Kyudo is a modern martial art with a focus on archery. Minato used to be into the sport in middle school, enchanted by the “tsurune” sound made by a releasing bowstring, but gave it up after a certain incident left him with target panic.
This phenomenon resulted in Minato missing every shot he took and crushing his confidence.
Now, forces conspire in high school to bring him into the newly founded Kyudo club, but can Minato overcome his anxieties?
It is an absolute task to make Japanese archery interesting, but Tsurune isn’t about archery – not really, anyways. It is always about the characters, and KyoAni always does character stories well. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Tsurune, head on down below.
Anime Like Tsurune
For Fans of Reviving Near-Dead Clubs
Re-Main
Minato Kiyoumizu was once a rockstar among rockstars on his junior high water polo team. However, when a car accident put him into a coma for several months, he awakes without memories from the past few years.
Not even fully understanding what water polo even is, he decides to not play and focus on his new high school.
However, when the sole member of his school’s water polo team tries to recruit him and people from his past ignite a fire, he finds himself re-learning the sport from the start.
Both Tsurune and Re-Main feature main characters that decided to quit a sport they loved because of an event. However, another person decides to revive the dead club at their school which just so happens to belong to he sport they were involved in.
However, while Tsurune is about overcoming target panic, Re-Main is more complicated in that the main character was in an accident and lost his memory. So he has little memory of his sport and also has to rebuild his physical abilities.
Run With The Wind
Once an elite runner, Kakeru is now only running to escape those accusing him of stealing food.
While fleeing, he meets another runner, Haiji, who persuades him to live in his old apartment complex.
There, Kakeru finds it is full of fellow residents who all have one goal – to enter the Hakone Ekiden Marathon. Unfortunately, aside from he and Haiji, they are all pretty novice.
Both Tsurune and Run With The Wind feature people who were once pretty good at their sport, but quit it upon moving to a new school for various reasons. However, as these things go, they are dragged into the sport again almost immediately by another more passionate person.
Although sports anime about different sports, both Tsurune and Run With The Wind excel in an area you want sports anime to really nail – creating relatable and interesting characters. Both series feature the struggles the characters go through and explores them in a diligent way. It lets the sports shine, but these shows are very much about the character stories.
Stars Align
Out-performed by the girls’ club and facing disbandment, team captain of the soft tennis club Toma Shinjou is desperate to recruit members. He immediately targets new transfer student Maki Katsuragi for his solid reflexes.
After a few rejections, Maki joins and quickly shines. This causes complicated feelings among the rest of the team who feel outperformed, but also propelled forward by Maki.
Both Tsurune and Stars Align are about the personal struggles of its characters. However, Stars Align is more of a personal struggle that is unrelated to the sport.
While I mentioned before that the charm of sports anime is not so much the sport, but the characters, Stars Align takes that more to heart. As such, there is less focus on the sport than Tsurune.
However, Stars Align does go more into depth with its side characters than Tsurune does.
Stop This Sound
After the senior members graduated, Takezou is now the sole member of his Japanese string instrument club. Facing termination, he now begins his search for new members when suddenly a wily one bursts right into his club room.
Chika has a strong reputation as a violent thug, but due to his grandfather being a renowned koto artisan before his death, he has a passion for the koto that will help Takezou revive his dying club.
While Stop This Sound is about music, like Tsurune is about Kyudo – a Japanese form of archery, Stop This Sound is about the koto – a Japanese string instrument. They are both cultural activities and both series do well to educate on them without stealing spotlight from the characters.
Both Tsurune and Stop This Sound excel in creating relatable, likable, and still very flawed characters and exploring how they relate to each other.
However, Stop This Sound does have the benefit of forming romantic couples as the series goes on rather than just the mostly BL ship-baiting that Tsurune invites from its fans.
For Fans of Cute Boys Doing Sports Things
Free
Haruka Nanase has a passion for swimming that led him to compete and win a tournament in elementary school with his friends.
Years later, they reunite as high schools students, and while Haruka and three friends decide to form a swim club, his fourth friend, Rin, attends another school in order to surpass Haruka in skill.
He has also made it clear he has no interest in being friends again.
Both Tsurune and Free are sports anime done by KyoAni, which means they have some innate things in common. The most notable is the quality of animation, but both series also really know how to craft an attractive looking boy.
However, while clothes stay on in Tsurune, Free lets its lady fans enjoy almost the whole package of its characters when in their swimwear.
All that aside, both Tsurune and Free also follows characters that have hit a bit of a roadblock in their passion and are trying to recapture the magic. For that to happen, it requires the support of their friends and teammates.
Sk8 the Infinity
High school student Reki Kyan is passionate about skateboarding and board-making. While he works part-time in a board shop after school, his real interest is the underground race that happens at night.
S is a competitive skateboard race where participants are encouraged to win at all costs. Unfortunately for Reki, his most recent race came in at a loss.
The next day at school he meets new transfer student Langa Hasegawa who was a snowboarder when he lived in Canada. After a series of events that led both of them to an S race, Reki discovers that, despite having no experience on a skateboard, Langa’s experience snowboarding is unexpectedly useful in an S race.
There is a certain degree of brotherhood going on in Tsurune that probably fuels the ship-baiting of some of its fans. Sk8 the Infinity has a similar thing going on. The main characters, though different, compliment each other well and build a powerful bond with each other. It also doesn’t help that both Tsurune and Sk8 the Infinity know how to craft a beautiful looking male character.
