While it’s true that most people tend to associate the entire genre of anime with fantasy worlds filled with superheroes and magical girls, the genre is vast and much more diverse than just the whimsical and make believe. Aside from the typical slice of life series that focuses on the beauty of mundane tasks and realism, there are also manyfantastic sports animeas well.
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While there are great sports series likeHaikyuu!!orYuri On Icethat keep things fairly close to how the sports are played in real life, there are the occasional animes that can’t help but put in a little extra flashiness to keep things interesting. Here are some of the most unrealistic sports anime series that love to keep things outrageous, yet fun!
6Blue Lock
While the majority of theBlue Lockart may look fairly true to real life soccer (or football for Europeans), a good portion of the series focuses on the unrealistic training facility that shares the same name as the series title: Blue Lock.
The overall arching goal of the series is for protagonist Yoichi Isagi to complete the rigorous training at the Blue Lock facility where he is pitted up against 300 other strikers to compete for the spot as the “ultimate striker”, taking a spot on Japan’s national football team.Blue Lock’s animation looks greatand fairly realistic, but it’s the high-techBattle Royalestyle the training facility instills that gives the series its typical over-the-top anime edge. Not only are the characters held in prison-like conditions, all other losing contestants are banned from playing for the national team!
5Uma Musume Pretty Derby
At first glance,Uma Musume Pretty Derbydoesn’t even look like a sports anime; instead looking like a typical magical girl series instead. However, these pretty girls on all the series art are actually horses.Uma Musume Pretty Derbyis all about theequestrian performance sportof horse racing, but instead of having normal horses run and compete against one another, they’re cute anime girls.
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In the world ofUma Musume, the best races horses of the past have a chance of returning to earth in the afterlife, being reincarnated as “horse girls”, looking mostly human while still maintaining their equus-like ears, tails, and exceptional speed and endurance.
4Inazuma Eleven
Originally based off the sports role-playing video game,Inazuma Elevenis all about soccer; but not a very realistic version of it.Inazuma Elevenis best described as a crossover between real life sports andDragon Ball. Aside from players yelling out their signature (literally) ground-breaking attacks and over-dramatic point one after another, the players inInazuma Elevenalso have the power to summon supernatural abilities and beings!
Even with putting aside the insane superpowers that would rival the outrageousness of Goku’s abilities, thelengthy monologues and character exchangesthat happen in the middle of the game is incredibly unrealistic on its own.
3Basquash!
In one single glance, it’s easy to see thatBasquash!isn’t the typical sports anime.Basquash!is set in the distant (and alternate) future where the planet has been renamed Earth Dash, and of course with such a futuristic setting, futuristic elements need to be implemented.
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On Earth Dash, the classic sport of basketball has been modified. While some of the general rules are similar to classic basketball, the biggest difference is that players inBasquash!areequipped with giant mechas. Players use their “Big Foot” mechas in giant arenas in a new sport called Big Foot Basketball (BFB for short). Later in the series, the name of the game is then changed to Basquash, giving the series is iconic name.
2Kuroko No Basket (Kuroko’s Basketball)
The fact that full court shots are a regular thing inKuroko No Basketshould tell every basketball fan that this anime isn’t the most realistic one out there. While there aren’t any giant mechs or insane gods being summoned, there are ahandful of superhuman abilitiesthat many of the players casually use in game.
Even real life pros would have trouble keeping up with the feats that theKurokocharacters (who are only middle schoolers nonetheless) are able to pull off; from changing the direction of a pass in a split second to literally having the ability to see into the future to predict opponents' movements (known as the Emperor Eye),Kuroko No Baskettook basketball to a whole new level.
1Prince Of Tennis
ThePrince Of Tennisseries may just take the cake when it comes to the absolutemost over-the-top sports animeof all time. The athletes ofPrince Of Tennisnot only have special moves that rival those of theDragon Ballcharacters, but can literally defy the laws of time and space.
In an infamous meme that spawned from one of Tezuka’s games, a hilariously overdramatic scene plays out to fully convey to viewers exactly how powerful his shots were. As Tezuka’s opponent finds himself surrounded by dinosaurs, deadly meteors (in the form of tennis balls of course) come crashing down on Earth.
Apparently, it wasn’t a meteor that killed off all the dinosaurs on earth, it was simply Tezuka too far in his element.
