
An anime or manga in which, rather than fighting, the characters play a game or sport. Said game or sport will be Serious Business sometimes resulting in physically unwarranted pain, injury or death. Expect a lot of Mundane Made Awesome. Frequently leads to a Tournament Arc. Sometimes overlaps with Mons and To Be a Master.
Because the vast majority of characters are male, sports anime and manga have become synonymous with fangirl fodder along with otome games and Yaoi. They also have a huge following of gay men for obvious reasons. That's not to say there isn't Fanservice for straight men either: manga featuring girls playing sports are similarly prime fanboy material (especially those for the seinen demographic) and may include blatant Les Yay or even go into outright Yuri territory.
Due to Japan's success in the console market in the mid-to-late-'80s, there was a brief period when video gaming mangas about kids playing real life titles were fairly common. But being built on trend-chasing when simply adapting video games to comics was an experiment in progress, the genre would not become as ubiquitous as gaming itself. At some point it became more common to tell a story about in-universe, fictional video games where the author could dictate the rules and mechanics.
Not to be confused with RPG Anime.
Examples
- 2.43 Seiin High School Boy's Volleyball Team is a light novel turned anime series about a boys' volleyball team.
- Accel World is about an augmented reality MMO fighting game.
- Ace of the Diamond is about baseball.
- After School Dice Club is about board games, with every game played a real game.
- Aim for the Ace! is about tennis players, about thirty years earlier than The Prince of Tennis.
- Akagi, which is a manga about Mahjong.
- Akakichi No Eleven is the first anime in history to focus on football
- Ao Ashi is about club football.
- Aoki Densetsu Shoot is about football.
- Aoharu × Machinegun, is about a three-man team playing airsoft.
- ALL OUT!!, a series about rugby.
- All-Rounder Meguru is about Martial Arts.
- Anima Yell! is about cheerleading. However, unlike most works in this index, it's a Slice of Life series.
- Arcade Gamer Fubuki is the late '90s sort-of sequel to Game Center Arashi turning its hot-blooded, gravity-defying input poses into Fanservice moments due to being done in a skirt.
- Arrow Emblem: Hawk Of The Grand Prix (1977): F1 racing.
- Ashita e Free Kick is about soccer.
- Ashita Tenki ni Naare is about golf.
- Attacker You!, an influential Volleyball manga, it inspired lots of girls into playing volley-ball in both Japan and Europe at the time the manga was published and the anime aired.
- Attack No. 1 is the first televised female sports anime ever, about volleyball.
- Attack on Tomorrow! is about volleyball.
- Ayane's High Kick follows a would-be professional wrestler and her debut in the world of competitive kick-boxing.
- Baby Steps is the tale of a nerdy high-school student who trains to become a tennis player both to prove to himself that he can, and to get closer to the girl that has caught his eye.
- Backflip!! follows a men's high school rhythmic gymnastics team.
- Baki the Grappler is about martial arts.
- Bamboo Blade and its spinoffs, which are about kendo.
- Barangay 143 centers around Philippine street basketball.
- Basquash! is about basketball. In 30-foot tall giant robots! It also may be about the jiggle factor.
- Battery is about baseball.
- Battle B-Daman
- Battle Spirits is a card game by Bandai, which spawned several anime series. It did get a limited run in English but Bandai's lack of advertising, and the failure to even bother giving stores the cards to sell led to it being a wasted effort and discontinued in English after only the first set. It's still going strong in Japan, though.
- Beach Stars: Is about beach volleyball
- Beyblade is about tops, with a mon twist
- Big Windup! - Baseball anime about probably the wimpiest pitcher in history.
- Birdie Wing - is about golf from the female perspective.
- Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense. takes place in a VRMMORPG.
- BREAK THE BORDER is a basketball manga.
- Buyuden is about boxing.
- Captain Tsubasa is centered around soccer. It's inspired a lot of people worldwide in playing soccer, and is the most influential among sports manga, right up with Tomorrow's Joe and Kyojin No Hoshi.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard, a more realistic take on card games (at least, when compared to the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime's absurd level of Serious Business).
- Future Card Buddyfight, from the creators of Cardfight!! Vanguard, a less realistic take on card games comparable to the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime's absurd level of Serious Business.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard G, the continuation and spin-off of the original Cardfight Vanguard.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard (V Series), the reboot of the original Cardfight Vanguard.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress, a spin-off with a new cast using cards based on Planet Cray 3000 years after the conflicts in the previous series.