While both series are sports anime, the skateboarding type race in Sk8 the Infinity is easily the more engaging sport, even though the more intense focus of Kyudo has its charms too.
Number24
With a passion for rugby, Natsuza Yuzuki’s dreams are dashed in college when a motorbike accident leaves him unable to play. He takes up the role of manager for his team instead.
Now, Yuzuki faces new struggles of wrangling, training, and motivating his team as well as trying to get their once-ace back from retirement.
With hope, a large number of Tsurune fans watched it because they enjoyed the characters and the way they try to overcome their personal struggles, but I know anime fans. I know there are some who enjoy Tsurune because it is awash with very beautiful boys.
Number24 is for those people. As a sports anime, Number24 is that. It is a rugby anime packed with beautiful looking boys. While it is also a sports anime that focuses on the character’s personal problems both within the sport and outside of it, Number24 doesn’t explore that with as much finesse as Tsurune does. It really is just an anime that targets people that like eye candy, especially if you like beef cakes.
For Fans of Overcoming Anxieties
2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club
After being forced off the volleyball team at his old school, star setter Kimichika Haijima moves back to his childhood hometown of Fukui.
There, he reconnects with his childhood friend, Yuni Kuroba, who is a member of his school’s volleyball team. Seeing Kuroba’s talents, Haijima tries to make him into an ace, only for a rift to form between them when Kuroba crumbles in a tournament under the pressure.
Now as students at Seiin High School, Haijima and Kuroba are on the same volleyball team again, but this time, Haijima tries to help Kuroba with his performance anxiety.
Both Tsurune and 2.43 feature protagonists that quit their sport after an incident in middle school that left their ambitions in tatters. In high school, they then confront and eventually overcome their problems, reconnecting with the passion they once had for the sport as well as mending a rift between another involved in their previous traumatic incident.
Both series are sports anime series that, while having competitions, have the characters as a bigger focus than the sport itself.
Big Windup
Ren Mihashi was an ace of his middle school baseball team, but only because his grandfather owned the academy. Due the obvious and unwanted nepotism, Ren was crippled by anxiety over how his pitching led to the team’s constant losses, even with the endless practice he put in.
The bullying of his team and low self-esteem got so bad that Mihashi decided to go to high school in another prefecture, intent on giving up on baseball despite his love for it.
However, when he is unwillingly dragged onto the school’s reviving baseball team, he finds that his new teammates might just be his perfect match.
Both Tsurune and Big Windup are sports anime about a main character who has let their anxieties overwhelm their skill at the sport. While they consider quitting, they are instead forced to face and overcome what is limiting them through the support of their team.
However, Tsurune is rather grounded and revels in the melancholy of its characters. Big Windup is more energetic akin to the standard sports anime where it is more aimed at firing you up.
Yuri on Ice
After a crushing defeat at the Grand Prix finale, Yuuri Katsuki returns home no longer as Japan’s most promising figure skater. With his window for skating success closing, he assesses his options.
After a video of Yuuri performing a routine by five-time world champion Victor Nikiforov goes viral, he suddenly finds the champion on his doorstep, offering to be Yuuri’s mentor.
Both Tsurune and Yuri on Ice are innately similar as sports anime, but they are also both about a loss of confidence from the main character that puts their dreams on hold.
In both series, it is the help of a solid teacher and peers that help them build themselves back up, but nothing is immediate.
While Tsurune has its moments of boy love baiting, Yuri on Ice is a more straightforward boy’s love anime. No playing coy about their feelings here.
Your Lie in April
Although once a child prodigy in the music world, pianist Kousei Arima is left in a downward spiral after his mother’s death, unable to even hear the sound of his own piano.
Even after two years, Arima has all but left the music world behind, disappointing fans and rivals alike, and living in a colorless world. Then one day that that all changes when he is introduced to the beautiful violinist Kaori Miyazono who brings color into his world once more.
While Your Lie in April is about music, the differences between music anime and sports anime are usually quite minimal – both are often about the characters and the activity is just for flavor.
Both Tsurune and Your Lie in April follow characters who have hit a block in their passion. Minato has target panic and Kousei can’t hear his own music. It successfully stopped them from even trying right up until they meet a person who ignites their passion again.
However, while Tsurune is prone to its melancholy, Your Lie in April is notorious as a tearjerker.
Dance Dance Danseur
After watching a gripping performance by a male ballet dancer as a kid, Junpei Murao fell in love with dance. However, after being pressured into finding it effeminate, he took up more manly sports like Jeet Kune Do and soccer, particularly after his father’s death made him the man of his house.
One day after a female classmate witnesses him do a kick with the earmarks of ballet to it, she asks him to join her mother’s ballet studio. Although he resists at first, Junpei finds himself willing to make endless sacrifices for the euphoria that ballet elicits.
While Tsurune is about archery and Dance Dance Danseur is about ballet, these series are actually quite similar.
Both Tsurune and Dance Dance Danseur start off showing you how young boys were absolutely captivated by a sport when they were little kids. They then were pushed away from the sport they were so passionate about by a particularly traumatic event. Later, when they return to it, they are still driven to search for a particular moment. In Tsurune, he is looking for that “tsurune” sound while Dance Dance Danseur has him looking for that “pop pop” fireworks feeling.
From there, you watch their standard sports anime drive as they are competing for a goal, but also overcoming their anxieties about their sport. However, unlike Tsurune, Dance Dance Danseur’s anxieties are more about overcoming societal expectations and not something like Minato’s target panic.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Tsurune? Let fans know in the comments section below.
