#1 – Hikaru no Go

To dispense with the obvious question, yes I consider Hikaru no Go a sports anime.  It’s less of a coinflip than some I considered.  While Go may not technically be a sport (calling it a board game seems woefully inadequate), structurally speaking this is a classic sports series in almost every sense.  And watching the people who make this their living – either in anime or real life – one comes to understand the physical demands of playing the game at highest level (just as is the case with Karuta).

That aside, Hikaru no Go is simply a great anime – for all the reasons I cited in making it my #4 anime of the 2000’s.  It’s a great premise executed brilliantly, with a top-down cast of likeable and interesting characters.  And it’s all the more remarkable in that it was basically the only manga Hotta Yumi has ever written – one monstrous commercial and critical hit, and she was done.  One can only speculate that she had this story demanding to be told, and once that was done so was she.  It’s an unusual story in the annals of manga to say the least.  And the anime totally did it justice.

For all the things Hikaru no Go does right, the most relevant in context is that the competition episodes are absolutely spellbinding.  The matches are tense and perfectly paced, the tension so thick you can cut it with a knife, and the stakes are often sky-high.  One might wish for a more satisfying ending (and I do), but apart from that this is pretty close to the perfect sports anime.  And that’s why it claims the top spot on this list.

#2 – Baby Steps

Throughout the “hard sports” series on this list, one might notice a trend.  I have a bias for realism over fancy where sports anime are concerned.  I think this reflects a divide that’s always existed in sports animanga but is even more prevalent now – series for people who love sports, and series for people who don’t.  One need look no further than 2022’s twin “blue” soccer adaptations – Ao Ashi and Blue Lock – for a textbook example.  And which one I preferred would surprise no one who knows my tastes.

That’s a perfect segue to Baby Steps, which is as hard sports as they come and abjectly realistic.  For my money Baby Steps is the greatest sports manga of all-time.  It’s a comprehensive character study of an absolutely fascinating and endearing protagonist, and a thorough chronicle of his evolution as a tennis player.  This is a sport I played and which I know very well, and the accuracy of the sport’s depiction here is a huge reason why I both love and admire the series as much as I do.  But it’s far from the only one.  Baby Steps is also funny, an insightful romance, and a classic coming of age tale.

Again, we’re looking at a case where the anime adaptation is not quite at the level of the manga.  It’s a classic Studio Pierrot series in that sense – they specialize both in faithfully capturing the essence of a source material and in modest production values.  Tennis is not an easy sport to animate, and sometimes the adaptation does very well with it – you can certainly spot the moments budget was saved up for.  And sometimes the visuals are quite pedestrian.  But it’s a good adaptation in other respects, including casting and music, even if it stops short of being complete (as almost all sports manga adaptations do).  Sadly even the manga was forced to end before mangaka Katsuki Hikaru had planned to, one of the great injustices in the annals of manga.

#3 – Cross Game

How is it that the #1 series of the 2010’s by my reckoning isn’t in the top spot on this list?  Well – it’s complicated.  If I had to sum it up, I’d say it’s too great not to be on here at all, and not enough of a sports series to be #1.  As I’ve said before, Adachi Mitsuru’s art is his portrayal of human relationships – baseball is just the canvas he’s used to paint his greatest masterpieces.  It’s an important part of Cross Game, absolutely – maybe more so than with Touch or Mix, since both the protagonist and deuteragonist are ballplayers.  But it’s a drama and a romance first, and a baseball story second.

To be clear, Adachi Mitsuru is the unquestioned kingpin of sports mangaka for me.  And Cross Game is clearly his best work.  It’s a masterpiece on every level (despite a production that’s hardly lavish, a common feature on this list), a triumph of his preternaturally effortless and naturalistic writing style and deep understanding of human emotions.  His love of baseball is never less than apparent.  And in Kitamura Kou he’s created perhaps the finest main character around – if he’s not in a class by himself, it sure doesn’t take long to call the roll.

