, and stories of their achievements are less covered by the media. While these numbers are improving, the fact still remains -- and could also contribute to why girls' sports anime are less common.
Another big issue is that, in several of the female-led sports series available, the focus is not the sport they're playing. Keijo!!!!!!!! is a good example of this. It's a highly rated series under the sports genre about an all-female team, but it isn't quite regarded as a sports anime like Slam Dunk or Haikyuu!!. To the anime community at large, Keijo!!!!!!!! is a fan service anime that happens to include a sport where the focus is the characters' bodies. The same applies to shows like Harukana Receive and Bakuon!!, in which the sport is used more as a way to get the girls in titillating positions than anything else. They may explore the sport, but that isn't why most of the viewers are watching.
Of course, this can also be said for sports anime with male leads. The swimming-themed series Free! is the most notorious for this, but other titles like Yuri!!! on Ice and Tsurune continue the trend. That said, there are plenty of sports anime featuring male leads where the female gaze is not applied. Stories such as Slam Dunk focus on the sport and the characters improving their skills. The same should be said about sports anime led by girls, but it currently cannot.
This issue isn't as simply solved as fixing the fan service factors, but higher quantity tends to lead to more variety. With any luck, series like Mou Ippon! and other future female-led sports anime will continue to boost their popularity to whole new levels.