Why are sports anime so popular ?

This question has been on my mind for a very long time and i just don't get it. What makes sports anime so special that they are so beloved by the community ? Do they have some sort of deep emotional character driven story ? Since many people usually say how great and relatable the characters are. Or is the animation and art style perfect ? What makes the sports genre so popular ?

Also a second question i would like to ask is, why are sports anime with an only male cast are the ones that get the most recognition ? Since i've seen quite the few sports anime with a female cast and they usually are either underrated or just disliked. Why ? Is it because most of them rely on fanservice and knowing that more than half of the community hates fanservice they avoid it ? Or do people think that it's more suitable for the anime to have an all male cast ?

As a sports fan who watches basketball, soccer and football daily, I just don't get it either. I tried to watch a basketball anime and it was super cringy. A lot of monologues, slow motion-moments and drama bullshit. Like for gods sakes, I just want to see the characters shoot a 3 and play ball. I don't need a 5 minute monologue explaining how he's going to shoot a 3 or what he's going to do to shoot the ball into the basket. Imagine LeBron James being overly-dramatic....Smh

As for sports anime with an entire female cast. I could ask the same for real life sports that only consists of female players. How come there are only a few people who watches the WNBA as opposed to the NBA? I think it's the same reason for sports anime with a female cast. That and the fanservice.

Because they are normally a lot better than the actual sport.
And there is also the fact that for some, sports anime give them motivation to start doing sports themselves, but for me, I really like seeing them work really hard towards their dream or goal.
I haven't seen any sports anime with girls to be honest, or if I have seen I already forgot about it, and you answered your own question, normally when the main cast of the anime is made of only girls there is usually fanservice.

Because it's cool to see the characters overcoming their problems and achieving something. I've never watched a sports anime with a mostly girl main cast because they never sound interesting and sometimes I feel they are just going to be under the common denominator of the boring "cute girls doing cute things" show. Not to talk about stupid visuals such as exaggerated breasts (not proportional at all), loli looks and so on. I think the only sports anime I watched with a female main character was Chihayafuru, but both of the other MC are male, and Immortal Grand Prix.

Probably due to the hardwork pays off theme and the fangirls shipping. I don't like that much sports anime. I think the only one that I actually liked a lot was One Outs, but that's because it was more than just a sports anime.

"So popular"? There's like 1 or 2 per season. Is there even one this season?
But one aspect I like about sports manga is they have the same feeling as battle manga while staying realistic. Like the evolution of the main character and those epic hype moments at the end of the game that battle mangas normally have at the end of a fight with their special moves.

After moe ping pong this season we have moe road cycling.

It's halfway true about shipping and BL stuff but it's not just fanservice.The shows are really good,have very developed characters (not to mention interesting) and drama as well. The matches and plays really feel realistic ❤

It's more entertaining to watch Baby Steps than to watch an actual tennis match but that's just me.

They can be accepted even by non anime fans. While shounen battles can be inspiring as well, it just screams "Otaku" to those who doesn't watch anime. (And well, otaku is actually an degenerating label in many places.)

But sports anime/manga differs. They have a more realistic spin to them.
If you're doing sports, it's a relatable obstacle - the characters and you. And if you're not doing sports, the drama and struggle is just as inspiring. After all, not everyone wants to save the world, but most people want to perform best at their job/passion - which is what sports anime is about.

I have no idea either, I don't like sports anime and i find them extremely cringe worthy and usually as soon as i see the sports tag in the genre, I click the go back button. I do admit I have watched a couple before but only because there were subtle yaoi hints in them and well, I'm a hoe for yaoi

The only "traditional" sports anime I watched is Haikyuu.

I loved it, despite hating volley before watching it. (I tolerate it now)

Maybe because the characters work well together. Maybe because the characters are likeable = I care about what they do = I get hyped for the matches. Even the rare fillers are entertaining because I genuinely like seeing what the cast does. Plus, I'm not a great fan of the art, but the matches have an amazing animation.
That said, it would probably be different with a different sports anime. Maybe Haikyuu for me will be a one hit wonder. That's why I'm hesitant about watching other ones.

