There’s a certain formula to sports anime that keeps fans coming back for more. A good sports anime can mix the reliability of a slice-of-life show with the pulse-pounding action of the shonen big three. But just like any genre, sports anime relies on a series of familiar tropes.
This doesn’t mean sports anime aren’t diverse. There are dozens of individual and team-based sports that can be fascinating for fans to learn about when they have loveable characters to root for. It’s always fun to see how each new sports anime uses or subverts the common tropes in pursuit of a great story.
10 Training Camps Help Teams Grow Closer
Some kids have an affinity for sports, but they can’t solely rely on natural talent. In order for the characters to get better at their chosen sport, they have to work at it. In a sports anime, the characters usually hone their skills at some kind of dedicated training camp.
A training camp arc lets the players learn to work together and learn new moves, but also to grow as a team. The training camp is often a fan-favorite arc for fans because of the comradery that develops between the characters.
9 The Protagonist Can’t Always Win
It’s always fun to see fan-favorite characters succeed, but it gets pretty boring if the protagonist wins every time. Experiencing failure is the best way to promote a character’s growth.
Fans became more invested in Yuri’s training with Victor in Yuri on Ice because they related to his feelings of inadequacy. Accepting a loss and growing from it is just as important to a great sports anime as a character’s final victory.
8 Even The Most Hardworking Athletes Need A Break
Fans watch sports anime expecting to see the characters play a lot of sports, but it’s nice when the characters get to do something different for a change. These rare days off often consist of trips or festivals that give fans a good look into the characters’ personalities and dynamics.
It’s fun to see the characters let loose and act their age for a change. They also have a tendency to run into their opponents while out and about, which can lead to some great moments of both comedy and drama. Rivalries are important to any good sports anime, but sometimes fans just want to see everyone hanging out as friends.
7 Drama Is The Most Important Element Of Any Good Story
Drama is an important element of any good story, but that’s especially true for sports anime. The characters are often teenagers with tons of emotions, so it makes sense for them to argue or even get into physical fights.
These moments of heightened drama force the characters to self-reflect and determine what’s really important to them. When Hinata and Kageyama fight in Haikyuu!!, the separation allows them to work on their individual skills. This pressure makes Hinata and Kageyama a better duo when they finally make up.
6 Every Team Needs A Girl Manager
While there are sports anime that focus on girls’ teams, the most popular sports anime tend to focus on boys. There’s nothing wrong with a good group of male characters, but it’s nice to have some female influence in a sports anime. This is where the female manager trope comes in.
The female manager often acts as the audience stand-in who reacts to everything going on during a game, which is useful when a story needs to explain something to the audience. Most importantly, fans love a smart girl character who can whip the boys into shape whenever they get out of line.
5 Sports Anime Has Fan Service Too
Even though many sports anime feature male protagonists, their main audience tends to be women. This often means the characters are designed with the female gaze in mind, which means the characters are incredibly pretty and like to show off how hot they are.
Free! is the best example of this, especially since swimming requires them to constantly be shirtless. However, what fans really enjoy about the characters being so attractive is that they have a tendency to constantly flirt with each other. Fans love when characters are good-looking, but they love the romantic tension between characters even more.
4 Sports Anime Loves To Play With Animation
Sports anime doesn’t always have the best animation, especially compared to high-budget shonen series like Attack on Titan. However, sports anime often uses style and animation changes to showcase the characters’ skills and power.
Haikyuu!! reverts to the manga’s style of art when the characters are spiking and serving, which better represents the power of their attacks. Even Kuroko’s Basketball uses color and lighting effects to show when characters are in the zone, which fans especially enjoy.
3 Everyone Loves A Come-From-Behind-Win
Sports can be somewhat inaccessible to new fans, so it’s a little odd that so many anime fans enjoy sports anime. However, sports anime knows how to build drama to make a match interesting.
Sports anime characters never win important matches by a large margin and it’s more likely that they’ll barely win when facing a really good team. These come-from-behind wins are what make sports anime truly special and can have fans screaming in joy just like sports fans do for real teams.
2 Fans Love A Good Underdog Story
A good story is important to any anime, but a character that can grow with the story is even more important. That’s why fans love an underdog. The underdog is usually a character that lacks skill but has loads of passion.
The ideal anime underdog motivates their teammates to do better and their determination to be the best often means they become one of the best athletes in their anime. Even a skilled character, like Kuroko from Kuroko’s Basketball, can be an underdog. He has talent, but he has to learn to make that talent his own, which is something fans love about him.
1 The Underdog Always Has A Genius Rival
The characters of a sports anime need a good challenge, which is why the genius rival is such a common trope. The genius is often smug when it comes to their skills and that smugness gives the other characters the incentive to beat them.
The best moment in any good sports anime is when the protagonist finally proves themselves to be the genius’s equal, especially since they worked so hard to get there. This personal victory mirrors the team victory of winning a crucial match, but it hits even harder because it’s so close to home.