Flonne + Tron Bonne

I've been having a lot of meta thoughts about sports anime lately, thanks to Haikyuu!! and Yuri!!! On Ice (what is it with exclamation points in anime titles nowadays). Also Chihayafuru, which feels like a really underappreciated series grumble grumble.

Anyway, today I want to talk about the idea of "Real Life" in sports anime and manga. Ha ha. I'm going to identify some series that are so focused on sports that they are almost escapist, and then sports series that have a lot of Life in them, and then I'm going to talk about how some sports series let you escape for a while and then inject a dose of Life in them through what I call "Life Intrusion Moments." And then I'm going to relate this to other genres, and to writing in general. 

Note: I haven't done enough research to write a real essay here, and I'm going to only cut out the worst spoilers, so yeah, this bit of meta will mainly be for me me me me me. Also, I've never seen some of the really important sports series out there (like most of Eyeshield 21, Hajime no Ippo, and pretty much all of the baseball and soccer ones, yikes), and I haven't seen any series with female stars, so this is going to necessarily be a limited analysis of whatever I feel like and know. Wah. 

Been watching a lot of sports anime lately--though perhaps I shouldn't say "watching" when I've only been half paying attention to the animated high school boys running around and screaming on my TV screen.

( From least recently to most recently watched: Free!, Eyeshield 21, Haikyuu, Diamond no Ace, Yowamushi Pedal, Ping Pong, Kuroko no Basket )



After bingeing on so much sports anime, I think what I really want is a series that deconstructs sports anime. A show that would expose the id of the shounen sports protagonist! That would reveal the consequences of maiming yourself for life (physically, mentally, academically) so you could get a measly high school trophy! The Evangelion of sports anime! Ha ha, come to think of it I would probably hate it.

I also really want to watch a female sports series one of these days. (At least Haikyuu acknowledges that a girls' team exists at the school.) I need to look up that girl tennis show I saw a bit of once...