- Cardfight!! Vanguard Divinez, a spin-off set in the same continuity as Overdress.
- Catch Me at the Ballpark! takes place at a ballpark, focusing on the baseball team as well as the workers and visitors.
- Cestvs: The Roman Fighter focuses on slaves in Ancient Rome who compete in boxing matches.
- The Cherry Project: By Sailor Moon author Naoko Takeuchi, about figure skating.
- Chihayafuru is about karuta, which is basically a card game but the Japanese refer to it as "competitive sport on a tatami."
- Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun mostly involves football but includes characters playing Judo and basketball.
- Countach is about professional car racing.
- Cross Game is about baseball
- Cyber Boy, aka Dennou Boy, was a 1991 manga on the tail end of the gamer manga trend of its day. Its main focus was Super Famicom titles and, despite having some exaggerated maneuvers for spectacle, featured more faithful depictions of the games being played compared to its predecessors.
- Dash Kappei is about basketball. One of the first parodies of this genre.
- DAYS is about a boy who joins his high schools' soccer team despite never playing soccer before.
- Dennou Kakugi Mephisto Waltz is about a former pianist who finds a new passion in fighting games. Unlike most examples, the protagonist starts with no knowledge of games and begins as a complete amateur. Despite gathering attention for its badass boast in explaining the basics, "The speed of light is too slow for us," the series was sadly axed at 9 chapters.
- Destroy All Humans. They Can't Be Regenerated. is about two middle school students in the 90s who bond over their love of Magic: The Gathering.
- DIVE!! is about diving.
- Dog Days turns War into a sports festival.
- Dogsred focuses on a former figure skater who decides to take up ice hockey instead.
- Dorabase is, as the name suggests, baseball played by robot cats (referenced as ''Dora'' robots cats in the series).
- .hack is probably the Trope Maker in relation to online games. SIGN might be the Ur-Example.
- Duel Masters, something of an Affectionate Parody of Gaming and Sports Anime & Manga, revolves around the titular card game.
- The Exo-Drive Reincarnation Games: An Affectionate Parody of the isekai genre where reincarnating into other worlds and saving them has been turned into a spectator sport.
- Eyeshield 21 is about American football.
- F is about Formula One.
- Famicom Fuunji was a 1985 series by veteran manga adapter Shigeto Ikehara. Published near the start of the Famicom boom, it centered on three, young, programmer hopefuls who, aside from saving the world from a mysterious organization through the power of gaming, would drop then-niche facts about computers and how advances in its technology may affect the world.
- Famicom Rocky was a 1985, Famicom-centered manga about the son of a martial artist who adapts his training to competitive gaming. Mainly good at twitch reactions, the protagonist is terrible at puzzle and strategy games where he has to plan ahead. As a way to introduce plot twists and comebacks, the series is infamous for inventing secrets, items, and bugs that did not exist in the games it featured.
- Famicom Wolf is a 1986 manga about a wild child who, due to being Raised by Wolves, has genius gaming talent. This lets him take on students of an evil professional gamer school.
- Famicommando Ryu is a single issue 1986 manga that nevertheless left a mark by being made by the co-creator of Kotetsu Jeeg and flagrantly ignoring its own genre. A parody of Fist of the North Star in which famicom games were the only form of entertainment to survive the nuclear apocalypse, mankind has become shackled by a rigid caste system where how good you are at games decides your position in life. Ryu battles the hierarchy to remind humanity that Nintendo games were never meant to be a tool of oppression but a source of enjoyment. The only time gaming is shown is some underlings playing an unidentifiable shmup.
- Famiken Ryu was a 1985 manga about a child kenpo prodigy who applies his skills to gaming, presumably following Famicom Rocky's popularity. It had several spin-offs including strategy guides and the crossover series, Famicom Fuunji vs Famiken Ryu.
- Farewell, My Dear Cramer is about girls' soccer.
- Free!, AKA "Swimming Anime".
- Future GPX Cyber Formula is about futuristic Formula racing, in which race cars are equipped in AI computers.
- Gamble Fish focuses on a series of gambling matches at an elite high school.
- Gambling Emperor Legend Zero is, as the title suggests, about gambling.
