Oofuri and Haikyuu both have main characters who have unique abilities that can surprise opponents despite their silly and weak appearances.
There's also a bond between the two teammates that develops overtime through compromise and overcoming each other's strengths & weakness. (Like Mihashi & Abe's battery, and Hinata & Kageyama's Setter and Spiker teamplay) If you enjoy a light hearted sports anime then you'll love both of these!
What i loved about both of this shows is the bromance that you see while watching these anime. They are both similar in a way that main characters create a team where they try to bring best out of each other and it is so nice to see.
Also fun part is that in Haikyuu the relationship between main characters is kind of rivalish: both know how to talk back to eachother, while in Ookiku the relationship is more supportive, at least in the beginning. Also, did i mention that the main characters are visually similar? It's so fun to see visually similar characters
act totally opposite in different anime.
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They are both sports animes.
Ookiku Furikabutte (Oofuri) is about baseball and Haikyuu!! is about volleyball.
Shouyou from Haikyuu reminds me a bit of Mihashi from Oofuri.
They both trained a lot to get better and they also both have a huge handicap. for Shou it's his small height and for Mihashi his low self-esteem.
Still these boys are eager to win for sure and refuse to give up!
Only have watched the first aired episode of Haikyuu but I can already feel that I will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed watching Oofuri.
And I think it's totally worth checking out both if you like sports
anime and if you like adorable dorks with their own abilities!
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The teamplay between the two main characters is very similar, as well as the attitude of Kageyama and Abe towards Hinata and Mihashi.
Plus, the animation is also similar.
I have no clue why KnB and DnA have more recommendations than this because Oofuri is actually the closest thing to HQ!!. Very similar main characters as well as side...
Abe/Kageyama, Mihashi/Hinata, Tajima/Nishinoya, Hanai/Suga (and Asahi) and many more.
What else can I say? Cute boys doing sports and bonding as a team. High doses of character development and adrenaline in each match to get you hyped up for your favourite teams.
Both are sports anime. Both give off a feeling of happiness, and a love for the sport they are playing.
Both have a main character who is good at what they do, but amazing when put with a pitcher/setter.
Features a similar dynamic between two 'rising star' players and the growing of a tightly knot team.
If you liked Haikyuu/Oofuri pretty sure you will enjoy this anime as much as you enjoyed Haikyuu/Oofuri.
Both are anime sports in the secondary school.
In Haikyuu is not just volleyball, is also training, working the relationship with teammates and some enjoyable moments. This is what makes you feel the flavour of victory or defeat even if you haven´t played the match, even if is something fictional.
In Ookiku Furikabutte is pretty much the same.
In both animes they don´t simply focus on the main team, also in rivals. Strategy is something overriding. Also every single character has their own personality.
So if you liked Haikyuu/Oofuri give
this anime a try, even if you dislike baseball/volleyball.
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They're both similar in terms of content and entertainment value. Both are anime about sports, Haikyuu!! being about Volleyball and Ookiku Furikabutte being about Baseball.
The main characters are both cute boys with unique abilities that makes them stand out and take their opponents by surprise.
If you enjoyed one, you will surely enjoy the other. I personally have a preference for Haikyuu!! however, even tho they're both great anime.
(First posted: 2015, Updated: February 2019. I really wanted to edit out some of my overusage of stuff like "dorky adorable anime boys" but to keep some of the spirit of my past enthusiastic highschool self and the raw feelings from when I first experienced these two shows, I'm leaving them here. Also, I'm glad other people agreed with me about Daiya no Ace being a whack reccomendation since I posted this.)
**For people that have watched/are watching Ookiku Furikabutte already and are considering other sports anime (go to the next section if it's the other way around):
If you were able to find an pretty old
and hidden gem like Ookiku Furikabutte (Oofuri) out of the many sports animes out there, you have probably already heard of some of the very popular sports animes, such as Free!, Haikyuu, Kuroko no Basket, Daiya no Ace, Baby Steps, and etc.
I will tell you right off the bat that I 10/10 reccomend Haikyuu above all other sports animes if you like Oofuri and want more of the same kind of sports anime experience.
"But why not DAIYA NO ACE? Isn't DAIYA NO ACE (DnA) a baseball anime like Oofuri?"
