History Anime / BattleAthletes

* DarkSkinnedRedhead: Tanya has dark skin to show that she is the African representative, and also bright red hair. Her brother shares these traits.

* IllGirl: [[spoiler:Jessie's deceased sister. She died young and, according to her sister, always had a frail health.]]

* MiracleRally: Akari, Kris, and Anna have a terrible start in the University Satellite, but quickly grow to become some of the best athletes in the Solar System. UpToEleven in the TV series, where they lose '''eleven times in a row''' before going undefeated for the remaining of the preliminary.

** Yana Christopher looks a lot like Kris Christopher, but has a completely different personality: While Kris was friendly, upbeat and something of a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, Yana has a serious personality, isn't afraid of starting fights with her teammate, and is anything but upbeat, due to her vastly different circumstances. She is more of a {{Foil}} than an {{Expy}}.

* CastOfExpies: Like its accompanying anime, many characters here resemble the cast of the original series, with the bonus of [[spoiler:also having characters (or giant monsters) that are [[{{Expy}} expies]] to the cast of other anime made by Studio Creator/{{AIC}}, like ''Anime/Megazone23'' and ''Anime/{{Dangaioh}}''.]]

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: When Yucil blows herself up at the end of episode 8, she somehow manages to survive the very next episode with no injuries. by that same token due to not being shown fleeing with the rest of the stadium's crowd, it's unclear if Kanata, Eva and Jefferson even fled the arena. Or how they survived being in immediate blast range with zero injuries outside of a gunshot wound to Jefferson's leg assuming they didn't.

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: When Yucil blows herself up at the end of episode 8, she somehow manages to survive the very next episode with no injuries. Due to not being shown fleeing with the rest of the stadium's crowd, it's unclear if Kanata, Eva and Jefferson even fled the arena, or how they survived being in immediate blast range with zero injuries outside of a gunshot wound to Jefferson's leg assuming they hadn't.

* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: A major element in both titles is Akari developing a very close friendship with another girl, with the relationship between the two shaping much of their Character Development. In the {{OVA}}, this happens between Kris and Akri. In ''Victory'', Akari has this with Ichino in the first half and with Kris in the second, culminating in a LoveTriangle in the last arc.

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: When Yucil blows herself up at the end of episode 8, she somehow manages to survive the very next episode with no injuries. Due to not being shown fleeing with the rest of the stadium's crowd, it's unclear if Kanata, Eva and Jefferson even fled the arena, and if they didn't, how they survived being in immediate blast range with zero injuries outside of a gunshot wound to Jefferson's leg.

* HalfHumanHybrid: The Nerelian competitors during the final competition. For example, one of their number is half-car--as in, the top half of a humanoid girl grafted onto the hood of a Ferrari-like sports car--[[LoopholeAbuse but still shows biological signs of life, making her eligible to compete.]]

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: When Yucil blows herself up at the end of episode 8, she somehow manages to survive the very next episode with no injuries. Made even more ridiculous with Kanata, Jefferson and Eva, who were not only still in the arena when the bomb went off (being the only ones not shown to escape with the rest of the crowd), but survived with only one gunshot wound to Jefferson's leg despite being quite literally next to the bomb and within range.

''Battle Athletes'' is a [[ImprobablyFemaleCast Bishoujo]] / sports franchise consisting of three video-games, a manga series, and two anime series produced by AIC in 1997.

* SacredFirstKiss: In the TV series Ichino's brother steals Akari's. [[SchoolgirlLesbians Ichino was not amused.]] In the {{OVA}}, Akari instead gets hers from [[spoiler:Kris]].
* SchoolgirlLesbians: A bunch, but Kris is the most obvious about it. It's also painfully obvious Ichino is in love with Akari.

* DownToTheLastPlay: The last prelim match for the Grand Competition on two levels. Both competing teams are tied for the lowest seed in the Grand Competition, so the winner of the match will be the one to go on. And the game itself is won by a tie-breaking at the buzzer score. The semi-finals of the Grand Tournament end up being settled 2-1 in three set matches, and the [[spoiler:the Mega Tournament is eleven events with the final round breaking a 5-5 tie]]

* DarkSkinnedRedhead: Tanya has dark skin to show that she is the African representative, and also bright red hair.