- Game Center Arashi is the 1978 trope codifier for competitive video gamer mangas. To make people playing titles like Space Invaders more interesting, it is remembered both fondly and infamously for its ludicrous input positions and other maneuvers, pushing the characters' bodies until their fingers bleed, and generally transcending human consciousness. If a manga about gaming seems comically over the top, it's probably because of this one.
- Gaming Ojou-sama, sometimes translated to Gaming Lady, is a parody-filled manga mainly centered on playing Street Fighter V in a girl's school for fighting games.
- Ganbare Genki is about boxing.
- Ganbare, Kickers! is about soccer.
- Giant Killing is about soccer.
- Ginga e Kickoff!! is about soccer.
- Girl Got Game aka. Power!! is about a girl starting on a new school to join the basketball team... disguised as a boy. Why? Her father wanted to become a basketball star but got injured, so he wants her to take his place.
- Girls und Panzer — the "sport" here being tank-on-tank combat!
- Good Day to You, How About a Game? is about a group of girls at a prestigious school playing an mobile game version of mahjong.
- Good Night World is about a virtual reality online role-playing game.
- Green Green Greens is about golf.
- Haikyuu!! is about volleyball.
- Hajime no Ippo is about Boxing, thus overlapping with Fighting Series - but with a heavy focus on training and rules, it's more about the sport than anything else.
- Hanebad!, about badminton.
- Harlem Beat, about a basketball team.
- Harukana Receive, about beach volleyball.
- Hero Bank
- H2 is about baseball.
- Hiatari Ryoko! is about baseball.
- Hi Score Girl is about an arcade gamer boy who meets an unexpected rival in the form of an Ojou.
- HIGHSPEED Étoile
- Hikari no Densetsu is about a girl trying to emulate Bulgarian gymnast Diliana Georgieva.
- Hikaru no Go is centered around the traditional Japanese board game of Go.
- Hinomaru Zumou is about Sumo Wrestling.
- Honō no Tōkyūji: Dodge Danpei: Dodgeball.
- How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? has some athletic events such as track and field and arm wrestling contests.
- Hungry Heart: Wild Striker is about soccer.
- Ice Revolution is about a tomboyish girl who takes up figure skating since she wants to be seen as more feminine.
- Idaten Jump: Mountain biking.
- Igano Kabamaru is about baseball and ninjitsu.
- IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix is about motor racing.
- Inazuma Eleven is about fantastical football complete with special moves.
- Inazuma Eleven: Ares is an Alternate Continuity of the first season.
- Infinite Dendrogram is a light novel about a Virtual Reality MMO that hold a complete virtual world that carries a unique feature for players to use
- Initial D: to be a master in illegal mountain pass racing.
- "Ippon" Again! is about a high school judo club.
- Iwa Kakeru!: Sport Climbing Girls is about rock climbing.
- Jinzō Konchū Kabuto Borg VxV is an anime series about borg battles, where each player fight their opponents using their kabuto borgs (or borg machines), palm-sized machines that look like beetles.
- Kaiji, which is about gambling. However, the gambles tend to be games that you wouldn't normally associate with gambling, such as playing rock-paper-scissors.
- Kakegurui is also about gambling, though in high school, and through multiple non-standard games like Rock–Paper–Scissors.
- Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru focuses on a high school karate club.
- Keijo!!!!!!!!, which is about a fictional sport named "Keijo", where women in swimsuits use speed and strength to kick the opponent off a platform floating on the water... and they can only use their bust or butt as weapons.
- Kengan Ashura, Martial Arts in organized, but very shady, MMA matches.
- Kenko Zenrakei Suieibu Umisho, which is about swimming... and Fanservice.
- The Knight in the Area: The story of a high school football club manager who seeks to overcome his fear of inadequacy to once again play the sport he loves.
- Kokou no Hito, which uses mountain climbing as a metaphor for social isolation and connections with other people.
- Kurenai Sanshiro focuses on judo.
- Kurogane (2011) is a manga about Kendo.
- Kuroko's Basketball is about Basketball too, but enters in the Fanservice territory.
- Kyojin No Hoshi is about Hyuma Hoshi, a promising young pitcher who aims to become a top baseball player like his father. The series is notable for codifying many tropes used in sports anime and manga, particularly during the 1960s and 70s.
- Lady!! Season 2 is about equestrian horse-riding and the Olympics.
- LBX: Little Battlers eXperience is about children (and adults) dueling with each other via futuristic gunpla called LBX. It overlaps somewhat with the Humongous Mecha genre but the LBX are still essentially toys.
