Unpopular opinion: Most sports anime are severely overrated (no spoilers!)

mhkr said:
Finally a topic I wanted to make but couldn't dare (and also I couldn't discuss with others) made here. I guess I'm just not among its audiences and that's fine

Hrybami said:
I also always secretly thought sports anime were overrated.

TharTV said:
While I do enjoy watching sports anime (hell, I even enjoyed Rock Climbing Girls....), I don't understand why some of them are rated so high on this site (and elsewhere). Some good examples of that being Haikyuu and Hajime no Ippo.

On the other hand when talking about battle shounen series, some people say One Piece is overrated. Even though a lot can be said about the slow pacing, too many (unnecessary) characters etc., it more than well makes up its flaws for all the great things it has to offer. The overarching story is really interesting, the characters (and especially their backstories) are really good, it has a great mixture of drama and comedy, and it has the best anime OST imo. From all the 150+ anime that I've seen, it is the best adventure series without a doubt.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for 95% of sports anime. They are just too predictable, and there's nothing that really stands out. Hell, I actually think One Outs is the best sports anime I've watched so far, and that one is more psychological than sports oriented.

I will admit, I haven't read the manga yet, so it very well may be that some of these series get better later on (please no spoilers, want to find that out by myself). But so far I just haven't been that impressed, and think it's outrageous that Haikyuu gets a higher score than Death Note for example.

What are your opinions on this?

TharTV said:


I explained it somewhere in this post, but with predictable I mean it as in, it doesn't do anything exceptionally well to the point that it really surprises me.

I already explained before that while One Piece suffers from some pretty bad flaws and typical shounen tropes, it makes up for it by having other features that really stand out. A good example of that being the characters and their interactions, and also their backstories.

As for Death Note, I think everyone agrees with that, but even then it is an exceptional series and is probably one of the most influential psychological/mind-game oriented series out there.

TolkienFan365 said:


Funny enough I went into One Outs thinking hey I love sports anime I should enjoy this maybe I should have given it more time but I don't think that big issue with the show that underpins it was going to change for me. Did not like any of the characters either. MC just feels like a smug Gary Stu.

Predictability isn't an innately horrible trait. I mean you bring up OP I would argue OP tends to be pretty predictable once you see how Oda lays out arcs.

I mean Ippo has great comedy (rare to say about a lot of anime in my opinion) and a great side cast. The fights, art and animation in them are top of the line. Haikyuu has a strong cast of characters and it's fun to see them grow in often well animated matches whose pacing gets you really into it. I mean did I know what matches Karasuno was likely to win and lose sure but that isn't everything.

What I will say is sure I would like to see more variety in sports anime. This is an issue mainly because so many sports anime focus on HS clubs rather than digging into professional sports.

TharTV said:
Haikyuu is also quite good in that regard, and the animations are top notch. Same thing with Harukana Receive, which is basically the poor mans hot chick version of Haikyuu. Only problem with Haikyuu is that outside of the volleyball matches themselves, it's just kinda meh and doesn't do anything special that hasn't been done a billion times before in shounen series.

katsucats said:
My problem with Haikyuu et. al. isn't the strategy itself, but how the characters arrive at them. I highly doubt that anyone in real life learns these strategies through inspirational moments, like a light bulb just switches on in their heads, rather than day in day out boring and tedious hard work. And from watching Haikyuu, I'm just not convinced that Hinata puts in that kind of work. I'm not convinced that he actually loves volleyball enough that he would actually go look up volleyball strategy and stuff like that without someone telling him to.

jal90 said:

All this could be summed up with "he trains a lot", which is a kind of valid excuse, given how much the show values and expands on the training bits. We've actually seen how he watches other players, how his coach shows them matches, and the process of learning itself. Embellished for anime purposes, but there is.

katsucats said:
In your opinion, and in the narrative the author wants to sell you. But I don't see it. Watching other players is not going through the motions yourself, nor does going to 3 day/week training camps substitute daily practice. Anyone who has spent any significant time working on any goal knows what I'm talking about. Haikyuu seems to take a page out from other shounen works in selling the idea that people could significantly level up from those joint training camps. Hinata skips practice to observe one and levels up more than his whole months' worth of practice. That's just not how things work in real life. Like, you don't skip all your math home work and then watch a TED Talk and gain the inspiration to ace that calculus test.

jal90 said:

But they do train? On a daily or various times a week at the very least regime? You are talking about a show with training arcs both in the school club and in training camps, sounds like a nitpick to me, eh.

And Hinata skipped his club training practice, but had his own training at the camp. It's not like he was sitting there doing nothing and assimilating knowledge by photosynthesis.

AllIsManga said:

And this shows how what it all boils down to is that we all have different views, as simple as that. I could see your points, I just still disagree with some of them, as you will undoubtedly also for the points I make in this post. For me, Haikyuu showcased various character developments and how much fun sports can be exceptionally well. Again, this is coming from someone who finds watching volleyball boring irl. And I find the character interactions in Haikyuu and in One Piece equally enjoyable.

As for Death Note, ofc I can't disagree with that. But my point was the reason why I could see Death Note being rated lower than S2 & S3 of Haikyuu is because Death Note's 10/10 momentum stopped halfway, while Haikyuu's momentum continued throughout the entire seasons. Rarely would anyone say that Haikyuu S2 & S3's quality decreased towards the second half of the show. I myself was swayed between giving Death Note an 8 or 9 just cause I really, really disliked the later episodes.

Groyper said:
Agreed both real sports and sports anime are normie trash.