Probably fangirls play a pretty big part in them getting popular. When you look up Haikyuu art it's mostly shipping. (sigh...)

I wanted to try a sports anime with a female cast, but a lot of them look like moeblobs. Oh well. Maybe I'll try some.

i have watched a lot and i mean a lot of sports anime and the reason why i love them is the competition,The hard drive to become better from the main character, the epic moments and lastly the supernatural effect (if it has one like Kuroko no basket). Also they are more exciting and isnt as boring as it is when watching a real life sport.Lastly you dont feel much of an outsider to the game while in anime since everything goes through the players perspective.

Conclusion: people don't watch sports anime with female cast because they are mostly moe shit.

Sports anime rarely disappoint when it comes to the story because everyone knows what to expect which is always roughly the same. You either like it or you don't even watch it. Other genres have much more room for disappointment in that regard.

And the fact that the story is usually laid out beforehand means the show can almost exclusively focus on the characters, both the main and the side/opponent ones. And since characters are the quickest way to make viewers care for a show it tends to work in the shows favor.

Also sports is one of the few genres that tends to have series longer than 2-cour. And if not that then often at least multiple seasons of 2-cour. That means a popular sports show will on average stay in the spotlight longer than a popular 1-cour show like idk, Erased.

That might inflate the perceived popularity of the genre because one really big sports show can easily stay relevant for multiple years (see Kuroko or Haikyuu).

But in reality sports is still a fairly niche genre aside from a few select franchises which mostly originate from Weekly Shounen Jump (see Kuroko and Haikyuu again) and therefore have their popularity (and a high budget) already cut out for them. These two definitely paved the way for other sports anime like ace of diamonds or yowamushi pedal to at least approach the 100k popularity on MAL but there's still a lot of sports anime that go more or less unnoticed.

As for female-cast sports anime, personally I've experienced that most of them tend to focus on moe/slice of life aspects and the more mellow atmosphere that comes with it which just doesn't mesh well with the hot-headed, competitive atmosphere that makes sports anime so fun to watch. I'm sure there are some female-cast sports anime out there that are competitive and intense but I don't think it's moe ping pong or moe cycling tbh. Sometimes male-cast sports anime have a secondary plotline about a female team from the same school or something like that and I tend to enjoy those parts, but when the whole show is build around a female cast in the sports genre I feel like they target a different audience than me a lot of the time.

didnt answer to your second question in my previous reply so i will write it here:Sports with Women is bad like really bad they try to be cute which sucks when you want to watch a sports anime with solid competition and i feel like there is 0 competition...

People like sports and sports anime tends to do a good job with making the characters and the plot interesting, so people who don't necessarily like sports will be able like them as well.

What are they popular? Because they mostly are shounen, and we all witness, on other anime, what makes shounen so greatness!

there really arent.. only like 16 series above 100k members

most sports are a bunch of 999 episodes series rated high because only someone really interested will watch

prince of teniss sounds really gay like 178 episode of using tennis as a euphemism for penis

It's funny, if you look at sports anime before Kuroko (2012 or earlier) their member count seems to cap at around 80-90k (members, not completed) in the best case scenarios and after 2012 they cap at like 300k with the previous maximum of 90k not even being uncommon anymore.

What I'm trying to say is that sports anime ARE more popular now that they've been when I joined MAL.

Because people, you know, enjoy 'em?
I know they can be boring sometimes, but the ones I've seen (Kuroko no Basket, Haikyuu) weren't bad tbh.

I guess the reason I like sports anime is because it condenses all the hype from sports into one series. Growing up my dad alway watched a crap ton of sports, so I see sports as pretty boring now. However, there are rare times where sports can be hype and fun to watch, so sports anime simply fills their show with hype moments.