The anime series consist of a 6-episodes {{OVA}} and a 26-episodes TV series. The {{OVA}}s were released from May 1997 to June 1998, while the TV series aired from October 1997 to March 1998. Both series were originally subtitled ''Daiundokai'' ("Great Athletic Meeting"), but upon receiving a North American release by [[Creator/{{Geneon}} Pioneer]], they received different Western titles: ''Battle Athletes'' (the original {{OVA}}s) and ''Battle Athletes Victory'' (the TV series).

[[folder:Tropes present in both series:]]

[[folder:Tropes present in the OVAs:]]

[[folder:Tropes present in the TV series:]]

* SmugSnake: [[spoiler:The Nereli queen talks a big game about how the technological superiority of her race will ensure their victory, but none of their modified athletes is able to defeat the girls from Earth. Their only victory before bringing out a resurrected, de-aged and brainwashed Tomoe Midou comes from Akari accidentally self-destructing.]]

* BrokenPedestal: Akari does not take meeting [[spoiler:her mother from before Akari was born]] very well at all.

* DownToTheLastPlay: The last prelim match for the Grand Competition on two levels. Both competing teams are tied for the lowest seed in the Grand Competition, so the winner of the match will be the one to go on. And the game itself is won by a tie-breaking at the buzzer score.

* RunningGag: Whenever Akari starts losing, she retreats into Akari House.

* SmugSnake: [[spoiler:The Nereli queen talks a big game about how the technological superiority of her race will ensure their victory, but none of their modified athletes is able to defeat the girls from Earth. Their only victory comes from Akari accidentally self-destructing.]]

* SweetTooth: Mr. Miracle eats chocolate like they were medicine.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Mr. Miracle virtually ''runs'' on chocolate.

* ArtisticLicenseSports: Athletic abilities are shown to be well above what is possible today. For example, over the course of the {{OVA}}s, Akari's time at the 100m dash goes from 9.6 seconds to [[spoiler:8.999]] seconds. For reference, at the time the anime was made, the women's 100m dash record was 10.49 seconds (which still holds in 2020) and the men's record was 9.93 seconds (dropped to 9.57 by 2020). Which basically means that every girl in the school is an Olympic grade athlete by 20th century standards on day one.

* PerfectPoison: Right at the TV series's climax, it's revealed that [[spoiler:one of Mr. Miracle's caretakers had been secretly poisoning his chocolate with the perfect amounts to be able to take him out of commission right before the most crucial moment]].

* MeditatingUnderAWaterfall: Lahrri does this in episode 23, pausing every so often, without warning, [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower to split a log in two with a single punch]].

* CastOfExpies: PlayedWith. Being a SpinOffspring, this anime has many characters who physically resemble the cast of the classis series. However, not all of them have similar personalities, and some also come across as expies for characters they are not related to:
** The main character, Kanata Akehoshi, physically resembles previous main character Akari Kanzaki, and even has a similar GenkiGirl personality, despite seemingly having no connection to her.

** In the manga (and her brief appearance in the OVA), Jessie is a lot more cheerful and is just as nice to Akari as her other friends. In the TV series, she initially hated Akari for not giving her all during training despite being the daughter of the athlete Jessie admires the most in the world. She even punches her at one point.
** Similarly, Ling-Pha in the anime is a selfish cheater. In the manga, she was a nice girl who never cheated.

* TheCameo: An obscured photo of Akari is seen in the first episode, as part of an exposition of the previous Cosmic Beauties.

2020 saw the franchise getting rebooted under the title ''Battle Athletes Victory [=ReSTART!=]'', with both a new manga and a new anime. The manga, with the full title ''Pale Blue Dot: Battle Athletes Daiundokai [=ReSTART!=]'', began serialization in July 2020. The new anime television series by Seven premiered on April 10, 2021, with Funimation having licensed the series.

* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:Mr. Miracle is actually Akari's DisappearedDad.]] Oh, and [[spoiler:Akari's MissingMom Tomoe is the last boss.]]