Sports Anime and the Olympics – This Week in Anime

This week, Nick and Lucas talk about the most anime-like moments of this year’s Olympics as they dive into the greater relationship between sports anime and the Olympics.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club, Iwa-Kakeru! -Sport Climbing Girls-, Haikyu!!, Sk8 the Infinity, Harukana Receive, Yuri!!! on Ice, Backflip!!, The Gymnastics Samurai, Ping Pong the Animation, Yowamushi Pedal, and Keijo!!!!!!!! are currently streaming on Crunchyroll, while “Ippon” Again! is available on HIDIVE. The First Slam Dunk is streaming on Apple TV+.

Lucas

I sympathize with you, Nick. The timing of Olympic broadcasts has disrupted a lot of major anime this season and anime watchers everywhere are understandably annoyed. Though I have to say, I’m getting a lot of anime vibes from the Olympics this year!

There seems to be an interesting confluence of events going on right now. While sports anime have always been around, in previous decades it was rare for those anime to feature anything beyond the major popular sports in Japan. It’s why you have a billion soccer and baseball anime, but maybe two judo anime—one of which came out in the last two years. Yet as the anime production bubble has expanded—and the aforementioned Tokyo Games got executives looking for synergy—we’ve gotten more and more shows about “alternative” sports that just so happen to show up in the Olympics.

Well sure, this is all business in the end—even/especially for the Olympics themselves. I’m just saying, that we’re at a unique point in history where a much broader swathe of the line-up is being represented in anime. So this year I decided to do an experiment and see if all the various sports shows I’ve watched over the past few years have made me any better at following the Olympics. Though I didn’t need to see Slam Dunk to appreciate this Anthony Edwards poster moment.

Ooooh~ that’s a fun experiment! I only got into sports, and sports anime, thanks to the WI sports teams fandoms I inherited from my family, but I’d love to hear how anime changed your relationship with these competitions!

Well, mostly just by introducing me to sports I wasn’t exposed to growing up. Living in North Carolina my main point of reference was College-level Basketball and football. I was aware of stuff like Michael Phelps’ huge run at the 2008 Beijing games, but until I was introduced to a narrativized version of competitive swimming through Free!, it didn’t really click with me.

Ah! That makes sense! I was buddies with just enough people on the swim team in high school that I had a general idea of the world of competitive swimming, but I’ll admit that both swimming and Free! are mostly blindspots for me. How is Free!? Outside of it being a lot of people’s introduction to the “hot guys doing hot things” genre of anime, I know very little about it.

It’s a pretty solid series. Anyone looking for more technical insight into the world of swimming will probably be disappointed, but if you’re down for that good ol’ fashioned sports melodrama, it’s a really good time. It focuses a lot on the motivation for competing in the first place, and how that can conflict or coincide with one’s love of swimming in their own right. It was also Hiroko Utsumi‘s big break as a director and showcased her love of muscular boys getting very physical.



Though I’ll give the caveat that I stopped watching after season 2. Once Utsumi left, it felt like something was missing so I never followed the later seasons/movies.

That one actually passed me by entirely, even though I appreciate its dedication to defined abs. I confess I didn’t even realize bouldering was an event at the Olympics until you mentioned it. I always thought of it as a thing teenagers did when there were no bowling alleys or laser tag places around their town.

I’ll take your word on that one. While I’m sure there’s a wealth of things to learn there, my plate is kind of full-up. Even with tons of live streams and multi-cam setups, it’s pretty hard to keep up with everything. That’s what’s fun about the games though—it’s basically 2 weeks of shonen tournament arcs, complete with built-in narratives. And sometimes being introduced to it through anime makes it easier to glom onto. Thanks to “Ippon” Again! I was prepared for the epic highs and lows of Judo.




Sidenote: the Team Judo finals were straight out of an anime, swear to god.

I am so lucky that my social media bubble is pretty keyed into the Olympics this year because I could not keep up with them by myself. Remember the pummel horse specialist and IRL anime protagonist Stephen Nedoroscik? He was the second or third viral hit of the 2024 Olympics and his time in the limelight already feels like a lifetime ago!



And I hope manga and anime creators are paying attention to the Olympics! There are so many inspiring stories, world views, and on-and off-the-court drama happening over only a few weeks. It’s rad and elements of what we’re seeing could be added to any story.

That makes sense! It’s been a minute, but IIRC Haikyu!! ends with the main characters competing in the Olympics. Gotta love it when life imitates art!

It’s one of my favorite endings for anything in JUMP because it embraces the excitement of world-level competition. Again, it’s art imitating life imitating art, since many of Japan’s top players did what Hinata and other characters did—travel and play in other countries, even other fields like Beach Volleyball, to hone themselves for the highest level of play. It’s fantastic stuff.

