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. 

Haikyuu 

levels of investment by skittidyne 
It took me a while, but I finally found a fic with lots of volleyball in it! Tsukishima POV, which means lots of delightful meanness, but basically all of Karasuno is featured here. Very fun short fic about the team goofing off and thinking about what Karasuno will look like next year.  

(BTW did anyone watch the Serbia v.s. USA and Serbia v.s. China women's volleyball matches during the Olympics??? So good!!) 



Hikaru no Go 

Paper Cranes by spontaneite 
"Two years passed before Hikaru admitted, reluctantly, that possession by a spirit seemed to have long-lasting side effects which probably wouldn’t go away on their own." Took a while for me to get into this, but great premise and great Hikaru voice. Five chapters so far.   

Caught in a Thousand Strings by Thai_Tea_Addict  
"Sai wakes up to find everything he'd gone through to be a dream." Again, this took me a while to get into, but there's a reason this fic has 380 comments on it. The plot is pretty damn gripping. Read the warnings though--child abuse, child prostitution, etc. 

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...