- The Legend of Koizumi is about Mahjong.
- Legendz revolves around a Pokémon-esque monster fighting video game. The focus of the series is more on the monsters themselves, but most people in the series (at first) only know about the game and not that the creatures are real.
- Log Horizon takes place in an MMORPG
- Long Riders!: Cute girls do road cycling cutely. Although largely a relaxed Slice of Life series, the girls form a cycling team and compete in the second half.
- March Comes in Like a Lion centers on the life of a professional shogi player.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha INNOCENT has the Nanoha cast dueling through card games.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid involves competitive magical combat with a strong leaning towards mixed martial arts.
- ViVid Strike! is more traditional MMA.
- Mai Ball! is about soccer.
- Major follows a young baseball prodigy from his days in Little League to the professional leagues.
- Major 2nd is a Spin-Offspring manga starring Goro's son Daigo as he aims to be like his father.
- Medalist follows a young girl who wants to be a figure skater, who's coached by an ex-ice skater who finds him jaded on his experience.
- Megalo Box: Boxing with powered exoskeletons.
- MegaMan NT Warrior (2002) has Megaman.EXE and his friends destroying viruses on the net. 'Jack in, Megaman. Execute!'
- This one is more of a half example. While Navis can (and often are) used for the "Gaming" aspect of the thing (Net Battles), they are also used for system administration, security, business and just about everything in-between. Being a Gaming Anime, naturally, the Net Battling gets more focus.
- MF Ghost official sequel to Initial D about racing in the age of electric and self-driving cars.
- Moero! Top Striker is about an Italian football team.
- Moshidora: A girl buys Drucker's Management and uses its strategies to apply to baseball.
- Mr. Fullswing is about a perverted high school boy who initially only joins his school's baseball team to impress the Cute Sports Club Manager, but soon it's revealed that he has an amazingly powerful swing. The rest of the manga follows his progress in the sport.
- Nine Dragons' Ball Parade is an underdog baseball story following a team trying to recreate their school's once legendary baseball team.
- No Game No Life is mostly about classic board games and video games set in an alternate world.
- Nononono is about ski jumping and... loads of squicks... (not the way you would expect, more like in ways... you don't want to see...)
- Notari Matsutarou is about Sumo Wrestling.
- Oblivion Battery is a manga about a genius battery who get sidelined after the catcher suffers from Laser-Guided Amnesia.
- Ōi! Tonbo is about a girl named Tonbo and an ex-golfer named Igarashi doing golf in the Tokara Islands, specifically in Hinojima.
- Only Sense Online is a Slice of Life series about a Virtual Reality MMORPG player and his adventures in-game.
- Ore wa Teppei is about kendo.
- Over Rev! is about street racing.
- Overtake! is about F4 racing in Japan.
- Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation is about... Phantasy Star Online 2. This is because the anime adapts the game by featuring it as a game... in the anime. While taking place in the world of the game.
- Plus-Sized Elf, is about a health consultant who ends up working on fantasy beings.
- The Prince of Tennis is about, well, tennis players.
- Prince of Stride Alternative is about a fictional version of Le Parkour with relay elements.
- Princess Army follows a female judoist.
- Princess Nine focuses on an all-girls baseball team attempting to win the (formerly male-only) national high school-level baseball championship.
- PuraOre! ~Pride of Orange~ is a Slice of Life series about a girls' ice hockey team.
- Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin: Both Anchan and Mario dream of being boxers. Mario's subplot after escaping the Boys Dormitory centers on him getting his debut match against an American boxer on a U.S. military base.
- Real by Takehiko Inoue is about wheelchair basketball.
- Re-Main is an anime about water polo, picking up after the main character wakes up from a 203 day coma with no memory of the last three years - including the sport they excelled in during junior high.
- RideBack is about Mini-Mecha motorcycle racing, ballet and La Résistance movements against a former La Résistance.
- Ring ni Kakero: By Masami Kurumada from Saint Seiya fame.
- Rinkai! is about female track cycling (also known as Keirin).
- Rising Impact is about a young boy who discovers his skill at golf.
- Robot × Laserbeam, despite its name, is about golf.
- Rock'n Game Boy was a 1989 manga by Shigeto Ikehara which, as the name suggests, centered mainly on Game Boy titles. It would cover 20 games including on other Nintendo consoles in its short run while also somehow being about stopping an evil organization named BUG from taking over the world.