JoyBoy_316 said:
This entire thing seems to boil down to "why does these sport animu have better rating than my fav Shounen". Also the one piece manga has a higher rating than any sport manga out there so if you feel like blaming someone blame toei then.

gwendal738 said:
That's because in my opinion cliche/predictable =/= bad.

And honestly, comparing Haikyuu to Death Note is like (to use an overused adage) comparing apples to oranges. In my opinion we should be able to rate/score anime by genre so we can see what truly comes out on top, but it is what it is. I enjoyed both and I thought both were great, but I scored them based on not only the plot progression and the impact it left on me, but also enjoyment and how satisfied I was with all of the elements of the anime combined. And yes, I scored Haikyuu a 10 and Death Note an 8 - and that's because I really was not impressed with Death Note beyond episode 25, while I enjoyed Haikyuu every step of the way. Do I think that Haikyuu is better than Death Note? No, I don't. But I don't think it's worse either.

Plus, you have to keep in mind the whack scoring system on MAL. There are many users on here who love to hate on popular anime just because of the fact that it's popular, and so will rate something like Death Note a 1 because 'hurhur look at me I'm so unique that I didn't like it even if everybody loves it.' A lot of these kinds of reasons are why you really shouldn't trust the numbers. If it's overrated to you, if you didn't like it, then score it appropriately the way YOU think.

TharTV said:


True, it's pretty dumb to compare genres like that. But even within the sports genre itself, I think there's better shows out there than Haikyuu and Hajime no Ippo.

Shows like One Outs and Baby Steps capture the tactical side much better, Cross Game and Major have better drama, and Megalo Box and Ping Pong have better characters and backstory.

Hajime no Ippo's 2nd and 3rd season also weren't nearly as good as the 1st season.

TharTV said:



The main point I was trying to make is that despite it flaws and shounen tropes, One Piece does deserve it's popularity since it excels in some aspects. Whereas Haikyuu is good and entertaining, but it doesn't really do anything special. It is just a fun experience but not much more than that.

TharTV said:
it's outrageous that Haikyuu gets a higher score than Death Note for example.

Scordolo said:
In my opinion the ones who are rating Haikyuu season 3 are biased.It still deserves the high rating though.

JoyBoy_316 said:

Oh sorry my bad, I didn't realize I was talking with the higher authority that define what should and shouldn't be popular. And again it ain't one piece is still more popular than most sport anime.

IKKIsama said:
I love sports anime so I disagree.

What if I told you most sport shonens are basically battle shonens as both are nekketsu shonens?

BTW One Outs or Ping Pong are seinens so you shouldn't compare them with shonens.



Haikkyu!! may a bit overrated but Death Note's (which may as well be seinen) last third is shit so...

Zelkiiro said:

I mean, yeah? People who didn't like Haikyuu! aren't exactly sitting through its third season, are they?

Azuchi said:
Well, Haikyuu and Kuroko no basket were actually kind off stupid and predictable. Some random stupid magical ability? Can't stay in real life?

TharTV said:


Honestly I have no idea why you are so offended, I'm just explaining why I think some sports series are overrated. Also One Piece is just a random example of a shounen series that I picked to illustrate that even if a show suffers from typical tropes and flaws, it still has a lot of other stuff going for it, and thus (in my opinion) deserves the popularity.

katsucats said:
Hinata, like most other sports anime protagonists literally is not disciplined in his training. This contradiction is tedious, you can feel free to disagree. We have different conceptions about what it means to work hard. Working hard is a daily toil of thoughtful hard work. If Hinata truly worked hard, then he would be learning the game incrementally rather than a staircase development. The hint is in between the lines, how the characters act in response to the work. Pointing out scenes where they practice misses the mark.

katsucats said:
P.S. He was literally the water boy, sitting on the side lines, when he made most of his gains in the last 2 seasons. That tells me he wasn't paying any attention to his training in the past year. That's not how people learn in real life, or at least not if they're actually interested in the game. Whether you're playing sports, chess, doing math or learning to code, you're actively looking up new things to integrate into your game. You don't just mindlessly sit through class for a year, claiming you "worked hard", and then figure it all out watching someone else do it. You don't test new skills in a game, you test them in practice and perfect it before the game. You don't suddenly gain inspiration to try something in the middle of a match, and have it conveniently work.

katsucats said:
If Hinata was really interested in volleyball, he would have watched someone else do it by watching YouTube or local games on his own time, instead of sneaking into training camps for the prestige, which is absolutely ridiculous.

katsucats said:
Don't fret, Hinata isn't alone in this regard. It's just following a long heritage of main characters that don't know shit about the game, starting from Sakuragi of Slam Dunk.

TharTV said:


Why not? They are both sports anime, but they are just directed towards a different audience.

TharTV said:


As for Hajime No Ippo, I actually like most things about it except for the actual fighting. .

Most of the baseball series do have more tactic involved, which is also what I liked about One Outs. Haikyuu is also quite good in that regard, and the animations are top notch. Same thing with Harukana Receive, which is basically the poor mans hot chick version of Haikyuu. Only problem with Haikyuu is that outside of the volleyball matches themselves, it's just kinda meh and doesn't do anything special that hasn't been done a billion times before in shounen series.

Speaking of One Piece again, I've said it before, it does have serious flaws. The action scenes in OP are also quite bad imo. But like I said, it does do a lot of things exceptionally well. Especially when it comes to the characters, the world building and drama/comedy moments.

So long story short, what I really want to see in a sports anime is something exceptional that I haven't seen before, but so far I can only say that about One Outs unfortunately. Idk, maybe I'm just a sucker for more psychological oriented series...