I can almost guarantee that if you like Oofuri you likely won't like DnA. While Oofuri puts a lot of focus into the varied cast of characters and developing friendships and bonds that usually come with sports anime, DnA has heavier leanings towards the shounen and classic anime aspects that come with sports anime. DnA is a lot more popular than Oofuri, but a lot of this is because Oofuri was ahead of its time. While there definitely wasn't a lacking of sports anime in the past, not a lot of popular sports anime leaned away from the shounen and romance genres like Inazuma, Major, Prince of Tennis, or Eyeshield 21, causing Oofuri to not be as popular as other sports animes of the era.
Now, for the comparison, starting with the basics: Oofuri is a baseball anime, while Haikyuu is a volleyball anime. They both take place in high school, and the manga for both of these are still ongoing if you finish the show. (Although Oofuri doesn't update as much for English readers due to its lack of popularity and thus translators)
Haikyuu and Oofuri both have a strong focus on a cast of quirky characters and dynamics that you will find yourself quickly attatched to, while still focusing on the mechanics of the sport and making the games themselves very interesting to even someone that has never played or watched the sport. The two main characters of each anime almost have the identical kind of symbiotic relationship and supportive dynamic: In Oofuri, Abe uses his strategetic thinking to the fullest to make use of Mihashi's abnormally slow, and what would usually be considered bad and easy to hit, fastball pitches, and turn them into some of the hardest pitches to hit. In Haikyuu, Kageyama's accurate and presise setting makes up for Hinata's lack of experience with volleyball, while making great use of Hinata's amazing jumping skills.
If you're not looking for dorkiness and just want another baseball anime, then go ahead and watch any of the big or small shounen baseball shows out there, but if you are looking for a sports anime with the same kind of adorableness and dorkiness and cute friendships that Oofuri has, don't expect to find the same sort of focus on characters and relationship dynamics that you saw in Oofuri in DnA just because it's the same sport.
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**For people that have watched/are watching Haikyuu already and are looking to delve deeper into the sports anime abyss:
I can't believe that there are more recs for Kuroko no Basket and Daiya no Ace than Ookiku Furikabutte. Wow. Anyways...
Here are the main points, because this is a long rec:
-Dorky and adorable characters, with a similar focus on their personal and skill developments as in Haikyuu
-Mainly focuses on relationship dynamics between characters and the mechanics of the sport over shounen flair. Puts more of a focus on competition itself rather than competetiveness or rivalry
-Cute and nice art style, easy to understand what is going on during games, no long dorito faces and weird unrealistic proportions like Kuroko no Basket
-Same kind of mutualism relationship between the two main characters of both shows.
-Ookiku Furikabutte side characters have a bit less impact than Haikyuu side characters (but that is only because Haikyuu does the most amazing job out of any sports anime ever at making most if not all of the side characters very loveable. There is a place in my heart for every single character in Haikyuu, no matter how insignificant, and no other anime has even gotten close to competing with this.)
-Some people might think baseball would be more boring than volleyball especially because they are so differently paced, but Ookiku Furikabutte makes watching anime baseball just as interesting as Haikyuu makes watching anime voleyball interesting. Even though volleyball can be a lot more fast paced and dynamic, Ookiku Furikabutte does a great job at instilling the same amount of great suspense throughout their matches as Haikyuu does.
-If Ookiku Furikabutte hadn't come out before the rise in popularity of sports animes, it would definitely be on the same popularity level as Haikyuu, and would DEFINITELY be more popular than another baseball anime called Daiya no Ace which somehow has more recs than Ookiku Furikabutte
-Super dorky and adorable, I can not emphasize this any more.
Here's the long and more detailed version:
While Daiya no Ace (DnA) and Kuroko no Basket (KnB) are at the same popularity level as Haikyuu in terms of sports animes, besides being sports animes and having all of the basic traits of sports animes, they aren't super similar to Haikyuu.
