What do you want to see in National Tournament Arcs?

As the title states.

The general path for my hero team is already set, I just hate the usual tournament systems in use in many sports anime. If the author wants to give the hero team the championship or even get the hero team farther into the story, they cannot lose a single official game EVER, which could get boring pretty fast IMO, though they can still lose in unofficial or practice matches.

Also, there are a lot of problems regarding the number and quality of teams, the focus on the opposing teams AND the hero team of course, pacing, power levels, character dynamics, etc.

Some examples at the top of my head atm:

Hero Team Won The Championship

• Eyeshield 21 had that "hero team must win everything" problem I had with many sports stories, but the hero team AND their opponents were so awesome it didn't matter anyway.
• As much I hated Prince of Tennis for its outlandish moves, I do find its National Tournament Arc pretty developed, I think it focused on the other teams a bit, though it's kind of bad they only faced two teams (one from Okinawa, one from Osaka) they have never met before the Nationals.

Hero Team Did Not Win The Championship

• I liked how Shohoku was able to beat the strongest Japanese HS team in their universe, but SD's NT Arc was criticized for being too short and featuring much fewer teams and characters than were originally hyped.
• The story which must not be named was to me unique in a sense that the hero team faced the rival team right in the first round of the official tournament when usually they face each other at the middle or tail end of the story. It's kind of understandable they lost to a superior team, but I do believe the hero team had lots of potential to become stronger as they grow older and they will eventually beat the rival team soon enough. It's just too sad it cannot progress any further unless fan fics.

Others

• Major. So good. No more comments.
• I liked how there are so many teams in Saki's National Tournament Arc and there was even a team mostly composed of international players (they were only like 1-2 at best in other sports anime). The only problem is the author tends to stall often. The result is an agonizingly slow National Tournament Arc focused on way too many teams one at a time. It's been like 3 years since the start of the NT Arc and the Final isn't released yet because the author decided to release the consolation match.

tl;dr: Should I let my hero team win the National Championship or not?

edited 27th Apr '16 9:25:53 PM by judasmartel

The Asterisk War Sucks [Part 11] or, How To Screw Up A Tournament Arc = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldlD0alk6EQ

I don't know if you've watched this already, but this is the series about how to not do build tension in an anime and, in this part, how to make a tournament arc exiting and perhaps give you inspiration. This is the 11th part of a 12 part series and I would recommend watching the previous parts before heading into this one, but if you cant stand how nit-picky this guy is in the early episodes are, you can skip them and just understand that this show does everything wrong :)

His first point in that video is just nitpicking at how the organizer is actually the Big Bad. I actually saw that happen at least once, but I kind of get what his first point was. If you're going to build up somebody as the Big Bad, make sure there is some kind of build-up before The Hero gets to finally fight the Big Bad instead of shelving the latter until the last minute. Like you know, the Big Bad telling The Hero to hurry up and win the whole thing leading up to him.

Also, he seems to complain about how badly the main lead was hyped up. He was supposed to be the top combatant in the tournament, but from his statements it seems that the designation was thrown up for no reason at all. This runs a HUGE risk of the main lead being reduced into a Memetic Loser if he loses to say, another lesser combatant in the tournament.

Also, it's not explained how he, the strongest in his field, is in the weakest team in the field. It's like Stephen Curry playing for the Philadelphia 76ers for literally no reason at all.

In other words, if you want to hype up somebody as the strongest in his or her field, make sure to prove he or she really is. Also, explain how a strong character is placed on a weak team.

Second point was just nitpicking at how a team of Joke Characters were able to surpass other teams objectively much stronger than they are. I mean, why not? It's been used all the time.

You mean, it's okay for the main characters to win all their fights against objectively much stronger opponents but not the side characters? Double Standard, right there.

But then again, little to no build-up all the way to the expected fight, so I kind of get where he came from.

tl;dr: There is no clear objective nor clear stakes for participating in Asterisk War's tournament.

edited 30th Apr '16 8:21:45 PM by judasmartel

I'm behind injuries or problems carrying over from one match to another. Such as, perhaps, two major characters go up against one another and one of them wins, but it's a Phyrric Victory in that it softens them up for whoever follows.

Something I've always thought would be cool to do, have the future Big Bad or a major antagonist face off against the hero in whatever round then hero losses. However, they softened Big Bad up and someone else finishes the job. Then the Big Bad kills the winner who beat them after they heal up. Or perhaps they get into that position and the protagonist steps in for the save and their rematch takes place there under those conditions.

Another thing, I do like continuity from fight to fight, with fighters analyzing their opponents and their actions up until now.

Fighting Your Friend is always fun. Actually, the fight combinations in general are fun to play with, particularly with some cool things you could introduce.

Huh, speaking of killing, stuff like Death In The Ring can be intriguing to play with. Hell, perhaps even have a villain kill an opponent and get disqualified, they're pissy, and later interfere in the finals or something.

Another thing I just recalled I love was how this draw was handled in a cooking tournament. It was a rematch between the younger protagonist and an older character, with their first contest likewise having been a draw. First time it was draw and counted as a moral victory for protagonist. The antagonist's skills had rusted from them being focused on celebrity and fortune. They got back to basics and so on, when they faced again, they drew. A rematch was suggested, but the antagonist said that it was unnecessary, he concedes the loss to the protagonist. He recognizes the protagonist's talents and how he's going to continue to grow. He didn't want to get in the way of such a young talent's progress and he's satisfied that they got to compete again there with both receiving perfect scores and so will step out of the way.

Moral victories are nice too, especially when a sympathetic character losses to someone.

Team formats that give people room to lose as well as unique match ups work too. Prince Of Tennis was good with that, in fact.

edited 9th May '16 5:38:41 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

Reminds me of Black*Star and Mifune. In fact, one of the MC's best friends in my story has that same rivalry with the captain of the strongest team in the region as the aforementioned Black*Star and Mifune.