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.
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.
- Ao Ashi is about club 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.
- Area no Kishi (Knights Of 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.
- 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 / Star of the Giants.
- 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.
- The Cherry Project: By Sailor Moon author Naoko Takeuchi, about ice 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
- 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.
- Destroy All Humankind. 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.
- 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.
- 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
- High 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.
- 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.
- Igano Kabamaru is about baseball and nijitsu.
- 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.
- Kokouno 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.
- 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.
- 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 offical sequel to Initial D about racing in the age of electic and self-driving cars.
- Moshidora: A girl buys Drucker's Management and uses its strategies to apply to baseball.
- 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.
- Oi Tonbo is about a girl named Tonbo and an ex-golfer named Igarashi doing golf in the Tokara Islands.
- Only Sense Online is a Slice of Life series about a Virtual Reality MMORPG player and his adventures in-game.
- 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.
- 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.
- Robot × Laserbeam, despite its name, is about golf.
- Rokudenashi Blues focuses on boxing.
- 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.
- Softenni is about tennis.
- Speed Racer is about 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 spokon of all time. Its most recent incarnation is a live action film, with the popular Idol Singer Tomohisa "Yamapi" Yamashita playing Joe.
- Touch (1981) is about baseball.
- Tribe Cool Crew is about professional hip-hop dancing.
- Tsurune is about Japanese archery a.k.a kyudo.
- Two Car: Motorcycle sidecar racing on a fictional island in Tokyo Bay.
- Uma Musume 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.
- 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! 5Ds. 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 into Virtual Reality.
- 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).
