Now I’m about to make a broad assumption here, but I think it rings true in this situation. Most anime fans do not like sports. They do not watch professional sports on television, or play in organized sports with friends and family. This is perhaps the reasoning behind why most anime fans do not like sports anime; but I believe it is just the tip of the iceberg.
I personally am not a fan of any real life sport, and I certainly do not participate in them, yet I love sports anime. In some cases, the sport is not even important, similar to ninja’s in Naruto, or pirates in One Piece. If you removed ninja’s from Naruto and put something else in its place would it be the same story? Most likely. I feel sports anime are the same way, especially for the ones that are over-the-top and unrealistic, like Eyeshield 21 and Prince of Tennis. For beginners, I recommend starting with one of those series if you are interested.
What I’m trying to preach here is to give sports anime a chance, and don’t throw away just because you either hate sports, or have a bad history with sports because the football team covered you in honey and threw handfuls of army ants at you. (It didn’t happen to me, I swear!) Give sports a chance!
If I see a sport in the show's description, my brain immediately shuts down. I've watched several dorama loosely about things I don't care about, like tennis or stewardesses, but I'd have a lot of trouble starting an anime series about a sport.
I Iove sports and sports anime. I think their even a smaller niche within sports anime is girl sports anime. I have all the DVD's to princess nine. I also really like watching Taishō Baseball Girls as well.
I watch some of Eyeshield 21, but I couldn't anymore. I know it's from Japan, but they keep getting things wrong. I don't how a high school football legaue would go in Japan and all, but if you lose one regluar season game dosen't mean that you can play play the rest of your games. That only happens in the playoffs. It's just like the first Temco bowl game from the NES.
Big windup was ok show. I might give that one another chance.
Yeah, I basically watch pretty much anything (or at least try and check if it would fit my tastes) sports. I even took a chance with Inazuma Eleven and its target audience is probably kids form 5 to 10 at most.
Damn, I strongly recomend the genre to anyone who feels like relaxing with something that takes little to no thought.
Ddin't know about this issue between sport and geeks in america.
Here in Europa, it's more a matter of which sport is popular : Captain Tsubasa's success has been skyrocketting in his own time, but that was mainly because Soccer is the most popular sport here.
In comparison, Eyeshield 21 has only been brought here two or three years ago, and had a limited success.
And on the idea that the story of these shows can be pretty much identical whether it's about ninja or tennis players, if given the choice between the two I'm going to pick ninjas every time.
OK, First soccer players on a club battling relegation, then ninjas, then tennis players. And you can add as many as you want, tennis players are likely to be near the end of the list.
There are many great sports Manga out there and Anime as well. I have to recommend EVERYTHING by Adachi Mitsuru. Most of his stories are connected to sports, yet don't have to revolve around sports. From Boxing to Baseball (mostly baseball) he tells wonderful sports stories that aren't always sports heavy. Eyeshield 21 is fun, but as a football fan/player I've always been a bit annoyed by some of the total fake plays and activities. There's a limit to my "suspension of belief" after all. Though I do love FUNRABA! (I think that's how it's spelled. :) )
By and large I think that's my biggest problem with sports anime. The Sports. While I'm not an avid sports watcher (except US Football. I have to be specific thanks to all our international friends. ;) ) I do understand the rules to pretty much every major sport out there. Which means when you gloss over the rules or do something completely wrong as shown in the real game you break that "disbelief" line for me. It's a fine line to be sure, but it's there.
OH! Check out SLAM DUNK! It's a fun one as well, that makes fun of the main character not knowing/following the rules. :)
I normally don't like sports but sports anime is fun and I do genuinely like a few. But i see the reason for it not selling well over hear, we'd rather ecchi/ moe or a lot of hack and slashy action.. sad but true.