- Rokudenashi Blues regularly hops genres between delinquent Slice of Life, gang fights, and the protagonist's goal to become a champion boxer.
- Rookies is about a teacher's efforts to improve a high school baseball team full of delinquents and bullies.
- Rough is about swimming.
- RRR focuses on boxing.
- Run with the Wind is well, about running, yet focuses a lot on character development.
- Sabagebu!
- Saki is about Mahjong. Lesbian Mahjong. In the future.
- Sayonara Football (and its sequel, Farewell, My Dear Cramer) is about girls soccer.
- selector infected WIXOSS is about a collectable card game that, unusual for its genre, is played mostly by girls and features a female protagonist.
- Shippu! Iron Leaguer' is a Super Robot series where robots participate in sports.
- Shudan is about soccer.
- Sk8 the Infinity is about a secret downhill skateboarding race held in an abandoned mine.
- Slam Dunk, which is about (of course) basketball. It made basketball known in Japan, and is considered a classic in the sports genre.
- Sorairo Utility is centered around golfing.
- Softenni is about tennis.
- Speed Racer is about racing.
- Splatoon is based around the characters partaking in the fictional sport of Turf War from the manga's source material, battling in several tournaments.
- Supercar Gattiger: F1 racing
- Stars Align
- Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³ focuses on Airsoft.
- Straighten Up! Welcome to Shika High's Competitive Dance Club
- Swan is about ballet.
- Sword Art Online is about a virtual-reality series of online role-playing adventure games. The original starts by going way too far to achieve success.
- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online switches to a virtual-reality first person shooter.
- Taishō Baseball Girls also deals with all-girl baseball team, but this time taking place during the Taishō period (e.g. in 1920s Japan).
- Ten - The Blessed Way of the Nice Guy, like Nobuyuki Fukumoto's other works, focuses on mahjong.
- Teppu is about martial arts, particularly MMA.
- Tetsuwan Girl is about an all-girls baseball in Post-War Japan in 1949.
- Tomorrow's Joe A manga about boxing and one of the most highly acclaimed and influential ones of all time. Its most recent incarnation is a live action film, with the popular Idol Singer Tomohisa "Yamapi" Yamashita playing Joe.
- Totsugeki! Game Boy was another late '80s martial artist gamer manga, but for the Game Boy. Notable for the Game Boys themselves being basically indestructible and even able to respond to how hard the buttons were being pressed.
- Touch (1981) is about baseball.
- Tribe Cool Crew is about professional hip-hop dancing.
- Tsurune is about Japanese archery a.k.a kyudo.
- Tobidase! Machine Hiryū: Formula One racing.
- Turkey! (2025) centers around bowling.
- Two Car: Motorcycle sidecar racing on a fictional island in Tokyo Bay.
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby: is about horse racing, featuring anthropomorphized racing horses.
- Umehara Fighting Gamers is about the Japanese competitive fighting game circuit, and features professional gamer Daigo Umehara as the protagonist.
- Usogui is about high stakes gambling.
- Walkure Romanze revolves around competitive jousting.
- Wangan Midnight Similar to Initial D above, but the focus is on highway racing around Tokyo rather than mountain pass racing
.
- Wanna Be the Strongest in the World! is about pro wrestling.
- Wave!! Let's Go Surfing!! is about competitive surfing.
- Welcome to the Ballroom is about ballroom dancing.
- Whistle! focuses on a high school soccer team.
- Yakyū-kyō no Uta is about baseball, with the main character trying to battle sexism to be the first female player of the Mets.
- Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games is about extra flowery shoujo manga archetypes who get a little too heated in competitive fighting games.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!. The manga featured several different games (the title actually translates to "Game King"), most notable being card games (duh), board, dice, and role-playing games. The anime universe settles on the exclusive use of the trading card game Duel Monsters.
- The anime and manga versions of Oddly Named Sequel Yu-Gi-Oh! GX — at least, that's what they want you to think...
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Card Games On Motorcycles.
- And a third one, Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, which brings card games into Augmented Reality.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V; card games as more traditional sports entertainment.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS; card games in The Metaverse.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GO RUSH!!
- Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl is all about Judo.
- Yowamushi Pedal is about competitive cycling.
- Yuri!!! on Ice is about male figure skating (despite what the title might make you think).
- Zero (Matsumoto Taiyou) is about the career of a particularly determined and brutal boxer.