#4 – Major

Baseball finally makes an appearance on the list, and it’s a titan of the genre.  Major is one of those tough to categorize franchises, because there’s just so much to it – six seasons of the original anime, OVAs, movies.  And then there’s the sequel, Major 2nd, which is quite distinct from the original.  In the end I decided to consider them as a set, but a case could certainly have been made to separate them out.

While there is a fairly broad range between the very best of the franchise (S1, one of the best seasons of any anime, and both seasons of 2nd) and the worst, Major is never less than very good.  In its first incarnation its a comprehensive hero’s journey of a genius, like Capeta. In its second, the story of a sensitive and humble underdog (his son).  The baseball is extremely detailed and broadly realistic, and both Goro and Daigo are charismatic and interesting protagonists (as different as they are).  Major is timeless, hugely influential, and thoroughly excellent – arguably the top of the pyramid for pure baseball manga.

#5 – Capeta

Fall 2023 is an embarrassment of riches with not just the superb Overdrive! but also MF Ghost carrying the banner for motorsports.  But before that, the cupboard had been pretty bare since Capeta aired.  I will admit that the anime isn’t quite as good as the manga – and as usual, it stops partway through.  But it’s still damn great – a faithful and passionate adaptation of one of the best sports manga of all-time.  It also has a great cast, featuring the breakthrough role for Adachi Naoto (Chagum) as Capeta Taira.  Studio Comet cast kids for all the major child roles, a rarity in TV anime even then but almost unheard of now.

The anime version of Capeta follows the protagonist through elementary and junior high school, during which time he evolves as a kart racer.  Of course the manga goes much further but this is a good taste of the story and the character.  He’s a classic sports manga protagonist, and this is very much a hero’s journey sort of narrative.  Taira is a genius but his road is paved with chicanes, starting with money (the depiction of Team Capeta’s financial struggles is extremely realistic).  He’s got a best friend, a girl friend (two words), a fated rival – and he loses more than he wins.  You never get the feeling that Soda Masahito takes any shortcuts with Taira’s arc (anything but!).  Capeta is a pure sports anime in the best sense of the word.

6 – Ginga e Kickoff

Another soccer anime, though it could hardly be more different than Giant Killing.  This one really came out of nowhere as part of the stupendous Spring 2012 season (though I did have it as a sleeper).  Ginga e Kickoff is based on a YA novel, and concentrates solely on youth club soccer (with a very brief postscript in junior high).  It garnered little attention in English, fansubs were late in coming, and I’d say I did more to promote viewing of GeK than any other series in LiA history.  A big splash in an extremely small pond.

Simply put, I love Ginga e Kickoff. It’s earnest and intelligent and funny, with a cast full of realistic and likeable kids and engaging adults.  This is a true sports anime in that everything revolves around soccer, but as ever it’s the characters and their interactions that elevate it to greatness.  Onoda Sakamichi may have carried the mantle to higher popularity, but Oota Shou was anime’s original tireless terrier for me.

7 – Ping Pong

If GK is the consummate example of the sports anime with the emphasis on sports (though as ever, it couldn’t be great unless the character stuff was too) Ping Pong is the opposite.  This is a drama first and foremost, with table tennis as the vehicle for delivering it.  With legends Matsumoto Taiyou and Yuasa Masaaki as creator and director respectively and a squad full of iconic animators, Ping Pong the Animation always figured to be something special.

Ping Pong is a show from when NoitaminA was NoitaminA, pushing barriers and spotlighting material unlikely to see adaptation otherwise.  The story is intense and disturbing, the visuals auteurist to the point of distraction at times.  It’s not an easy watch but it’s never boring and totally memorable.  It also depicts the sport brilliantly, certainly a vital attribute for a list like this.  Ping Pong at the highest levels is a fierce sport played by iconoclastic geniuses, and that comes across brilliantly in Ping Pong.