Haikyuu definitely has its shounen leanings like DnA and KnB do, but Haikyuu leans a bit more out of the shounen zone, and puts a little more focus into natural characters, dynamics, and gameplay mechanics, in comparison to DnA and KnB, that embrace a lot of shounen character tropes and shounen super moves. Not to say that Haikyuu leans entirely outside of the shounen side of sports anime by any means. Haikyuu is undeniably a shounen, especially in the flow of its plot and focus on action and suspense during competitions as if they were battles, but a lot of the flashiness that Haikyuu has that would be reminiscent of shounen styles, both inside and outside of the sport itself, also comes from the raw action of the sport without any added shounen flair and the natural character dynamics.
Now, to get into the actual comparison: Ookiku Furikabutte (Oofuri) is a baseball anime, while Haikyuu is a volleyball anime. They both take place in high school, and the manga for both of these are still ongoing if you finish the show. (Although Oofuri doesn't update as much for English readers due to its lack of popularity and thus translators)
Oofuri emphasizes on the dorkiness and adorableness of the characters and the bonding between them while still paying attention to and highlighting the mechanics of the games in the same way as Haikyuu. The way that they focus on the friendships between the characters is unique compared to the other sports animes, and the way that they balance this focus on dorky people and their dorky friendships well with the actual sport and mechanics of the sport make the two anime a perfect pair.
In both Oofuri and Haikyuu, the two main characters rely on each other in a symbiotic/mutualism sort of relationship, and by working together, they enhance each other's skills to create better potential for their team. In Haikyuu, Kageyama's accurate and presise setting make up for Hinata's lack of experience with volleyball while making great use of Hinata's amazing jumping skills. In Oofuri, Abe uses his strategetic thinking to the fullest to make use of Mihashi's abnormally slow, and what would usually be considered bad and easy to hit, fastball pitches, and turn them into some of the hardest pitches to hit.
Also, even though the animation and art of Oofuri isn't quite as dynamic and stand-out as Haikyuu, they still manage to illustrate the actual playing of the sport very well and instill a lot of suspense during the sport. Even if you don't know anything about baseball going into this anime (like me when I started watching Oofuri) you will be able to catch on pretty quickly. (And hey, at least they don't have long and pointy dorito faces like knb)
The only reason one might not like Oofuri as much as Haikyuu (besides that a lot of people don't like baseball as much as volleyball) is that side characters aren't as loved as much in Oofuri, at least compared to Haikyuu. When watching Haikyuu, it doesn't matter how much screen time a side character gets, or whether they are on a team opposing the main characters, you will still likely fall in love with them, or at least have your interest piqued by them, along with literally every single other character in the entire show. Even the score keeping high schoolers which flash by only a few times in the show will have a special place in your heart. As for Oofuri, the side characters sometimes dont stick in your head as much, mainly because a lot of them look the same and don't have many varying traits. Although many of the side characters find a place in your heart as you watch the show, many just don't make a big enough impact compared to Haikyuu, where every single character is precious. But I believe Haiykuu is already a special case in this aspect compared to any sport anime out the
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- Quirky main duo with a special move
- Despite this they still have to improve their skills
- Underdog team no one expects to amount to anything
- Focus on most of the members of the team and how they want to get better
- Spotlight on supporting characters including family and classmates
- Both pull you into enjoying a sport through the use of very dedicated amatuer players, their evolution as players, and their relationships with the characters around them in a school setting.
- Haikyuu!! and Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup)'s main characters share the sadness of being wildly dedicated to a team sport without having a proper team.
- They also share a similar appearance.
They both are sports with all boys. The main characters from each have similar relationships with each other such as one boy is loud and comes off as mean evn thought they get along really well.
Both anime have one main character with enormous potential but no skill that wants to be the ace of the team and another that is a genius of the sport. The genuis tells the ace what to do allowing them to complete each other making them the greatest duo anyone has even seen. The only difference is the main characters of Haikyuu show more development allowing them to be good individually and the main ace character is a little more confident than the one in Ookiku Furikabutte. The story of Haikyuu is also a little more realistic and I ended up becoming more invested in
it even though both are great series.
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Besides the fact that they're both about redheads fitting in with their sports teams, and having the best black-haired player on their team backing them up and teaching them, Big Windup! has the same familiar charm that Haikyu!! does. Very important lessons, a fantastic cast of characters, so much humor, and a very amazing set of their sports events, highly similar - besides Big Windup! being about baseball11