I know how it feels OMG... and I know which anime is that... ROFL... I skipped those bs talks btw only on that anime and was just watching the match rofl...(been saying the same thing 3 times on forum)


This one also, I agree with you :) Im a girl and sometimes unecessary fan services in sport anime are annoying.. even for the sport anime which consist of male character like the most popular one that just finished airing. I could bear till episode 7 because I like watching them skating but :( after that episode I cant bear it anymore and ended up dropping it.

Because they're full of bullshit power-up magic and casts the Fujoshi's can fap over, That's it, and explains why bullshit like Haikyuu and Kuroko's Basket are more popular than masterpieces like Ashita no Joe.

Is that a recent phenomenon, because I'd sure be willing to explore more in this genre if I could find shows as good as AnJ and Ping Pong...

I haven't watched Ping Pong and i consider Ashita no Joe the best sport anime out there but from the recent ones Cross Game is really good and without bullshit magic.

I guess it's for a few reasons. Some reasons could be the fact that you can see characters grow and achieve their goals while it satisfies viewers. They can also give the viewer an adrenaline rush while watching it, you could compare this to when watching an anime with a fight scene - you feel intrigued to see what happens, how they deal with the situation and primarily the outcome. The outcome can have a huge impact when you've been watching the characters build up their technique etc.
Of course you get shippings in these sport anime... That could be a reason maybe.
Personally I actually really like a few sport anime, however I've noticed that i'm not a huge fan of KnB(basketball anime) yet I am a big fan of the sport anime Haikyuu(volleyball). This could be because I used to play basketball and while watching KnB I just didn't relate to the characters or how the sport proceeded, with that said I found Haikyuu really interesting, maybe because I had never played Volleyball. (I asked my friend and he used to play basketball and really enjoys Slam Dunk. So it doesn't really support what I say)
And because there are plenty of sports people haven't played in reality, it gives the viewer an insight to what it's like.
I don't know if this is true or the same for everyone but that's how I see it :))

should i even say that i like sports anime when most of my dealy treasured sports favorites are all before 2011? yet im not totally liking most of these sports anime that comes with kuroko no basuke. it should really be time for me to put down the sports genre before i start to have a hate feeling for it.

I personally like watching sports, and in normal TV, you don't get to know the players or anything. In anime, it feels like you're friends with them.
I especially like watching volleyball, so I watched Haikyuu and loved it! Kinda want to watch a basketball one but they're all so long omg

They are actually pretty good. Real life Sports are typically boring to me, but when it's done in anime form, it can be quite entertaining. They are noticeably getting more popular though, probably due to all the recent success from Haikyuu and KnB. Its a love/hate thing really when it comes to abnormal genres like sports or mecha. Try it out one day, you might just find your new fav anime.

There's a reason for the overdramatic monologue to sports anime. Believe me, I watch a lot of NBA, and I don't like the idea of how unrealistic Kuroko no Basuke is, but it's all necessary.


Think about the people who watched it and have no exposure to basketball whatsoever; they'd have no fun watching Popovich run a play; they'd have no fun watching them pass the ball to each other; they'd have no fun if they watched regulation basketball.


That's why they add all these things around basketball--make it less basketball and more anime drama.

Because girls in tanks drinking tea is great. Best sports Animu right there. Tanks shooting at each other is a sport right?

I think there's also a lot of non-sports sports anime watchers out there like me. Never partake in sports in our free time, but is at best average all round at it.

Well, that's easy. It's because they (can) have every good aspect a battle shounen/action (can) have and more in a sport setting.

Epic and well animated action with hype inducing build-ups.

Awesome music.

Quirky comedy.

Memorable characters.

(Sometimes) A cute romance (that usually develops really slowly, still you can't help but ship it).

If you can like a battle shounen/action anime, you can definitely enjoy a sports one.

the have the tendency to make you hyped and pumped up... for girls let's just say they like more meat then little.....