#8 – Giant Killing

Looking at the history of sports manga – the wellspring of 95% of sports anime – soccer and baseball are undeniably kings of the hill numerically.  And not surprisingly, as these are the two most popular sports in Japan.  There have been a lot of good soccer anime over the years, but none quite so comprehensive as Giant Killing.  It’s definitely a generalist and not a specialist.

Giant Killing is a great show by any metric, but where it stands out for me is the way it captures every aspect of the professional sports experience (which itself is less commonly depicted in anime than youth sports).  Fans, youth teams, rookies, veterans – the whole J-League experience is here, with a dash of European football for seasoning.  It’s a Deen series, and like many adaptations from that studio it lacks much visual flair but makes up for it by faithfully capturing the essence of the source material.  Which in this case is still ongoing by the way, now at 62 volumes and still selling well (and the anime only covered 9 of them).

#9 –  Megalo Box

Megalo Box points up another quirk of a list like this.  If I were to rank these series purely on their relative merits as a whole, I suspect it would place higher than a couple of the shows above it in this list.  But somehow it feels right to me to order these series on how effective they are as sports series.  And Megalo Box – along with its sequel Nomad  (the first half of which was the best part of either series) – are really straight dramas more than sports anime.  The boxing element is certainly important and those scenes are handled very well, but – despite this being a spiritual sequel to Ashita no Joe – I feel like Gearless Joe’s story could have been as compelling if it’d been built around another premise.  Maybe that’s not totally fair, but that’s what I’m going with.

#10 – Chihayafuru

The first of those hard definitional decisions, but not one of the hardest.  Karuta may not officially be considered a sport, but as anyone who followed this series could tell you, it’s a highly demanding activity physically.  As for making the list on quality terms, I’ll admit this is mostly driven by the first season, which was by far the best of the three (and I suspect we will get a final season eventually).  The simple fact is, Chihayafuru’s highest highs are some of the highest and I can’t ignore that. And it does excel as a sports series – it educates, it’s realistic, and at its best the karuta scenes are incredibly tense and exciting.

Honorable Mention – Kono Oto Tomare

Kono Oto Tomare as a sports anime is right on the knife’s edge for me.  I think one could make the case that all “music club” anime are sports  anime structurally.  And this one certainly observes a lot of the customs.  It was almost a coin-flip but the can of worms I would have opened by admitting this one gave me pause in the end.  Whatever you call it, Stop This Sound is a great and emotionally powerful piece of work, an anime that makes full use of the medium to deliver a fuller experience than the manga could.

LiA Bespoke is back.  Once again the benefactor is the incredibly generous Nicc, LiA MVP.  And the commission this time is a straightforward one, my top ten sports anime.

Or is it?

As I’ve waded into this project, I’ve come to realize that it’s not nearly so straightforward as it seems.  The main reason is that deciding what is and isn’t a “sports anime” is damn hard.  I think we can all agree that Haikyuu!! or Ace of Diamond are sports anime.  But where does one draw the line?  How about series focused on a game like Karuta or Go? Or dancing (ballroom or ballet), or music?  Then there’s the matter of how to measure franchise anime – as a collective whole, or by their individual incarnations?

As is almost always the case in these situations, I have to take an arbitrary view and just choose.  So I’ve arbitrarily chosen to judge a franchise by its collective body of work.  And as regards definitional questions, I’m just going with my gut.  If it feels like a sports series to me, that’s what I’m calling it.  In one area there’s clarity – this list applies only to anime, not manga (at Nicc’s request).  Most of these shows have manga of course, but my criteria will be judging the anime only.  And it probably goes without saying, but there are sure to be omissions that puzzle and annoy some readers, but remember – this is my personal favorites list, not an attempt to objectively identify the “10 best”.

As it’s become something of a tradition at LiA, if a few folks want to take a shot at guessing the top 10 (which I suspect will be devilishly difficult in this case), I’ll do a custom haiku for the winner.

So, without further ado, let’s hit the list.