Speaking of fantastic stuff, Sk8 the Infinity whips and definitely got people hyped up for skateboarding; even if the version of the sport present at the Olympics is pretty heavily divorced from the X-games/Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater attitude I associate with the sub-culture.

Sadly the IOC has yet to accept full-contact downhill death skating as an official event, but the Olympic skateboarding is still pretty fun, even if my body threatens to turn into dust when I realize how young some of these athletes are:

Oh god, meanwhile I’m pretty sure the last time I was ON a skateboard was when I was 11. That’s just incredible!

Also, since I mentioned Beach Volleyball earlier I should probably give a shoutout to Harukana Recieve, the rare girl-focused sports series. Though if the fanservice in the rock-climbing show put you off, well, let’s say this series is not Shy about its sport featuring a lot of swimwear.

Oh damn! I didn’t even know there was an anime about beach volleyball! And, just so I’m not accidentally painting myself as a prude, as long as it feels motivated and good-natured, I’m down with any costuming and character design.

It’s a show that definitely wants to have its cheesecake and eat it too, but it also allows the characters to be motivated and earnest athletes at the same time. Mileage may vary on how much is too much, but I had a good time with it.

I’m glad! Also, can you believe we’ve made it this far into a sports anime chat without bringing up Yuri!!! on Ice? I know its Olympic impact hit hard and fast in the 2018 Winter Games, but there was a stretch when it was far and away the most popular sports anime stateside.

Honestly, it’s because we already have so many different sports from the summer games to pick from. Frankly, Yuuri and the rest of his winter pals should have to wait until 2026 for us to talk about them. It’s not like YOI fans aren’t used to years-long waits and disappointment!

Damn! That burn was more devastating than some of the nail-biting losses we’ve seen from this year’s competition!

I’m just saying, we have way more sports to get through that I’m already having to condense Rhythmic Gymnastics and Regular Gymnastics into a combo event. Check out Backflip!! if you like handsome boys in leotards try The Gymnastics Samurai if you want to feel old at the age of 29.

Oh wow, we do have a lot left. Hey gang, if you want to gain a new appreciation for Ping Pong as an Olympic sport, go check out (checks notes) Ping Pong!

Valid. Also, damn, there are golf anime and manga left and right all of a sudden, huh? For my money, Robot x Laserbeam is the best of the lot, but the lesbian golf anime probably played the biggest role in kicking off this trend.

Oh, golf is definitely the most “if you don’t play this sport you won’t get anything out of watching it” popular hobby out there. You need to at least bum around at a Top Golf for a few hours before tuning into any golf broadcast.

I’m pretty sure I don’t own enough polo shirts and visors to be allowed in. If anything, I wish all the effort going into these golf series could go towards even more off-beat athletics. Back in 2016, I discovered that handball rules and a proper anime about it would be amazing. Just look at this and tell me these aren’t ready-made manga panels.

Oh hell yeah! The sport definitely lends itself well to the posing and blocking that pops in manga panels.

It’s basically like if soccer and dodgeball had a baby but everyone had to leap into the air and throw their entire body weight behind every score attempt. Watching basically any match of it is some of the best screen time of the Olympics, and I would bet money more people would check it out if it had its own Haikyu!!.

While less dynamic than handball, my aforementioned airsoft shooting would make for a solid couple of volumes of manga!



Or maybe I want illustrations inspired by these sick-as-hell pictures? Who can say?

Anime fans have already turned the Turkish pistol silver medalist into a meme for all their favorite gun-toting anime characters, so I’m sure you could get some mileage out of a marksmanship series. The point is, there’s a wide world of weird and cool things humans choose to do with their bodies for fun and competition, and just as wide a range of anime to tell those stories. There are many things I’ve left off just because I haven’t seen them like the three different Rugby shows that came out in the last few years, or that dumpy-looking surfing show, or that weird Water Polo one where the guy had amnesia or something.

Hey, Yu-Gi-Oh!‘s getting its own Olympic rep just fine.



Anyway, my last message is that if you’re an anime fan who’s avoided sports shows, I promise there’s something out there that will suit your tastes and might broaden your horizons. Just like surfing the different offerings on Peacock helped me find new things to check out, there are more varied sports anime and manga than ever. If I might make a suggestion: READ CROSS MANAGE.

Absolutely! I think I’m sticking with Robot X Laserbeam, for my big recc of this column, but there’s never been a better time to dive into the world of sports anime and manga and I hope everyone reading this gives something new a chance!

So put on some sweats, fill up your water bottle, and get out there! Or get ready for when the Blue Box anime drops and every teenage boy you know starts caring a whole lot about women’s basketball.

I mean, they let 3×3 Basketball in so nothing’s impossible. Keep those T&A sharply honed, future Olympians!